From Endurance Racing to ESOP Ownership: Building a Company for the Long Run

Hi everyone, welcome to ESOP Radio.

We are excited to have Dave Odell join us today.

Dave is a CEO of Med Bridge and CFO of Tynan Group, based in Santa Barbara, California. Tynan is 100% employee owned.

They manage the construction projects for some of the most iconic hotels on the West Coast. We’ll get into those names later. Some beautiful properties there.

Dave is also an endurance athlete and completed the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, also known as the UTB race, in 2025.

So for you endurance junkies out there,

you might have heard about this race 106 miles long and tackles the Mont Blanc region covering parts of France, Italy and Switzerland.

There are many parallels between endurance sports and the long term focus of Esop business ownership,

which we are excited to dive in and explore.

I’m Trevor Gilmore, CEO of Menke and I’m Ben Spadt investment banking with Menke. Without further ado, let’s dive in.

So for listeners who might not know the Tynan Group well, what does a company do? Dave. Trevor. Ben. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Let me tell you about tiny Group.

So tiny Group is a real estate development project management company. We are,

unlike traditional developers who usually invest in their projects and own their projects when they’re done.

We just do the provide services.

Oftentimes our client is is the developer.

And so we do a full scope of services representing developers and or operators, users of large real estate projects.

We have focused and a lot of our business comes from the hospitality industry. But beyond that,

we’ve done projects like the local zoo building, their exhibits.

We’ve done we’re in the middle of building the Santa Barbara Police Department and just a number of public works types things now.

And so it’s gotten much broader than just hospitality.

So we apply our skills to all sorts of development type projects. That’s great.

You’ve branched out and the hospitality definitely was top of mind for me,

because I remember back going through the deal and looking at these names, you know, the clients, as always, stood out. You know, these, these kind of famous properties.

But that’s right. You all do city work. You know,

I remember that the Santa Barbara Police Department, that was a project that was in progress. So how did the company start out?

And you all have been at this for a while? Yeah. It’s kind of a fun story. So John Tynan,

my partner and the founder of the company, was actually just a friend,

and we used to meet at Gold’s Gym and lift weights together and go for runs together.

And he was a vice president with Hyatt Hotels.

Hyatt hotel was doing a project on the California coast,

which is now known as the the Cora Ritz Carlton, the Cora just north of, you know, Sandpiper Golf Course,

which kind of famous golf course or UCSB just north of there on the coast.

And, John spent time with Hyatt, and, and,

and kind of cut his teeth there and led to billions of dollars of projects for Hyatt and then moved to Santa Barbara

because they were having trouble getting this project approved in California,

just because of how tough it is to get projects approved.

And so he moved his family to town, became part of the community, got an approval,

and then we got hit with that real estate recession. In the late 80s.

Early is and Hyatt pulled out while the owner of the land,

a guy named Alvin Dorman, asked John to stay on to keep the project alive. And so out of that,

John left Hyatt and started Tynan Group. And that was the early 90s. In about 9394,

John and I started talking about joining up.

I had I had gone the CPA route and had my own little CPA practice,

and he asked me to come over and be his finance guy and kind of been that way ever since.

So yeah, we’ve been partners for about now. What is that, 30 something years? And and then Brian, nice tune.

Who’s the president of tiny Group joined not long after that and he heads up our Phoenix headquarters and also was a Hyatt guy that worked with John back in those days.

That’s Grace. A lot of deep Hyatt roots there. And and by the way, it’s three CPAs here.

So it’s a bit of myself for both CPAs as well. So, that’s I know that life very well. Yeah. Days are here on this, podcast.

Change gears here to talked about the Esop journey.

And we’re excited to have been on that path with you all.

What led for you all to choose to explore the Esop path? Obviously, you probably had other options.

You know, given the place you are in the industry, the brand name recognition, the projects you worked on and so on.

So what led you all to start thinking about the Esop, you know,

as a possible ownership solution for tying it? Yeah.

So so our kind of our first start was simply with like a business broker who we just asked to,

you know, tell us what they thought.

And we talked to a couple different folks and even kind of got out to the marketplace with a book on tiny group and, and went,

went through a process with a few potential buyers and or investors in and in some of the capital of the company

and just didn’t have a great feel about that,

and especially as it related to all the employees that had been with us for a lot of years. And,

and we sort of got introduced to this Esop option and just sort of became attracted to what it meant in terms of the go forward.

And some of that early work we had done was right before Covid.

So valuations were at different levels before Covid and lots of conversations took place.

Covid hit,

we kind of hit the brakes on everything because we weren’t nobody. Everybody was hitting the brakes, right. And so we came out of Covid,

and then it just became more and more clear that this, this notion of an Esop. And both John and I, even though I’m a CPA,

we really didn’t know much about it.

And so we kind of started a due diligence process on the Esop, idea and, and really sort of kind of

came to the conclusion that it checks all the boxes for us as it related to, what our goals were in a transaction.

That’s awesome. Dave, I have a couple questions. If I could, about,

you know, that process with the business broker. You know, those are pretty sterile.

You build a pitch book, you take it to a group of potential buyers, and it’s sort of the dog and pony show. And, you know,

you experienced that was there during chasing down that Esop kind of, at this point, a nebulous idea.

What is it really? How do we do it?

Was there anything that stood out that was surprising or different or really thought I had no idea we would encounter this? Yeah.

Well, I think that,

some of the early on things were just what a non Esop buyer would require of sort of the ownership going forward,

what they would require of certain members of our, our leadership team at tiny Group.

And so I think some of those things were surprising in terms of like handcuffs related to type stuff. Right. You know,

and so that that felt not great.

And and I think the other thing is, is you just as a, as a potential seller of a business, you know,

you really no matter who buys your business,

you really attach to them for a pretty long period of time. And I think that, you know,

the idea that you just make a deal and then just, you know, kind of walk away from it is,

you know, pretty it was pretty naive of me personally. Like,

I think both John and I were kind of surprised with, you know, sort of all the strings attached. And so that would probably be one,

I think, as it relates to the Esop option,

I think that there were some surprises as it relates to some of the nuances of putting that together and all the players

that you really need to consult to you on that.

And I’m kind of one of these people that I like to like, figure stuff out on my own, immediately realize, like,

I wasn’t going to figure out the Esop thing on my own. We needed guys like Trevor on our team,

and we needed guys like like Jeremy Pelfrey and, you know, Joel Phillips. Later on as a trustee, it just, you know,

it was just a very it’s a challenging world if you’ve never, you know, played in that sandbox. Absolutely. And you know, being a CPA,

if you don’t know it,

you have to be able to acquire that knowledge.

And once you realize I don’t have the runway to acquire this knowledge,

not to mention there’s a couple parties that need to be independent of the transaction. Yeah, there’s a lot that you can run into.

And, you know, once that Esop is in place,

we talk a lot about sort of the the good feeling, the intangibles, the, you know, it’s good for morale.

It’s good for attracting and retaining talent, keeping the business in the location.

It is not having some private equity come in.

You know, make sweeping changes, things like that. But in terms of some of those, some of the tangible pieces of it,

what measurable impacts have you seen on like performance retention or decision making since becoming an Isa?

Yeah, there’s been a number and it’s and it’s been a year.

So we just finished our first year as an Esop.

Then in December, what I would say is, is some of that’s still developing.

But what I’ve seen right out of the box is just, yeah,

that there is a sense of ownership from across the board. You know,

I sit in an office with a big portion of our staff, our team, our Esop members,

and you can just tell that they’re really excited when we get a new project.

They’re all in everybody’s working together like it’s a little less siloed.

I’d say everybody’s cheering for each other.

And and so it really does sort of naturally become more of a team environment.

I mean, I, I can’t think of any turnover. We like,

haven’t had anybody leave the company since we started, the Esop. And I think that,

you know, maybe that’s an anomaly, but I have to imagine that,

that that’s motivating for our team to be, you know,

to have some skin in the game and be able to participate in the upside and like the assurance of being able to participate in the upside.

So I think it’s it’s great.

I also think like the way the Esop is structured and, you know, from a tax benefit standpoint is pretty special.

And I think one of the things that we’ve gotten right as a United States of America is allow esops to exist

and provide those benefits so that we can have employee ownership,

which I’m a I was already a firm believer of,

but I think even more now,

I think the world of employee ownership and figuring out ways to make that happen. Yeah, we’re lucky. It’s a pretty bipartisan topic.

You know, everybody wants to say, yeah, we’re giving back to the workers. We’re you know, we’re doing all of this. And I think that skin in the game,

you know, Trevor and I push on this a lot in some of our other podcasts that once you are an owner you sort of treat things different. And it’s like,

okay, you know, if I make the this decision making a little bit different,

perhaps the result will be a stronger bottom line, which means my share price goes up, which means I’m happier, everybody’s happier, that sort of thing.

It’s really cool to see that. And, you know, like you said,

you’ve only been an Esop for about a year.

What advice would you give to another founder that’s considering an Isa?

You know, now that you have the benefit of hindsight, having gone through the transaction, what advice would you give? Well, one first, just give it a chance.

So like clear out the professionals in that space. And I think that that was key for us was,

you know, having good people advising us.

There was a local there’s a local attorney in town that recommended most of the members of our team, and John Nelson is his name.

So having someone that you could talk to about it in the early stages,

but then hiring a great team or partnering with a great team is, is really, really critical.

So I think the other thing is, is I would add,

I would probably and we did this is I would spend time with the members of the team before you make any commitments,

because I do think that there’s some synergy that needs to be there and that probably be the key recommendation is look at Esop,

just as you would any other sort of exit vehicle,

but you’re going to have to take a little more time on the Esop to understand it and understand why it will be beneficial to you and to your team.

And having a great team to be able to explain that to you is vital. Absolutely.

And those interviews that you have with those professionals that help you out are very important, because it’s not just,

can this person get get it done, do they understand the numbers?

Do they understand the machinations of what an Esop is?

But do we match person personality to personality? Can we, you know, carry this to the finish line?

And I think that’s true in a lot of things.

You know, business being one second is sort of just, you know,

in endurance races like the one that you participated in, it takes a lot,

not just from the individual doing it, but also from the team.

And assembling that team is very important.

I think Trevor wants to touch on a few of those endurance related topics. Yeah. Thanks, Ben.

It’s a a big analogy between going Esop and a marathon. Right.

But you completed the Utmb last year in 2025 and that’s like four marathons.

And you wrote about it on your Substack blog there.

For your listeners out there, definitely check it out.

I would just be staring all the, at all the scenery as I’m running through. I’d get sidetracked, you know? Now Mont Blanc is beautiful.

We completed the back in late 2024 and then said, hey, you know, let’s let’s go to this Utmb in 2025. So for those unfamiliar with this,

what does the Utmb race the man physically and mentally to prepare and successfully complete?

This is not, well,

yeah, this is less this is a more fun topic for me. Not as much fun as ESOP’s been so far. Yeah, so.

So, I’ve been running ultramarathons for about 12 years or so. I did. I did my first hundred back,

and, 2015 and so,

so Utmb be as the race has been a dream since those early days in my sort of what I call my ultra running career.

I had been a college basketball player, and my wife is the runner in the family. She was a collegiate runner,

and it was something that we did together. So essentially our entire marriage,

and especially after her kids were grown and flown,

we’ve just spent a lot of time running together.

We probably run about eight hours a week together.

And so it’s it’s just a great time for us to be together and talk about stuff and, you know, enjoy each other. And it’s kind of our thing.

So a lot of getting to YouTube was is a function of that going long process, the 12 year process.

And so we over the years we’d heard about this Utmb b race, which is in Shamone, France, and it circumnavigate my blog.

Matt the Mont Blanc massive starts and shamone ends and shamone and we we knew that it was going to be a little bit of elevation.

So it sits at about 6000ft of elevation. So you got to deal with altitude. It has about 35, 34,

35,000ft of vertical gain. And it’s all. Yeah, a lot. It’s almost like Mount Everest. There.

Yeah. It’s in vertical. Yeah. You’re right. And so we do, we do a lot of just hours on feet.

We, we track. Are we in training.

We have a coach guy named Mike Swann who’s a partner in one of our businesses who writes a program for us.

And it’s really about you know, being able to stay out for long periods of time and keep moving.

That’s that’s amazing how many calories you burn doing the tab.

And then that’s one question number two, I saw a fellow endurance athlete, mostly cyclist,

but I dabble in running and I’m doing the Boston this year. I have a Garmin watch, a forerunner 955, which is, I guess, kind of what’s cool.

Now it’s a couple of years old, but, any case,

which device do you use and how do you ensure it stays charged that tire time.

So, so the core of the core of cross Apex is has an incredible battery life.

In fact, I did a race in 22 called the Coca Donut. 250 that’s 250 miles long.

And it took me 93 hours and I slept for three of the 93 hours,

but I had 30% battery life left after that race. Whoa, wait, 93 hours.

So we’re talking about nearly four days. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. Starts. Yeah.

And that that was up through the desert in Arizona goes from essentially Phoenix to Flagstaff and,

and that’s the longest I’ve ever done. And that watch held up that whole time. Oh that’s wow. Okay. Phoenix to fly. That must have been in the winter time. It was.

It was actually in an early, early May, first week of May or. Yeah. Okay. We got some heat going through Sedona. Okay. Yeah. Toasty.

But yeah. So that was that was. Yeah 2022.

So Utmb is just a very different race than that because of the alpine nature of it up and down.

We happened to get some really bad weather this year at Utmb, so it was wet and muddy.

Snow, sleet, rain, everything that day which made it feel a lot longer and a lot slower.

But yeah, I think it was quite physically demanding and maybe more so mentally demanding.

And as far as calories burned, I’m guessing it’s north of 10,000, but yeah, the Coros tracks that.

So it claims that I burned something like 29,000 calories. In the in the 40 hours. Yeah.

You really I mean, part of being decent at ultrarunning is being able to train your gut to take in the types of calories that you need to take in to,

you know, stay, keep moving.

So, yeah, so that, obviously training for something like the Utmb is, you know, much different than training for a marathon.

And part of that is probably nutrition as well.

I mean, that’s a big part of any sort of endurance. Feat, you know, as nutrition,

as a training in the gut as you said it out, which gels work even. Obviously you need calories, you need sodium,

you need carbs, all of that. So some sort of food too that can digest. Well,

what’s your go to there on the nutrition side. Yeah.

Well so during the ultras I really like real food.

So I’ve been known to throw down like four eggs and a couple pancakes and some bacon at, at aid station.

Right. And so that’s really my preference.

I’ll, I’ll grab a slice of pizza at an aid station and head out, eat it on my way out. Kind of. I prefer the real food.

I do like both precision and never second are products that I like. Precision is a electrolyte.

And, you know, placement product that has like 1000mg of salt, of sodium.

And I’m kind of a guy that needs a fair amount of sodium.

And so I, I’ve kind of, done a lot of that. You know, the fueling now is,

is sort of the hot discussion item, you know, as a cyclist, you know, what,

the cyclists have actually kind of led the charge in this,

in this high carb, if they can choke down 140g of carbohydrate an hour, they’re like golden.

And some people can do that and they sure benefit from it. And some people get sick if they do that. Yeah, yeah. You see brands out there like,

you know, Martin Luther, the bicarb system.

Yeah, I did that before I did the L.A marathon last year. You know, you basically, you know, load your body, you know, right before an event.

But yeah, exactly.

Like, you see, a lot of these new trends come out in the cycling world, you know? And I wish that I tour de France, right?

That the demands on the body and the tour or any world tour for that matter, and the Utmb, I mean, kind of similar, right? I mean, yeah,

well, cycling might actually seem a bit easier, although you have, you know, three weeks of it, you know, on those real tours, whereas you’re even only last 96 hours.

Hour to hour, though it’s probably very similar, but probably was probably pretty close. Yeah, it was back to back though. Yeah. There’s no rests and massages.

Chefs traveling with you. So yeah.

You’ve been at this for a while obviously basketball.

And that’s an interesting one going from basketball to endurance running.

That’s that’s definitely an interesting crossover there. But obviously both are competitive. So what is your experience overall.

You know being the athlete basketball player you know and then you transfer it over and do this endurance running which is impressive.

The crossover and learning lessons between that and then running a company,

you know, in terms of mindset approach and strategy. Yeah. That yeah, that’s a good question.

So I think one of the things that is important when you’re doing endurance running, especially ultras, is that,

you know,

you’re going to have ups and downs and you’re going to have to weather some storms.

It’s not it’s not going to be perfect all the time. And in a 100 mile race,

you’re going to have some really low moments. So, I actually think that, the business world is a lot like that.

In, in our businesses,

you have, you know, challenges with the economy. You know, you’ve got, you know, capital, issues, you got interest rate changes.

Yet all the things,

that can affect a business and there’s a little bit of an ability.

I think it’s really important to have to understand that things will get better and things can get better.

A lot of times when I find that when I talk to people about endurance sports that are just new to it,

you know, the moment they start feeling crummy,

they think it can only get worse from there. Like,

but actually, you know, our bodies adapt and we sort of learn through these challenges.

And actually things can actually get better.

I ran the last three miles of Utmb faster than any other mile I ran in that race,

and I had some pretty low points in that race where I was glycogen depleted and what we call the bark.

But, you know, you kind of problem solve, you eat more food, you you slow down a little bit and, and you get yourself through it.

I think the same is true with, with business,

especially when you’ve had a company for a really long time and you’ve grown it to kind of take come,

you’re going to have ups and downs and and I think that same was true of my basketball career.

You have had a referee made a bad call that cost you your game or,

you know, one of your teammates didn’t play well or you had a bad game. And there’s just a lot of things.

And in team sports and in and in the ultra world, that kind of,

parallel running a business from a long term. Yeah. That’s great. And resilience, at the end of the day,

I didn’t know back when I was serious about cycling out of cycling. Coach, a coach would always tell me, you need to be like a palm tree. There’s palm trees sway in the wind,

but they rarely snap, you know,

even though they’ll lose their palm fronds.

And I mean, you know, here in Southern California, you know, after a windy day, you know, it for us. But the tree is still up there, right? You know, it’s not,

you know, snaps like a lot of other trees.

So that was kind of an interesting analogy. Yeah I like I like that. That’s a good one. Yeah, yeah. Good stuff here. So, let’s see.

Thinking about the UTB,

what was the hardest mile out of those 106? You said you finished strong.

Your last three were a very strong after bonking.

And, you know, going through that whole journey of,

everything you go through in an extreme endurance of it. But what was the hardest mile? Yeah. Well, there was probably, I’m thinking towards,

there was a particular when we, when we crest when we crested the second big climb, in the race.

Now you’re kind of up around ten, 11,000ft by 10,000ft.

And then it had been raining and snowing at the top,

and I’m, I was kind of in the middle of the pack. So the pros had already run through, and it was so muddy.

And, there was just this line of runners trying to get down pretty steep in about,

you know, 6 to 12in of mud.

And it had all been churned up and I probably fell, I don’t know, 6 to 8 times.

And people fell into me from like they would start sliding and they couldn’t catch themselves,

and they would run into your back and you’d go down and then you’d do the same to somebody in front of you.

And it was just and and then and then you’re not.

I mean, there wasn’t a lot of English speakers there. So out of 2500 runners, so,

you know, maybe a quarter of them spoke English.

So the whole communication piece like, hey, you know,

usually when you’re on a trail and you’re faster than somebody, you’re like, okay, coming on your right. And they kind of, you know, you kind of slide over. Well, that didn’t happen.

And so that was kind of especially early on in the race,

there was another mile that I would probably point to coming out of like halfway.

So still had a whole nother 50 miles or so to go. And I just was super depleted. And I hadn’t eaten enough,

partly because I didn’t have access to the food that I thought I might have just because it was France,

and they’d do their aid stations different than America does their aid stations.

And so I really had to fight through like a strong desire to stop.

And I always say that the bug kind of makes you stupid. Yeah.

You kind of got to get some calories in you. So your brain starts functioning again. Yeah, yeah. It’s, hierarchy of needs, right? You know,

and you’re not Bong so and it’s it’s you need to get you get fuel, you need to get past that, you know, and and that’s first and foremost.

Yeah. That’s, Yeah. So. Yeah. So the mud I mean, that’s fascinating. So I mean, running through that, you know,

and going through that situation with all the people on and, you know, falling and so on. My question here is, once you get past the mud, I mean,

your shoes are now caked in mud, right? So that’s going to slow you down a bit. Yeah. Yeah.

All of those factors played in then to why it’s a hard race. It it’s it’s it’s interesting.

It’s considered like the World Series of trail running and I think that the, the, the,

the times were and the dropout rate were definitely impacted by that. And I think all of those factors, you know,

just being wet, being cold and getting hypothermia, la,

la, a lot of people that were in that camp after we did the first night. So the race starts at 6 p.m.

and went through the night raining, muddy, wet. I came down into its luck.

Campbell is one of the aid stations and and it was kind of like the sun was starting to rise.

I was kind of feeling a little bit better and I was like,

oh, there doesn’t seem to be that many people like running in and out of this mess. And I walked in there and I thought,

I walked onto the set of the TV show Mash, and it was just people who had and were just completely laid out,

hypothermic and, you know, wet and just. And I think that I,

and I spent a very short time in that aid station because it was just packed with people who were suffering.

And I think I passed more people in that aid station than I did the rest of the race because are just hurting.

So we were all experiencing it and we were all figuring out how to get through.

And these are seasoned endurance athletes.

They’re interior as it’s not people that signed up for Utmb be, you know, weeks before, you know, kind of start ups. And these are a season.

So I mean yeah obviously think takes a toll.

But yeah go ahead Ben I was just going to say it sounds like there’s kind of a metaphor baked in there, you know,

with all this suffering and it wasn’t just you. It wasn’t like, oh, I was ill prepared. I was this, I was that, it’s everybody.

Does that suffering have a place in growth whether it’s personally, professionally,

you know, as an organization because we see a lot of headwinds, whether it be, you know, cost of inputs, increasing, tariffs.

You know, there’s so many headwinds that we see.

Is that sort of a necessary evil to that growth? Yeah,

I think I think that suffering challenges,

trials of any kind are the places where we, you know, get stronger and,

and it forges our, our ability to withstand things.

It’s for those of us who have faith in, in a, in a God,

we we really think that that’s biblical too.

Meaning we believe that, you know, trials make us stronger and bring us closer to where we’re supposed to be as people. Oh, that’s great.

And I think, you know,

your descriptor of walking into that tent is so vivid.

And, you know, I couldn’t imagine what that felt like, whether it was like, okay, well, at least I’m not the only one. But then also,

I feel bad for all these people because, like Trevor said, they’re hard core endurance athletes. You know,

this is sort of like you said, the World Series. They want to be here. And so it’s a little bit like,

oh, I feel bad for all these poor individuals that Mother Nature said, it’s not happening today. Yeah. You’re you’re right. There was a moment there,

I was like, well, I’m on. I’m not doing so bad.

That person’s suffering a little more than I am right now. So yeah, I think, I mean, but I think that that’s, you know, we all that sort of growth mindset.

Right. And, and you know, when,

when Covid hit, I’m actually writing on my Substack right now about Covid hitting and some of the lessons learned in that because we we all suffered through that.

Right?

I mean, it it impacted our families, it impacted our businesses, everything.

And I think some of the things that as I get a little older and I’m I’m in my last year of life,

is I keep thinking about the things that that I,

I don’t want to forget that I learned in my first 30 years of career.

So kind of going back and looking at those things like the these black Swan events like Covid and like,

how did how come we made it through that?

Because it wasn’t just because I’m like some brilliant businessman. We made it through because, you know, of a few, you know,

guiding principles and sort of trying to do things the right way. And even then, timing is everything.

I have a I had an old mentor that high school history teacher at Compton High School, and he hired me

and my first job selling ice cream on the beach in Long Beach.

I ultimately ended up working for him for years, selling ice cream at, like,

the Colosseum made Dodger Dogs at Dodger Stadium. And he used to have this.

He used to say this thing to me every time something would go wrong,

you’d say, David, my boy, you’re timing is everything, and timing can make you look like a schmuck.

And timing can make you look like a genius.

And he said, David, you’re neither of those things. And so, I always,

I always think about that and and how you know, we, we try to do our best, right?

That sometimes things don’t work out because timing was off. So anyway,

I think that when you’re in those moments and you’re learning from these things that impact you negatively,

it only makes it so that you don’t maybe have to endure that again in the future. If you can remember it. That’s awesome. Trevor, I didn’t mean to interrupt.

Go ahead if you want to continue down that path. Oh. You’re good. Ben’s. Yeah, let’s let’s see.

Here’s what’s up next. You know,

I know you’re planning for the next big race. Since you completed this Utmb in 2025. Dave. What’s up? This year? Yeah.

So this year,

my wife Diana has, they she finally got her ticket pulled for the Western States 100, which is the US biggest race.

It’s probably the second biggest race to Utmb be. And so that’s in June.

So we’re building up for her to do that in June. And I’m excited for her. I got to do it in 2018.

My son paced me the last 35 miles and she crewed. And that was a really special experience. And so for her to get to do that,

I’m, I’m super excited for so we’re we’ve been training for that. We’re getting built up for that. And then after that,

we’re going to go back to France to Sharmini for the UTB Festival.

Utmb b that I did this year was the is the big race,

but they also have multiple other races that week and we’ve just fall in love with that town.

And and we’ve been there now three straight years.

And so this will be our fourth year there. And we’re going to do a race called TDs,

which is a 95 mile race that goes through that same area of the Alps. And, I’m really excited about that.

And then we’ll get to watch all the other races that happen later in the week.

So, that’s, that’s kind of our summer vacation plans.

Sounds like an epic vacation for those about to suffer. Yeah, yeah. So for those people who don’t know, where is the western states?

Yeah.

So western states starts in Palisades Tahoe.

At the old where they where they had the Squaw Valley Olympics, starts there and it,

it goes from there, all the way to Auburn,

California, and finishes on the high school track at Placer High School.

And, it is it’s the oldest, 100 mile race. And, and has become probably the most famous,

especially in the United States.

It rivals sort of Utmb from a worldwide standpoint,

but the best pros in the world get into that race via the golden ticket process.

So there’s all these other races where if you finish in the top 2 or 3, you get entry into to Western states,

and they have a pretty fabulous feel coming together for this year.

So it would be fun to watch A Vessel of Love to your wife during Western States. And of course, you both doing the, the Montblanc,

the prequel. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. So I yeah.

So I grew up in Northern California and going up to Tahoe, you know, it was a place where you skied. Burn was on the star part of the,

the 50 there. They have a in and out are the 80. Sorry.

The 50 goes through southeast or about the 80, but there’s an in and outs. That’s a well earned double. Double.

It’s funny that you bring that up because that’s where I went to eat after I finished Western States back in 2018.

You what,

what do they where you want animal style fries and, a three by three or a triple decker or whatever they call it. In and out.

Yeah, yeah. And that’s, I don’t know what. They open that in and out and that’s,

you know, that’s always a classic spot to either on the way to Tahoe or coming back, you know. Yeah.

You know, this kind of treat in Auburn before you hit all the traffic that happens on the 80.

You know, between Sacramento and with whichever direction you’re going. Yeah. Well awesome day.

This was fun having you on there.

Thank you guys for having me on I appreciate it. And yeah.

I’ll look forward to hearing the replay and also on your podcast. Thanks, Dave.

Investment to you and your wife on the upcoming endurance feat. Thanks, Trevor. We do hear how these go. And thanks everyone for joining us today.

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