Year of the 100s: Nick Petterson's 2024 Ultra Journey

In this episode of the Infinite Endurance Podcast, ultra runner Nick Petterson shares his experiences racing and training throughout the 2024 season. They discuss Nick's impressive achievements, including running four 100-mile races, and the importance of recovery. Nick shares insights on preparing for a 100-mile race, the mental aspects of racing, and the support system that helps him succeed. The conversation also touches on future goals and advice for aspiring ultra runners.

Follow Nick
Instagram
Strava

Hamster Dance Song!

Grasslands Trail Run
Arkansas Traveller 100
Lake Murray Endurance Run
Perpetual Motion

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Athlete Profile
• 9:38 Nick's Journey into Ultra Running
• 13:08 Reflecting on a Year of Racing
• 17:48 Goals and Aspirations for the Future
• 19:35 Race Standards and Challenges
• 20:03 Experiencing the Grasslands Race
• 22:06 Navigating Multi-Distance Races
• 24:58 Recommendations for Races
• 25:56 The Arkansas Traveller Experience
• 29:19 Recovery Strategies Between Races
• 34:30 Cooling Strategies During Races
• 36:12 Preparing for Lake Murray
• 38:12 The Lake Murray Race Experience
• 39:41 The Perpetual Motion Experience
• 46:35 Lessons Learned from Racing
• 55:07 Motivation and Support in Endurance Running

Transcript

Philip J. Sebastiani (00:01.228)
All right, Welcome to the Infinite Endurance Podcast. I'm your host, Philip J. Sebastiani, and today with me I have Nick Peterson. How are you doing?

Nick Petterson (00:08.745)
Good, thanks, how are you?

Philip J. Sebastiani (00:11.128)
Good. I'm real excited for you to be on today. And really this conversation that we're going to have, I really want to center around the races that you've done this year. Cause I feel December is really a time of reflection for people. And you know, maybe some people haven't accomplished the goals they wanted and just seeing how you can continue to grow despite any, any setbacks you may have. So I think your year was really impressive and

You know, I followed you. When did we meet? it 21?

Nick Petterson (00:46.443)
I think at the back land the year we did it was at 22, 21, 22.

Philip J. Sebastiani (00:51.896)
Yeah, it all blends together. I mean, I can check. It was 22, you're right. Yeah, I was wrong. 22.

Nick Petterson (00:53.163)
Okay. I don't think I met you before that, but...

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:01.634)
Yeah, the rain year is what I am forever going to call that because I've never run in rain like that before. it was a day, but it was great. Great to meet you there and compete with you. but how this kind of episode starts, I don't know if you've listened to it, listened to an episode, but I like to start with an athlete profile and really it's just five questions to get listeners know you a little bit and, you know, kind of for us to get to know each other a little bit. And then just fun little, well, icebreaker questions.

So you ready?

Nick Petterson (01:32.779)
I think so, let's do it.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:34.946)
These are, I really thought deep about these questions, some old ones and some new ones. So what's your go to running song?

Nick Petterson (01:42.677)
Go to Running song?

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:44.803)
Yeah.

Nick Petterson (01:46.071)
Man, during a race, if I'm in a really low spot, like the Hamster Dance, you know that song?

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:54.751)
No, but I will definitely have to add that in the show notes. The hamster Dance who's it by?

Nick Petterson (01:58.123)
What was that? I Hampton the Hamster. It's not my favorite song, but it's enough of a curveball that it just makes me laugh and can get me out of a funk sometimes. So, yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (02:02.465)
really good. Sound like.

Philip J. Sebastiani (02:11.566)
All right, hamster dance. have to check that out. Is there another artist, like a specific artist then that you also would listen to?

Nick Petterson (02:20.203)
I really like the band America and like classic rock. Usually things try and like calm me down more than like pump me up. You know, get me...

Philip J. Sebastiani (02:24.142)
Yeah

Philip J. Sebastiani (02:31.106)
Yeah, that goes back to maybe somebody's just slowing things down, right? Keeping things in check, calming down before you spiral, make more mistakes.

Nick Petterson (02:36.925)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, be grateful that is really good.

Philip J. Sebastiani (02:43.65)
Yeah. yeah, that's a well known. All right.

Nick Petterson (02:47.307)
It can give you a lot of songs, but it's, yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (02:51.278)
All right, what's one piece of gear you must have on each run?

Nick Petterson (02:57.288)
shoes.

Philip J. Sebastiani (02:58.83)
What do you run in?

Nick Petterson (03:00.971)
For roads just started wearing the Brooks. Brooks, Glycerin Max.

Philip J. Sebastiani (03:10.082)
I've seen those over there. like, it's a pretty significant stack height, right? It's their, probably their biggest stack height shoe?

Nick Petterson (03:17.085)
Yeah, I don't know like the specs on it, but it's I think it's their largest stack.

Philip J. Sebastiani (03:22.926)
Pretty good so far, nothing to complain about.

Nick Petterson (03:24.435)
Yeah, I used it for two runs leading up to my most previous race and then used it for the entire race.

Philip J. Sebastiani (03:33.115)
yeah, we'll get into that perpetual motion, right? Yeah, we both became real familiar with that loop.

Nick Petterson (03:35.687)
Yeah.

And that was also my first pair of Brooks. So far, so good.

Philip J. Sebastiani (03:44.502)
Yeah, what about trail? I know you run a lot at Lake Georgetown.

Nick Petterson (03:48.555)
Yep, yeah, I'd say that's my go-to trail. Mostly out of convenience, but it is a great trail too. And so it's kind of got a little bit of everything. There's some flat, really runnable parts. A lot of it's really technical rocks that almost look kind of like pelvis-like. I don't know what kind of rocks they really are called, but they just are all kinds of shapes and have lots of holes in them. Kind of pointy.

Philip J. Sebastiani (04:08.046)
Mm-hmm.

Philip J. Sebastiani (04:15.18)
Yeah, you showed me part of that trail, but it was just dark when we went, cause we started so early. Cause I think we're both pretty, pretty early birds. It just seems like, and yeah, it was pretty good. I, my goal was like not to fall and not to fall behind Nick Like that was, that's where my two goals. It was a fun day out there. Yeah. Real, real beautiful.

Nick Petterson (04:32.081)
You can get away from good water without falling, you've won. But trail shoes, Salomon's been really good for me over the last few years. So that's, that's always a go-to, mainly like the Ultra Glide. I've tried the Genesis and I like those. It's just, they're pretty similar. They're both more cushioned shoes in the Salomon's rotation. And then like New Balance's.

Philip J. Sebastiani (04:36.428)
Yeah.

Nick Petterson (05:01.673)
has worked well for me road-wise and trail-wise. And so that was the road shoes that I was using before I just started trying Brooks. And so like fresh foam more for the roads and the trails.

Philip J. Sebastiani (05:14.466)
Yeah. So you got a good lineup and a variety of, of brands. Yeah. need to, in my own like lineup, I need to kind of venture out more. I've really been kind of one shaded in, in Hoka. But yeah, I'll have, yeah, I'll have to take some more recommendations from you for that. All right. I know I said earlier that we're both pretty early birds. So sometimes.

Nick Petterson (05:29.193)
Focus the go-tos.

Nick Petterson (05:33.609)
Yeah, for sure.

Philip J. Sebastiani (05:39.916)
This doesn't happen, or sometimes it will depending on how early you're out there. The strangest thing you've ever seen on a training run.

Nick Petterson (05:47.581)
strangest thing.

Nick Petterson (05:52.511)
There was one when I used to live in Grapevine up in the DFW area and I was like, it was an early morning run so dark. I was out kind of by the lake as a road run and I see these lights in the sky and I was super confused. It ended up being a Starlink satellite. I was like, is this aliens or like, I mean the DFW airport super close to there, but like.

It was moving too uniformly to be like a fleet of planes. It was crazy.

Philip J. Sebastiani (06:30.732)
Yeah. And you do a of your runs. I want to say something earlier than I go like four, three, four AM sometimes. Is that right? So yeah, sometimes just waking up the mind that early is like, am I really seeing that? I guess maybe it's practice for like, if you ever hallucinate in a race and you're like, no, that's not real.

Nick Petterson (06:37.48)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (06:47.963)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, the weirder things you see the better. Just prepare yourself for that moment.

Philip J. Sebastiani (06:53.39)
Yeah, it's totally a trip. All right, you ready? So here's question four. Do you have any pre-race rituals?

Nick Petterson (07:03.403)
Nothing too crazy. I like to eat just a little bit and it's not anything specific. Sometimes it's just race nutrition if I don't have anything else. I like to drink some coffee, just kind of get things going. Usually I like to do everything, like wake up and get everything going. Like at least an hour before I actually have to be at the starting line. And I guess this is for race specifically, but even like...

for runs, like to wake up a good chunk earlier so I can kind of wake up. I drink coffee. I got into Wordle and doing all the New York Times games. So that's become part of it. So I'll drink coffee, play all the New York Times games, then Mother Nature will call, get everything flushed out. There aren't any emergencies while I'm out there, at least not any major ones.

Philip J. Sebastiani (07:55.854)
yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (08:00.842)
yeah, definitely wordle. man, that's a throwback. That got me through a lot of COVID. I recently logged on and I looked at my streak and I was like, wow. I think it was like 94, 95 days. I was like, dang, I really just like religiously got on this app and like did it, right?

Nick Petterson (08:14.723)
Dang.

Nick Petterson (08:19.699)
Yeah, and it's like, it's just part of my routine now. It's just a fun thing to do and my wife does it, so we'll both do it and then we'll ask each other about it and kind of compare like our routes to getting to the word.

Philip J. Sebastiani (08:28.14)
next

Philip J. Sebastiani (08:33.42)
Yeah. Maybe those, those key starting words or, or how our strategies is that that game is just really fun. Right. The last question I have is what's the dream race bucket list race.

Nick Petterson (08:46.91)
bucket list race.

Nick Petterson (08:53.077)
Doing Hard Rock would be super cool. I haven't done any Hard Rock qualifiers, so I'm not on very good path to that. I've been putting in qualifiers every year for Western, so that's on the list, but I feel it's just kind one those things you put in every year and eventually you'll get it. That's something to look forward to. I need to start doing this thing with Hard Rock. I don't know if I'll ever end up there.

two huge races that would be really cool to run. And then, you know, I really liked the 200 mile scene,

Philip J. Sebastiani (09:25.891)
Yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (09:30.83)
yeah, and I will definitely have to touch on, on the Cokodone a little bit. Cause I know you did that even though that wasn't this year. And, yeah. So what are, what would our closest one be? mean, maybe to you, would it be, I can't remember the name it's in. Okay. Is that a hard walk?

Nick Petterson (09:36.383)
Yeah.

Nick Petterson (09:48.267)
There's Southern states now in Alabama, I think. I don't know if that's the closest though. I think there's one in Colorado now. That's a good question.

Philip J. Sebastiani (10:04.546)
Yeah, I know there's, yeah, all of these, just leading my mind right now. I think the divide, I that might be the 201 Colorado.

Nick Petterson (10:11.467)
Yeah, yeah Well then There used to be one at Franklin Mountain for I think it was only for like two or three years Yeah, it was whenever trot was put in on the Franklin Mountain races It was a looped course just because of what's available there, I don't know what the loops looked like but Mm-hmm. Yeah, but

Philip J. Sebastiani (10:16.366)
We had one in Texas.

Philip J. Sebastiani (10:20.365)
Really?

Philip J. Sebastiani (10:35.554)
Yeah, that's the El Paso

All right. Well, I kind of rolled the, I've been calling the easy questions or the hard questions, depending how you look at it, the fill on the spot questions, but that completes the athlete profile. And now really, I just want to hear about your year and you know, first let's just, I guess really before we get to that, you know, tell us more about who you are. Cause if I remember correctly, you're a Texas transplant like I am.

Nick Petterson (11:03.499)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I grew up in Wisconsin. More of a soccer player than a runner. And then I came to Texas for college. I played soccer in college. Once I was in, what's that? Southwestern University. It's a little school. It's actually here in Georgetown, so.

Philip J. Sebastiani (11:18.318)
Who'd you play for? Who'd you play for?

Philip J. Sebastiani (11:27.111)
and you're like back there. Got full circle. We can continue.

Nick Petterson (11:28.179)
Yeah. Got pulled back. Yeah, I really like it here. So yeah, after I finished, I always liked running, not always, but kind of towards the end of high school, into college, I started to enjoy running more as a way to get outside and move and explore. And then I sort of stopped being active after college and tried to get back into running. I wasn't, you know,

Once you take a break from running, it takes a little while to sort of get things back in gear. And then started training for a half, did that with a friend that I was living with while I was in school up in Dallas. And then the next year did the full for that race and then just kind of kept going.

Philip J. Sebastiani (12:21.558)
Yeah. So that's, so do you someone like try like marathon and you were like, okay, I'm going to try an ultra within like a year or what? What was that timeline?

Nick Petterson (12:30.335)
Yep. Year later is, cause I think when I was training for the marathon, I was getting recommended all these different videos of like ultra marathons. And I feel like I watched the, the Barkley race where it was like Brett Maughan and Jared Campbell and John Figveri, the three of them.

It wasn't the one with Gary Robbins. It was... I don't remember what it's called.

Philip J. Sebastiani (13:00.524)
Okay.

I think I know what talking about. It's more like the Netflix one or something like that. The first one.

Nick Petterson (13:05.353)
That might be what it's called. Yeah, was on Netflix for a while. I that's where I watched it. And so I was like, all right, this is insane. And so I was just like getting thrown like that and other trail racing videos. So there was interest there, but it seemed so far away. So I did a lot more like ultra running on the roads before I really started trail running when I was living up in DFW area.

Philip J. Sebastiani (13:33.006)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Does that more, think just access to what you had or you do think you just didn't know what was out there yet?

Nick Petterson (13:43.285)
Probably some of both. I just felt comfortable running on the roads and it was kind of more of an endeavor to just see how far I could run at the time and like building up mileage. Like, and I didn't, I guess I didn't really recognize like getting on the trails and doing races locally. And I eventually did find a North shore trail up there in grapevine and ran on that quite a bit.

Philip J. Sebastiani (14:10.862)
Yeah, I for DFW just a hub of so many, so many races, you know, road and trail. So that's a really great place to cultivate and kind of find your love of ultra running. Is there anything else you wanted to?

Nick Petterson (14:24.267)
Yeah, it really started to explode and it was sort of around, it was just pre-COVID when I started to get into ultra running. And the first event I did was up in Wisconsin, so I really, didn't know anyone there anyways. And it was a road ultra.

Philip J. Sebastiani (14:45.403)
What distance was it?

Nick Petterson (14:47.307)
50 miles.

Philip J. Sebastiani (14:49.815)
so you skip 50k altogether, you're like, I don't want, I don't want.

Nick Petterson (14:51.945)
Yeah, figured Marathon was so close. I could run a 50k in preparation for the 50 miler. Just figured it out.

Philip J. Sebastiani (14:58.99)
There you go. That's all I do. Yeah. Some people skip. I'm trying to think. I kinda, yeah, I think I maybe went going, you know, the quote unquote natural, like I did 50 and 50 mile, a hundred K and then a hundred mile. Yeah. But you know, there's more than one way to skin a cat? right? so I guess as we kind of get into this year, I mean, I mentioned earlier, you know, you ran four 100 milers this year. Was that the plan all along?

Nick Petterson (15:16.042)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (15:29.129)
Nope.

Philip J. Sebastiani (15:31.182)
So how did that evolve? let me, I guess you could probably just tell me I could pull up Ultra Sign Up. What were the four again?

Nick Petterson (15:37.387)
It was Grasslands 100 in March, and then I did two in October, which is Arkansas Traveler on the fifth, and then Lake Murray 100, it was like three weeks later on the 26th, and then I ended up running 100 miles, or like just a little over that, that perpetual motion, not this last weekend, but it was on the seventh, December seventh.

Philip J. Sebastiani (16:05.208)
So we were talking four very different hundred miles. And yeah, cause we were talking grasslands. I mean the name, but I mean it's pretty, pretty flat dirt kind of trail. Yeah. I've heard that's in Decatur. think. that right? Should I check? I should have checked, but yeah.

Nick Petterson (16:09.949)
Yeah.

Nick Petterson (16:15.819)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (16:21.705)
Yeah, it's at the LBJ grasslands. think that's... Yeah, I think that's the closest like, town or...

Philip J. Sebastiani (16:29.71)
And then even Arkansas Traveler, the historical importance of it. I mean, it's one of the older ultras in the country. It started in the nineties, early nineties maybe.

Nick Petterson (16:38.793)
Yeah, I definitely had a lot of history to it and they knew what they were doing. know, the volunteers were great. It was really well marked. It was mostly on fire service roads. So it would be, I can't imagine not being able to mark it well, but there's.

Philip J. Sebastiani (16:53.792)
It's wide open and yeah. If you got lost there, something's wrong.

Nick Petterson (16:58.603)
Yeah, you had to have been pretty foggy. I don't want to be mean because I'm sure it happens there, but yeah, it's really well marked. There's signs and lots of markers. Yeah, it was just like a well-oiled machine. It was cool to see and cool to be part of.

Philip J. Sebastiani (17:20.78)
And then just quickly, like the profile of Lake Murray is that one that's notorious for like mud, rain or adverse conditions? Or am I just imagining?

Nick Petterson (17:29.927)
No, that's right. And I ran it in 2022 and it was like that. It was really rainy and muddy. think it had rained the day before the race when I did it two years ago. This year was great. The conditions were really good, but I wasn't really feeling that great going into that race. So it didn't go quite as I hoped, but I still finished, which is...

though as an accomplishment.

Philip J. Sebastiani (17:59.01)
Yeah, and then quickly the last one, which some listeners might think is just absurd running on an asphalt point five one mile loop, right? Perpetual motion. And yeah, that.

Nick Petterson (18:14.25)
Yeah, and I had, Because that's in grapevine, I had run on it before. I was familiar with it. So I was excited to go back to grapevine, spend a little time. It rained pretty much the whole time, which made it a lot less enjoyable, especially like getting into the evening. But yeah, it was, was a great experience and I learned a lot.

Philip J. Sebastiani (18:37.87)
Yeah, I really felt for you that day. Cause I was about like 90 minutes North of you maybe. And it was raining there just a little bit and I was looking at the radar and I was like, man, Nick is going through it right now. Like, cause you know, when you're running for 24 hours, at least the last thing you want to worry about is rain and bad weather.

Nick Petterson (18:55.251)
Yeah, logistically, it made it harder. I mean, that was my first 24 hour attempt, but I can only imagine because I was like, my gloves would get soaked within a lap or two and then my hands would be freezing and just changing shirts and jackets, trying to stay warm enough to where I can still move comfortably. Unless I was like running at the pace I needed to, if I stopped at all, I would start to get cold.

Philip J. Sebastiani (19:16.141)
Mm-hmm.

Philip J. Sebastiani (19:23.982)
Yeah. And it's actually something with 24 hour, you know, it's the razor, almost razor thin, the pace you need to run to keep moving. And then even the pace even then to keep warm. But, so you said earlier, this wasn't, wasn't the plan. How did, how did it evolve, to this point? Like I was thinking when I was seeing you train for it and signed up for it, was like, well, maybe he's just stacking for something bigger. Like, is that true? or?

Nick Petterson (19:33.449)
Yeah.

Nick Petterson (19:50.571)
not really. I'm sure I'll do more like a hundred mile plus races next year too. And so it's kind of just keeping volume and moving into 2025. But initially, cause last year you had done really well at Perpetual Motion. And honestly, I was inspired by that. I'm excited. Yeah. Yeah. You did awesome. And congratulations at FAT OX

Philip J. Sebastiani (20:14.99)
Thank you.

Nick Petterson (20:19.543)
Amazing man. And so it's like, you seeing somebody that you know do super well at something, even if you're not, like, you don't have any experience in it, it still gives you a little bit of like a more closeness to the possibility of it. I think. And so.

Philip J. Sebastiani (20:39.726)
Yeah, I, I agree. I, I'm just thinking, you know, if they can do it, why not me?

Nick Petterson (20:45.195)
Yeah, even, even if, know, like you are at different, different points or different levels, like there's still just like, I know this person and they're doing amazing things. Like, and like, they're just, they're a person. So why can't I do that too? And so I'm like, seeing you do that. I really wanted to try and get into desert solstice for this year. And that was really what I wanted to use grasslands for. cause I thought it was a race that I could go.

Philip J. Sebastiani (20:57.709)
Yeah.

Nick Petterson (21:13.119)
fast enough to get one of the standards. I was hoping to get the A standard very optimistically because it's much faster than I had ever run. And then hopefully if that fell off, then I was able to at least come in under the B standard.

Philip J. Sebastiani (21:30.678)
Yeah, I was thinking, I was looking at those numbers the other day actually, because you know, Desert Solstice just happened last weekend and you know, we're like paying attention to that race. And I believe it's like 1540 is the B, if I remember correctly.

Nick Petterson (21:43.067)
Mm-hmm. 1415 is the A.

Philip J. Sebastiani (21:47.598)
which is, that's moving.

Nick Petterson (21:49.107)
Yeah, it's quick. What's the standard? Because you can qualify with 24 hour events, right?

Philip J. Sebastiani (21:55.886)
The A is 147 now. I looked at it other day. So it's above the team standard, which makes sense.

Nick Petterson (22:00.487)
Okay, so it's.

Philip J. Sebastiani (22:08.078)
B was, 135, 138, something like that. That's the B for it. but so yeah, just very, very different things. And we, you know, you were talking about how things at grasslands were, it didn't turn out your way. What kind of happened on that day and what kind of challenges did you face or that day?

Nick Petterson (22:12.158)
Okay, gotcha.

Nick Petterson (22:33.181)
So I was probably 50k to 35 miles in, moving well, moving definitely like fast enough. little bit of twinges in my quads. so I brought the pace back some still fast enough where I could continue on and I think hit the B standard at least, around noon 1 PM it starts raining.

And it doesn't stop basically all day. so like the course it's like horse trails and just really quickly got in just a terrible condition. So I think I still ended up splitting a hundred K at like 9 30. And then I ended up, it's still, it took me 19 hours for the whole race. So, yeah, like 10 hours for.

Philip J. Sebastiani (23:21.76)
Wow. Cause it's also a very like heavily, like a lot of people do that race. you know, a couple hundred people are going over the trail and you coming back through it yet. It looks completely different than the first time.

Nick Petterson (23:36.883)
Yeah, and there's lots of it's have you run out there before?

Philip J. Sebastiani (23:41.036)
No, I haven't. I've just heard about it, read about it, seen pictures. Not yet.

Nick Petterson (23:47.211)
Yeah, because they have multiple distances and this was actually the first year for the 100-miler. And so it was cool to be part of the, guess, an inaugural year for a new distance, even though it's, I there's four different colored laps. And for the 100-mile, you do all of them twice or so. There might be like an extra one thrown in. And then the 50-miler that you do all of the laps once.

Philip J. Sebastiani (24:17.23)
How do you not get lost or do a loop in the wrong order? Like, I'm just thinking that I'm like, wait, what?

Nick Petterson (24:24.371)
Yeah, I think,

I don't know, you just kind of know.

Philip J. Sebastiani (24:32.108)
Is each one on a different distance? mean, are they? So I guess you would know. Okay.

Nick Petterson (24:34.283)
Yeah, they're different distances. I think the first year I did it, there was a way for me to remember it because it was... I think it was...

It's like blue and then white and then red and then yellow and then red. And I remembered that because I buy like two different rest, like fast food restaurants. I was like Culver's and they're blue and white. And so it's like alphabetically that fast food restaurant and the colors alphabetically. then McDonald's, which is a second fast food restaurant alphabetically. This one is

Philip J. Sebastiani (25:01.339)
okay.

Nick Petterson (25:15.049)
didn't follow the rules, it was yellow and then red, but you just gotta remember that. And then there was an out and back and then was like outback steakhouse. So was like Culver's McDonald's outback steakhouse.

Philip J. Sebastiani (25:23.928)
That's the strategy. at that. Like anyone listening who wants to, cause who puts on the race again? Blaze, right? All other races like colored loops. I'm not mistaken. Is that right? Like they'll don't. Yeah.

Nick Petterson (25:31.199)
Blaze?

Nick Petterson (25:36.937)
Yeah, definitely on the map they use to show all the different... Actually, I don't know. A lot of their races do involve multiple laps. And it'll be a larger lap and then a smaller lap. There may be some that don't, because I haven't run all of their races. But then they'll also use that to differentiate the different distances.

Philip J. Sebastiani (25:53.133)
Okay.

Philip J. Sebastiani (26:05.134)
Yeah, that makes sense then.

Nick Petterson (26:06.667)
Yeah, if they like might make a different turn, you know, they use a different color. think the, because the different colors they use at grasslands, like those are actual markings on the trails out there. So they'll, like on the trees, there'll be like the little disks, like marking which like, which trail it is. And so there might be like a blue disc on a tree or like a blue, yellow and a red one, if they share the same path.

Philip J. Sebastiani (26:12.097)
Okay, yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (26:33.95)
okay. There's a method to it all. I'm Yeah, I'm just so worried about always getting lost in one of these things that I want it like really straight in front of me. Like, okay, I gotta go this way, that way.

Nick Petterson (26:35.083)
Yeah.

Nick Petterson (26:51.305)
Yeah, that was definitely a concern going into that one. Cause I had run the 50 miler and that was when I used that sort of memory trick. guess if you could call it that for, and that was a couple of years ago.

Philip J. Sebastiani (27:00.856)
Mm-hmm.

Philip J. Sebastiani (27:06.146)
Yeah, Blaze isn't... go ahead.

Nick Petterson (27:08.363)
I was just really, I really didn't want to get lost. Because on the map it looked confusing.

Philip J. Sebastiani (27:14.466)
Yeah. Do you have any blaze race that you recommend? Cause you've done so that I think you've, you did the Paris pair before. that still, is that Blaze?

Nick Petterson (27:24.203)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I think they used to be trots, but because Blaze is up in North Texas where Paris is, like it just made more sense to kind of pass that along. Paris Pair is a really good one if you're trying to get like 100k PR because on pavement, the only thing is that it's in September. And so when I did it, it got up to like 100 degrees.

Philip J. Sebastiani (27:53.996)
No more no shade.

Nick Petterson (27:54.795)
Yeah, not too much. And it's probably going to be somewhere around there. Every year you might get lucky and have it probably in the low 90s. Or if you want to run a more low-key marathon or half marathon, that's a really good option because they have those distances too. So if you don't want to do a full road marathon, you can sign up for that.

Philip J. Sebastiani (28:22.638)
And then out and back, right? So, can't get lost. Right? How I understand it.

Nick Petterson (28:24.235)
No, Yeah, that course is just a straight line. You go out 13 miles and come back.

Philip J. Sebastiani (28:34.22)
Yeah, perfect. You just gotta look for your sign. Turn around.

Nick Petterson (28:37.835)
But yeah, honestly, all the races that I've done by them are great. Lake Murray, I've done Suffer Fest is...

Philip J. Sebastiani (28:40.27)
So.

Philip J. Sebastiani (28:51.832)
That was the one I wanted to talk to you because I noticed on your Ultra Sign Up that you've done that multiple years and there's this big gap between grasslands and Arkansas traveler. you know, getting through the rest of summer training and everything. Was that one planned also, or you just wanted to go back for like the third time? or?

Nick Petterson (29:12.213)
That's the one that I can just always do. I work Saturdays, but it's a half day. And so usually if there's any kind of like night race, especially with Blaze, I'm an ambassador with Blaze. And so I do try and go to more of their races if I'm able to. so them having a night race, I just drive up after work. I can jump in and do it. And I think they've had it four years and I've run three of the years, the 54K.

Philip J. Sebastiani (29:35.074)
Perfect end.

Philip J. Sebastiani (29:41.646)
give you a special jacket or something. Right? Yeah. The two, what was that? The 262K or 270K jacket.

Nick Petterson (29:54.097)
And I don't know if you know Matthew Taylor, but I he's run it every year they've done it.

Philip J. Sebastiani (30:00.62)
I don't know. No, he's name I recognize. I've never, never met. It's for me, you know, being up here in the Panhandle, sometimes it's disconnected from, from the rest of the state.

Nick Petterson (30:11.017)
Yeah, that's true. You're out there kind of on your own island.

Philip J. Sebastiani (30:15.404)
Yeah, I'm like, people come up here, there's races up here, but then they're like, I have this race only 30 minutes from me. Why would I drive five hours?

Nick Petterson (30:23.541)
Yeah, but I mean, the canyon looks amazing. Definitely. want to go up there and run in it.

Philip J. Sebastiani (30:27.5)
Yeah. Yeah. Whenever, whenever you want to come up, well, I'll organize a group. We'll, we'll show you all the ins and outs of, of Palo Duro Canyon. And yeah, now there's just a new race that just started and, it's in April now, actually a different portion of the canyon that's separate from the state park. It's one of them perspective pacing there, like a new, kind of running company in the state.

Nick Petterson (30:53.995)
Nice. Are they based more in the panhandle?

Philip J. Sebastiani (30:59.606)
No, how I understand it, I'm not going to me exactly, it's kind of like Tejas sold some of their races to one of their assistant RDs and then he started his own company. So he like also owns all of those night series that Captain Karl's Yeah, so it's all under the perspective pacing name now. And he just wanted to start anew. Say it again.

Nick Petterson (31:13.837)
Okay.

Nick Petterson (31:19.563)
Did they just make that switch? Did they like just hand those over?

Philip J. Sebastiani (31:25.336)
Yeah, I believe this last summer was the first year it started with the perspective pacing. And then he just wanted to start a race and up here. So his name is PJ. No, it's the race director. Cool guy.

Nick Petterson (31:37.163)
That's awesome. It's always good to have more races close by.

Philip J. Sebastiani (31:41.452)
Yeah, this is, this is kind of a tangent, but I think a few months ago, was talking with all my friends about how I wish there were more races in the panhandle. I was looking at next year's calendar and there's a month of back like race, race, race, race here in the panhandle, which is just like wild. doesn't, that hasn't ever happened. Like there's going to be a new one in Palo Duro Canyon. That's going to be a timed event, 6, 12, 24, four mile loop. And then there's going to be the next week is the West Texas ultra.

The week after that is Caprock Canyons and the week after that is the Perspective Pacing at Merus Adventure Park is what it's called. So I'm like, it's happening, it's growing. I don't know. It sounds like that should be its own slam together, right?

Nick Petterson (32:16.971)
You can do them all.

Nick Petterson (32:25.973)
they had a timed event like that for mountain bikes in the canyon, right?

Philip J. Sebastiani (32:30.43)
It's called 24 hours in the canyon happens. I want to say the same weekend as Western states, like first weekend of June, maybe. And yeah, that's like everything shut down for that guy. It is the big, big daddy for like everyone is there's, you know, there's teams, there's certain loops, there's a King of the hill where you can run the climb up and down the canyon. And they do a loop actually into the town of Canyon. like kind of some road divisions and some mountain bike divisions. It's just.

really extensive and fleshed out.

Nick Petterson (33:03.518)
sounds awesome. So that was a mountain biker.

Philip J. Sebastiani (33:08.056)
Yeah, I think it's a seven or eight mile loop and you just, you can have a team or you can do it solo and just do that loop over and over again. But yeah, back, back, back to the, this, this year of the hundreds here. so after the summer you didn't blaze, it's called suffer fest, right? Got through that. And then you just decided when to sign up for Arkansas traveler.

Nick Petterson (33:27.401)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (33:36.075)
Arkansas Traveler, I signed up for probably mid-year. Like I was saying, I've been getting Western States qualifiers every year.

And I hadn't signed up for one yet and know, time was running out, things were selling out and I was looking for one that I could drive to within a reasonable distance and it hadn't sold out and

So I think I got in pretty early just because I saw that it was a qualifier and it was pretty close. so think as soon as it opened, I was afraid of it selling out. So I jumped in.

out.

Philip J. Sebastiani (34:15.458)
Yeah, I remember following that race cause there was maybe half a dozen people I knew running it. And I was like, yeah, it's fun. You know, race with a lot of history and what I'm seeing like it can run somewhat fast on it. And, but the weather might be hot, you know, affect things. But then I noticed that Chad also was in it. So like the dynamic duo, that's what I remember from, from the backland, like you two were unstoppable unit.

Nick Petterson (34:38.346)
Mm-hmm.

Philip J. Sebastiani (34:44.332)
And I was like, they're doing it again. They're teaming up. But how did that race then kind of just go for you? Because you had a lot of time since the last hundred.

Nick Petterson (34:57.833)
Yeah, I think that that was probably the race for me this year that went the best. it wasn't my fastest time, but I think just execution wise and just like my enjoyment for the day. It was just an overall, it was just like the best experience of events that I had this year. And so yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (35:19.694)
just feel like everything's clicking, flowing and I like you could run forever. Yeah. I know what that's like.

Nick Petterson (35:22.643)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, definitely approached it more because I had already signed up for Lake Murray. I knew that I was doing that three weeks later. because like I said, I'm a Blaze Trails ambassador. So this is kind of a side before we get into Arkansas and also Lake Murray. you know, I get like a, an entry and so I was going to use it for Lake Murray. I wanted to use it for a hundred mile race and grasslands had already passed and so I said, I'm to use it for,

Even though I've already done this race, wanna use it for a hundred mile and not something else.

Philip J. Sebastiani (35:56.99)
there you go.

Philip J. Sebastiani (36:02.614)
Yeah. And I remember like seeing your splits and just going over and it was like, were pretty consistent the whole day. And I was like, that's the way to do it. That's how you run a hundred mile race, right? Well, to a point, right? Like at least a good chunk of it was really, really consistent.

Nick Petterson (36:16.233)
Yeah, and so my.

Like Chad's goal was sub 20. And so I said, okay, like let's do that. I'm going to run. Like we're going to stick together. We're going to go sub 20. That's it. It's like, we'll just start off pretty like, we'll just hike all the ups and just run the down and the flat. And we'll just like be pretty chill. Cause like it was expected to get warm that day. I think it got up in like the 80s which is like warmer than usual for October in Arkansas. think the, like the average is like.

Philip J. Sebastiani (36:30.382)
Hmm?

Philip J. Sebastiani (36:44.206)
Yeah.

Nick Petterson (36:49.597)
mid 60s to like 70s.

Philip J. Sebastiani (36:53.592)
Okay.

Nick Petterson (36:53.963)
So warmer than usual, for like, mean, coming from Texas, wasn't like, it wasn't too bad. didn't, it wasn't until like the very middle of the day that I felt warm and I like, I was using some ice to cool down, which helped a lot.

Philip J. Sebastiani (37:10.123)
Do you just, what, what all do you use to cool yourself off? Kind of strategies.

Nick Petterson (37:15.843)
I was, I guess at the aid stations mainly, or I, like, I had enough liquids where I would have a bottle and just, I'm okay putting some water on my arms and like dumping it on my shirt. but I was wearing like the vest that I've been using for my hundred milers is the Salomon Pulsar vest. So the carrying capacity is real low, but it still has that little like pouch.

Philip J. Sebastiani (37:31.65)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (37:45.387)
Right? Like on the back of like your upper back, like where your neck meets your back. If you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, exactly. So, and I'd never done that, but some guy in Arkansas, like I was just like picking at the aid station table and all of a sudden this guy opens it up and just dumps a bunch of ice in there. And I was like, my God, it's freezing. He was just like, you're welcome.

Philip J. Sebastiani (37:52.782)
You just fill it with ice? Yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (38:10.99)
Yeah, yeah, definitely that's great. Like cooling strategy, you know, I definitely, do the arms too and I'll do legs, back of neck, like really surface area. It's really important. Like the back of the legs, like it's like that, that is like a hidden trick. you spray water on the back of your legs, you'll feel like your legs will have been like new life.

Nick Petterson (38:34.581)
Did you like right in the back of your knees?

Philip J. Sebastiani (38:37.28)
Yeah, back in the knees like I'll just spray it like in my calf, knees, spray my arms, spray my wrists, you know, hands and neck, of course. And then, you know, face and all that. And ice spend bandana those are all things.

Nick Petterson (38:52.083)
Yeah, that's something that I haven't tried or have gotten into, but definitely with enough of the hot races around here, I'm sure the ice bandana would be a huge help.

Philip J. Sebastiani (39:04.654)
And being in the Austin area, even your, a little bit of heat adaptation is probably pretty high too. So, but yeah, so you got through, Arkansas traveler, you know, think pretty great, like solid, solid performance there. And you were saying three weeks later, I think a lot of listeners would be interested in hearing what does recovery look like when you know you have to do this again three weeks later.

Nick Petterson (39:10.356)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (39:33.429)
So that was on fifth, on the 15th or 16th of October, my wife and I took our anniversary trip to New York City. And so we were in Manhattan for a week. And so I knew that we were going to be doing tons of walking. So I really like, was, the main thing is just recover, don't run. Like I felt like no pressure to run. But I felt pretty good.

probably like a half of a week to a week after Arkansas. I think part of that was my approach to that race, know, just kind of taking it more chill through the heat of the day and then just kind of like seeing what was left. And so things felt pretty good. Honestly, before we went to New York City and then I feel like after going there, I probably felt worse going into Lake Murray just because of how much walking we did and just like how many activities we did, you know.

Philip J. Sebastiani (40:24.43)
you

Philip J. Sebastiani (40:33.378)
Yeah, just, you know, that, I guess that active recovery and mov ing and eating. I'm sure a lot of sleeping or napping when you can. sleep is very powerful and recovering after any, any run, I think after Fat Ox, man. When I finally could sleep, was like three naps a day, you know? Like, yeah, it was, it worked out well in my favor because the week after it was Thanksgiving break. So I'm like, I could sleep, I could sleep three naps.

Nick Petterson (40:51.883)
I should have an alien.

Nick Petterson (40:59.612)
perfect.

Philip J. Sebastiani (41:01.806)
Take three naps a day and not feel that guilty.

Nick Petterson (41:06.783)
Are you usually a pretty good napper?

Philip J. Sebastiani (41:12.558)
Yeah, I'll set my watch, like 20, 25 minutes, just close my eyes, fall asleep and wake up and try to do something. And then if I just feel tired, really listening to my body, if I felt tired again, okay, take another nap. But yeah, so the three weeks in between, then how many weeks was it between Arkansas and Perpetual?

Nick Petterson (41:28.523)
Gotcha.

Nick Petterson (41:38.251)
From Arkansas or Lake Murray? That's okay. It was maybe like six. A little over a month. Because it was on, Lake Murray was the 26th of October and Perpetual Motion was the 7th of December.

Philip J. Sebastiani (41:38.51)
would have been... sorry, I'm sorry, like, right.

Philip J. Sebastiani (41:48.216)
Yeah, I can.

Philip J. Sebastiani (41:58.318)
So do you think, was perpetual motion even planned when you were doing Murray? Or is that?

Nick Petterson (42:03.431)
Nah, not really.

Philip J. Sebastiani (42:06.398)
So you were maybe going into Murray thinking, okay, I can maybe empty the tank a little more.

Nick Petterson (42:11.103)
Yeah, I was hoping to go into Lake Murray and I had the course record there and I wanted to improve on it because this year was really good weather. It was, I wouldn't even say warm. It was like maybe 80, like upper seventies, 80, like no warmer than Arkansas and less gain. there were like lakeside trails. And so there, there's some parts where it's a little windy, like a little quick up and down with some rocks, but like it's mostly runnable.

But like the week before that, I wasn't feeling super great.

just like breathing was off, kind of had some congestion. It started to improve before the race, but like 15 miles in, I felt like there was like a governor on how fast we go without like having to walk. So I was like, I just kind of got to sit right at this pace and see if I can do it all day.

Philip J. Sebastiani (43:04.546)
you were.

Philip J. Sebastiani (43:12.948)
Yeah, and I suspect something like that. You're pretty much alone for a lot of Lake Murray.

Nick Petterson (43:19.913)
Yeah, I never really ran with anybody, but for the first 40 to 50 miles, the guy in second place named Kyle, he was right behind me. Every time I'd be leaving an aid station, he'd be coming in.

Philip J. Sebastiani (43:36.088)
You're caught in a race from the... from the beginning.

Nick Petterson (43:38.475)
Yeah, and so was like, my gosh, like can't even just like chill. I still have to...

Philip J. Sebastiani (43:42.83)
That was his tactic, like, no breaks for Nick. Let's go.

Nick Petterson (43:46.441)
Yeah, it wasn't until like the second, we were probably like almost to 100K and then there was a little bit more of a gap and that opened up towards the end. yeah, was still like, was considering everything going into that race, it went really well and I was able to get it done and unfortunately not faster than my previous time.

Philip J. Sebastiani (43:54.819)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (44:13.675)
It's one of the muddier times, this still without time.

Philip J. Sebastiani (44:16.302)
And so maybe you can equate the do, do a hundred mile three weeks before. mean, it's equivalent to like the muddier time, right? Just when you figure it out, like it's like, it's like, wow. just being able to do that. Cause I've never put, mean, I guess personally I've put fifties that close, but never, never hundreds something in the, in the future. And that's part really just what.

Nick Petterson (44:25.993)
Yeah, that's it.

Nick Petterson (44:31.039)
to this day.

Philip J. Sebastiani (44:44.558)
I'm just astonished man because I, I'm even like today when I was looking at your Strava, like, man, he's good to go. After, after perpetual this close after perpetual, I'm like, he's doing it pretty, pretty respectable double today in the trails and on the road. it's like, just recovers so well. and, and, really after, it would have been maybe sometime in November.

Nick Petterson (45:03.037)
and appreciate it.

Philip J. Sebastiani (45:13.826)
Maybe early November, we started communicating a little more. think you were talking about, you're asking me questions about doing perpetual. I mean, we can probably spend a little more time on perpetual cause it's. And the most recent hundred mile, a hundred plus that you've done. And I was really excited when you were like, yeah, I want to, I want to like do 24 hour running. Cause after what I saw at backland when I was like, man, this dude's built for long endurance events and really.

what finally had you decide, you know, I'm just gonna finish the year off with perpetual.

Nick Petterson (45:53.225)
Yeah, like I was saying, I was trying to get into Desert Solstice and I thought that was kind of my only avenue to get there. And maybe I was inspired by you again with seeing you do Fat Ox. I was like, man, he did it again and he's on the team. Like, that's amazing. I feel like I had recovered from this last two races and like I was still in good shape. And so was like, why?

Philip J. Sebastiani (46:02.51)
Maybe I was inspired by you again.

Philip J. Sebastiani (46:08.398)
Here we go.

Nick Petterson (46:22.143)
Why not try it now? While I'm like, feel like I'm in maybe not good enough shape to hit the team, but you know, might as well at least just go and see what's there and like try it and learn some stuff. And like I was tossing around the idea and then I was at work and like, you know, how computers will kind of rotate screensavers and it'd be like different pictures of animals or locations in the world.

And there was one that popped up and I like, that looks really pretty. And I hovered over where it was and it was in Southern France. I was like, okay, I'm going to sign.

Philip J. Sebastiani (47:00.376)
There you go. Yeah, that was the sign to give, to give it your all and toss your hat into the ring. We're saying so training wise for, for that, mean, you a little over a month, were you able to do anything specific or.

Nick Petterson (47:18.123)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (47:22.013)
I definitely did more road running than trail running. For the most part, I still did some long trail runs, not really specific for the event, but still something I just wanted to do. But I did some track runs, not as long as I would have hoped, probably. I follow some of the... Don Reichelt, who's on the team, and Chad Laseter who's on the team.

And, know, like, it seems like the, like, like a month out, you want to stack a couple, like 50 Ks on a track, like at race effort or like faster. And so that seemed like, and I had done like a track 50 K earlier this year, sort of just like, to see how things were feeling. Like whenever I was thinking about deserts, hostess and just getting ready, might've been getting ready for grasslands. I remember, but.

I didn't do anything like that and that was kind of just because of the timeline that I had. was just like, just like get on the roads and try and just like turn the legs over and get some speed going. Hopefully like the endurance base I had from my previous hundreds combined with like this new injection of speed will like sort of create this like opportunity.

Philip J. Sebastiani (48:26.734)
Mm-hmm.

Philip J. Sebastiani (48:43.798)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And in my buildup, my, I did some, some big back to backs and it was supposed to be a little bigger, but I was dealing with some niggles. So they were not as big as I wanted, but I mean, it worked out, worked out fine. And, and yeah, I can just really, I guess maybe then the mental side of it just briefly touch on during the race, how

It's different when it's not a set, when it's a set distance versus a fixed time. first time and experiencing that, how did, you worried about seconds here and there in minutes adding up or.

Nick Petterson (49:22.803)
Not initially. Before going in, I wanted to just be like, right, as long as I'm, my goal for each hour was like six and a quarter at least. Like I'm getting six miles and a quarter and like I'm in a really good spot. And then that's, you know, I started to change where it's like, all right, if I'm getting six miles an hour, like that's, that's still good. Like I'm still in like shooting range. was really like going in, I was,

I was trying to get 150, which is more than what I actually need, but just figuring that things would go wrong or I'd have to stop more, take more time. I'd want to, I wanted to have some wiggle room in my, my distance goal. And, you know, maybe that was ended up being, what was a mistake? Like I might've gone out too fast. It's just, it's hard to know.

Philip J. Sebastiani (50:23.852)
Yeah, I think as you push and find the ceiling, maybe then you can play off of it for the next one, because I'm sure you're going to do another one, right?

Nick Petterson (50:33.929)
Yeah, I'd like to at some point. don't know if I'll do it for this next championships or rotation, but it's definitely something that I want to come back to.

Philip J. Sebastiani (50:43.766)
Yeah. And besides really that's the only one in, cause I was looking up even the course record for perpetual and someone's run over 150 there. And I was like, is it a different course? Like it's.

Nick Petterson (50:55.243)
I saw that. was talking, I don't know, I walked a lot near the end with Ed Ettinghauser or Ed Headinghousing, gesture, yeah. And I think he said he knows the guy. Let me look it up. The guy that got 150 at Perpetual.

Philip J. Sebastiani (51:06.22)
Yes, the jester.

Philip J. Sebastiani (51:20.782)
Cause I was thinking so this loop, just for listeners, you looked it up, it's, you know, 0.51 and there's a pretty punchy little, little hill, don't know, dozen of steps, maybe 15 steps to get up it. And there's patches of gravel throughout. not like a smooth surface for sand. There's just a slow declines, maybe two, 300 meters on the backside. it's, and there they switch every four hours. Is that right?

Nick Petterson (51:33.556)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (51:47.879)
I was.

Philip J. Sebastiani (51:50.828)
I so, it every four hours.

Nick Petterson (51:50.847)
Yeah, every four.

Philip J. Sebastiani (51:55.8)
But it's different because when had fat ox it was every six and I was like, that's a little manageable.

Nick Petterson (52:02.485)
Yeah, Greg Armstrong, because he had mentioned that name. He said that he knew that person and they had been on the team in previous years. So I think that's for real, probably the same course.

Philip J. Sebastiani (52:15.703)
well. Yeah, I just...

Nick Petterson (52:16.799)
But it's hard to say. There's a timed event down in Houston. It's called Snowdrop. January, coming up, actually. It's coming up.

Philip J. Sebastiani (52:24.631)
what time of the year is it? Do you know?

so how many weeks have you, you've gotten two weeks, three weeks? Yeah. But, as we get it, as we get going here a little more, what did you think the four races kind of taught about, taught you about your limits and capabilities this year?

Nick Petterson (52:34.771)
Yeah, I have something on the books already for January.

Nick Petterson (52:54.731)
I learned that I can recover a lot faster than I previously could and I don't know if that's just in like doing these, my body's just getting used to doing them or that I'm learning more.

what to do correctly during a race. And so that's just helping me on the back end, or it's kind of like a culmination of all these different things where it's like, I'm recovering better. So I'm able to perform better, which kind of is just cyclical and helps me recover better. You know, it's like experience in these races is, and especially like the longer ones that you get, like taking care of your body before and after and when to return to activity or like what's too soon. All of those things just play into one another. And so it's just.

Philip J. Sebastiani (53:23.747)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (53:39.487)
I don't say the more of them you do, the more you learn, that's kind of how it works. It seems like.

Philip J. Sebastiani (53:45.13)
And if I remember correctly, are chiropractor? So you really know the body well. So that's, that's how you do it. You know exactly where to do, or you have someone who can do it, help you out. But yeah, that's, that's really cool. really? that's awesome. You know, power, power team, help each other out. yeah, cause I mean you.

Nick Petterson (53:47.849)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nick Petterson (53:58.793)
Yeah, my wife and I are pregnant too, so. Yeah, Yeah, so that's...

Philip J. Sebastiani (54:12.632)
briefly just said, know, you already have something for January, what's January bringing?

Nick Petterson (54:15.941)
I'm doing Bandera 100k.

Philip J. Sebastiani (54:18.958)
okay. So something thinking fully different too. Yes. So you got it just out of the way already for the year. You just have it done at the beginning, check and you don't have to worry about it for 25. Have you done, you haven't done before? No.

Nick Petterson (54:20.811)
Yep, yeah, and that'll be my Western qualifier. So that's just not good.

Nick Petterson (54:28.267)
Yeah.

Nick Petterson (54:34.827)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I did it in 20. Yeah, I ran it in 22. I think 2022. It was after I'd done my first Last Person Standing. I did a Last Person Standing the November before Bandera. so I'm hoping to better my time there. I think it's like 12 hours, 12, 15.

Philip J. Sebastiani (54:38.515)
you did? Okay.

Philip J. Sebastiani (54:53.987)
Okay.

Philip J. Sebastiani (55:01.26)
Yeah, from how I understand Bandera there goes a lot of times is a lot of fast and moving first laps, but the second laps are, we see carnage a lot.

Nick Petterson (55:13.703)
Yeah, hopefully that won't happen. I'm going to try and the first one a little conservative, but not too conservative, but conservative enough.

Philip J. Sebastiani (55:16.727)
Yeah, yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (55:23.982)
It's hard when there's like 300 people on the line and you're like, I gotta get a good spotter and all that.

Nick Petterson (55:28.275)
Right? Yeah. Yeah, don't want to get caught in a funnel or anything either. Like coming out of the gate. Yeah, exactly.

Philip J. Sebastiani (55:34.188)
Yeah, conga line. Okay. So that's, that's really good. then any other. The hundreds planned for next year then, just thought I had to Bandera and that.

Nick Petterson (55:47.563)
Yeah, I've got, got that on the calendar. I might do Grasslands 100 again in March, but I'm, I'm going out to Boston for the Boston Marathon in April.

Philip J. Sebastiani (55:59.338)
so you'd B Q'd also and you're just like, all these fun things.

Nick Petterson (56:01.405)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was, I did, I BQ'd at Dallas, the Dallas Marathon in 2023. So a year ago.

Philip J. Sebastiani (56:10.542)
Okay, good. And you got, and you got under, guess, yeah, the window and everything. So then you could, you know, leave a spot. Awesome. Yeah. That'll be something to follow too. is there anything else you want to, want to share about this year or any tips for anyone thinking about doing their first hundred mile race? I mean, you did four this year. mean, what does that bring your total to?

Nick Petterson (56:17.568)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (56:35.851)
I don't really know. I I don't think it's more than 10, but it's, I think somewhere between five and 10 probably.

Philip J. Sebastiani (56:39.84)
still here.

So we got seasoned veteran for sure.

Nick Petterson (56:44.907)
Yeah, I'm starting to learn things and it's like, there's constants now. feel like starting off, it's like, you might throw the whole rule book out the window and just try a whole new rule book. And now it's like, no, it's like this, this, this, check, check, check, everything. Like all systems are go. And so it's like kind of starting to dial in everything where it's like, you know, I'm not taking like a big duffel bag full of like, I'm not taking like a hundred things through a race, you know, it's pretty consolidated. like, I feel.

Philip J. Sebastiani (57:09.198)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Petterson (57:14.229)
feel confident going into something with not a ton with me. I guess like for anyone doing their first 100 miler, it's...

Nick Petterson (57:27.979)
Try and absorb things from everyone around you. Listen to your body. Definitely don't go out too fast. And just enjoy it. And enjoy the ride. For anyone that wants to try and do, I guess, like ones close together. What was the second part of your question?

Philip J. Sebastiani (57:55.903)
that's really like just advice for anyone under my race, but yeah, what if they want to stack things like three weeks apart? 

Nick Petterson (57:56.448)
You it?

Nick Petterson (58:04.585)
Yeah, I would say the biggest piece, like if you're trying to do that is like making sure you're like your body's recovering. Like you could, you could probably not run in between those two runs and like still be in a good place. And you might be better off doing that than like getting any runs in, but it's just listening to your body. I guess probably like a couple of weeks out from the event you are a week out, you probably still want to at least make sure you can run without any significant pains.

so you can make the right call going into the actual event. That's kind of the biggest thing. I found I give myself almost an entire week, if not a whole week, where I'm walking. During my lunches, I'll go and walk and try and briskly walk. And I feel like that's at least getting things moving. I'm sort of seeing how I'm feeling without taxing myself too much.

And then, you know, once walking is perfect, like nothing really feels that bad. It feels like I'm ready to run. Then I'll give it a go and. But keep it short, keep it on the, on the roads. you like a couple miles, few miles.

So just, thanks. Yeah, easing back into things. It's like, it's easy to get really excited and like shoot out like a cannon ball, but yeah, it's just.

Philip J. Sebastiani (59:21.25)
Yeah, that's all great advice.

Philip J. Sebastiani (59:33.624)
You have more in tune to your body and not the pace your watch says. Sure. Do you go by heart rate? Do you train by heart rate?

Nick Petterson (59:39.659)
Yeah, I try to, yeah. like typically, that's like, that's what I'll go off of a lot of times during races too. However accurate it might be. Cause I don't wear a strap. I just go off of my watch. I also just got a, I got a new watch. So.

Philip J. Sebastiani (59:53.135)
Okay

Philip J. Sebastiani (59:57.102)
you want to share it with the listeners? What are you packing now?

Nick Petterson (01:00:01.003)
Sure, I got the Enduro too. Nice. Yeah, I had the Instinct for like ever. The Instinct Solar. And it got to a point, I just got this for perpetual motion. So for those other races, it died at grasslands at mile like 84. Arkansas, it died. And then Lake Murray, would have died, but I...

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:00:03.724)
Yeah, twins. can't really see.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:00:16.632)
Hmm.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:00:26.285)
Yeah.

Nick Petterson (01:00:30.687)
had like one of those portable charging packs. I just put it in my vest and then hang my watch right here from the cords that go across. And then I'm I'm not getting any like heart rate data, but at least I'm recording that activity.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:00:33.25)
Mm-hmm.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:00:37.57)
cool.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:00:45.228)
Yeah, and yeah, definitely it's going to last more, you know, way more than 24 hours. The Enduro 2, great watch.

Nick Petterson (01:00:50.729)
Yeah, was crazy going into perpetual motion. Like the event was done, was like, dang, this thing says I could run for like another day or two.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:00:58.956)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. If you're not like talk, cause at least when I do it, I'm just, I keep like three items, you know, on the, on my screen, like average pace, current pace, distance, like time of day. And so I don't have to flip through screens or anything and just like, you know, flick the wrist. I'm like, okay, that's where I am. Check the pace and keep going.

Nick Petterson (01:01:07.755)
Mm.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:01:22.158)
Yeah, that's one of the things I've found that can just optimize during, you can optimize during a race. You don't want to always be flipping through because sometimes the screens just flip by themselves and it's like, well, now I gotta press a button and just one little

Nick Petterson (01:01:33.451)
There is something for Arkansas and Lake Murray that I had done differently that I had never done before and that was in an attempt to let my watch live longer. I changed the settings on that one, on the Instinct, to where I was just getting average pace. I couldn't see how fast I was going in that moment, but I would just see if my overall pace would go up or down for the whole race.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:01:49.744)
Yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:01:56.088)
There you go, yeah that's annoying. Really listen, and you just have to listen to the body on that one. And be like, what's this sound like?

Nick Petterson (01:02:00.203)
Yeah, so I never like, didn't know how fast I was going for either of those races. just knew if I was going faster or slower than my overall pace and which was, I don't know. don't, I don't know. think in some moments it hurt me just because if I felt like I was putting in a lot of effort, I wasn't validated by a pace. Why isn't my pace going down? You know, but there are also moments where it's like, I don't really like, I don't know what my pace is and I don't care. So I'm just going to like.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:02:08.674)
Yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:02:19.542)
Hmm, I like that.

Nick Petterson (01:02:28.991)
just move like comfortably and try and move well and just like enjoy my surroundings.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:02:34.798)
Exactly. And really one last big thing I want to touch on is how do you keep this, this motivation or, or discipline to keep stacking on things. You know, for a lot of people, let me just ran a hundred miles. like, I'm not going to race again in another month. And that's essentially what you're, you're doing or five weeks, whatever it is. Like how, keeps you motivated and chasing these longer races.

Nick Petterson (01:03:04.043)
Yeah, I love running, so that helps. know, like some people do it more for like the challenge of it and like aren't really as like intrinsically motivated. but I really get a lot of enjoyment just from like moving and running. So I think that is a big factor, but I also like, I like it in my year reflects, I try and sign up for different things, different terrain, different distances. a lot of years I like to try and get into like a 10 K like

There's one during on the 4th of July in the town I grew up in. It's like if we're back up there, I try and jump in it. That was something that I kind of missed from this year. There wasn't like a short fast, like really like short fast effort. You know, just like trying to switch it up. It's the spice of life. Yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:03:54.048)
It keeps you motivated. Yeah, exactly. Just, yeah, different flavors and you're definitely going for all this long stuff. And then like you were saying, doing Boston next, next April, that's definitely just really well-rounded and first and just endurance in general, not just one sided. It's really cool. I really, really liked that. So where can people find you on social media? you do social media kinda?

Nick Petterson (01:04:20.917)
Sort of. I have an Instagram. It's usually like my posts will be after races and more of like the major ones. Like I haven't posted for perpetual motion. So yeah, but I have one and I do post on it. I'd like to post on it more. just like time passes and then I don't know if I should still post on it. But the handle is nickp underscore runs.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:04:44.226)
But

Nick Petterson (01:04:50.187)
So it's kind of surprise running content, you

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:04:50.456)
Right.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:04:56.514)
You'll have to follow and just keep waiting, keep notifications turned on for Nick because something is coming. You just have to wait.

Nick Petterson (01:05:02.475)
Yeah, that's something that I'm actually hopefully gonna try and do more next year. I'm interested in getting like a GoPro, you know? Just because it's kind of like a selfish sport and it's like, I think it'd be cool to be able to share like some of the race experience with like family and friends, especially like, you years down the road, you can watch it back with like your kids or your grandkids or whatever.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:05:13.132)
Yeah.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:05:20.333)
Mm-hmm.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:05:28.16)
Yeah, I still have all this footage from Sedona that I haven't done anything with. Guilty. Yeah. Yeah, there's some low moments and some gems in there. But yeah, that'd be cool to see even also, yeah, content you make too. That's something I struggle with. I think making content that reaches a wider audience and really relatable stuff.

Nick Petterson (01:05:31.42)
really? Damn, put that on YouTube, wanna watch it.

Nick Petterson (01:05:42.003)
Yeah, that's awesome.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:05:56.344)
That's probably why started the podcast. was like, maybe I can reach a wider audience by bringing in on guests, guests like you and it's normal people who like these great feats of endurance that they're, that they've done. So.

Nick Petterson (01:06:11.562)
awesome.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:06:13.198)
But that's really all the questions I kind of had. Was there any last shout outs you wanted to give to anyone who maybe helped you this year? or anyone you run with?

Nick Petterson (01:06:23.051)
Yeah, that's good. on cue. My wife just got home and so I definitely want to acknowledge her. You know, none of this is really possible without her support and she's got like every aid station giving me stuff, especially a professional emotion. I feel like that's a format like having somebody.

can make a huge difference in saving time, having things ready for you.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:06:53.046)
Yeah, the table is clutch like things lined out on the table and these fixed time events for you to grab and go.

Nick Petterson (01:06:56.395)
Thank you.

Nick Petterson (01:07:00.267)
making sure everything's stocked and taking orders and going and getting me stuff. The crew is huge. Chad, my friend Tyler Flaherty, came out. My friend Ruben, he helped me a ton. Those are like, that's kind of like my core crew folks that have come out and helped me at races. And then my parents.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:07:27.64)
Yes. It's just good to have these, I like to call them like systems of support and it helps you remember, know, maybe why you do this and you do it for, and it's a team at the end of the day. And that's what's awesome about this sport.

Nick Petterson (01:07:41.948)
Mm-hmm.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:07:44.238)
Yeah, well, I just want to thank you again, Nick, for coming on. know I took a bit of your evening here and I just appreciate you sharing your insights about running in general. I think we had a really good conversation about, Yeah, yeah, thanks Nick.

Nick Petterson (01:07:57.131)
Yeah, for having me out.

Nick Petterson (01:08:02.303)
Yeah, no problem. Have a good night. Thanks.

Philip J. Sebastiani (01:08:04.654)
You too.