Page 2 of Runner 13

The Ultra Bros Podcast

Hot & Sandy Edition

Jason: Welcome, trailblazers, to this very special edition of the Ultra Bros, as we start our coverage of Boones’s newest race, Hot & Sandy.

Mac: Hmm, kind of sounds like a weather report to me.

Hot & Sandy. Jason: That’s part of his trademark – why his races are nicknamed ‘the Ampersands’.

There’s Big & Dark through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Long & Windy in Denali National Park.

But this one is a two-hundred-and-fifty-mile self-sufficient stage race through the Sahara Desert in Morocco and it sounds totally bonkers.

Boones is back, baby! Mac: OK, OK, back up a second – we already have the Barkley, the Ultra X races, Badwater, UTMB.

Heck, the Marathon des Sables has held the title of ‘the world’s toughest foot race’ for years, to the point that even finishing is a badge of honour – and it kinda has a lock on the Sahara.

So what’s got you so amped up about this race in particular?

Fill our listeners in on why this is different – and why they should be glued to this coverage.

Jason: With pleasure, mate. Look, the difference between those races and this one?

Boones. This guy doesn’t just blaze the trail, he fucking razes it to the ground.

His mission has always been to push the boundaries of what is humanly possible.

How far will you go? That’s the question he asks all his runners.

Next, you don’t ‘enter’ a Boones race. He handpicks you.

Exclusive invite through the post, all very hush-hush.

Then there’s always a twist during the race itself – in Big & Dark, Boones makes you fill containers with different soil to prove you’ve been in the right places, so you have all these runners on their hands and knees basically pushing dirt into these tiny vials in the middle of the trail.

Mac: Oh, so he’s a sadist. Jason: More like a scientist – and we’re his lab rats.

When he launched Long & Windy – we didn’t know if it was ‘windy’, as in referring to strong winds, or ‘windy’ because of the million switchbacks.

Turns out, it was both. Only one person ended up finishing Long & Windy – our mate and frequent podcast guest Rupert Azzario – and since then he’s ended up with sponsorships out the wazoo, brand deals, a Netflix documentary – a professional ultrarunner’s wet dream.

He’s the King of the Ampersands. Mac: Yeah, and didn’t someone die?

Jason: RIP Steve Parsons, lost in his prime.

He was the race leader, real competitive guy, but the high winds and narrow trails got the better of him and he was blown off the route.

They never even found his body. Mac: Jesus.

Jason: Look, Steve was not the first elite – and he won’t be the last – to die doing one of these races.

They’re inherently risky – but that’s where you can practically see these elite athletes salivating at the idea of rising to the challenge.

It sounds mad, but these guys want to be pushed.

Whether they admit it or not, they want to find their limit.

Sure, for any other race director, an incident like that would shut them down for good.

But if anything, it only added to Boones’s mystique.

He got even more mainstream publicity after that.

The next Big & Darks were covered by major media outlets, posts went viral on social media, the whole shebang.

He has this group of fans online – the Booneshounds – who obsess over his every move.

Boones’s star was rising and every elite runner wanted a chance to tackle his races.

And then, two years ago, he stopped. No Big & Dark.

No Long & Windy. Speculation was rife – maybe he was scouting for an even better location for a new race, maybe he was on a running pilgrimage down the length of the Americas – there were supposed sightings of him in Mexico and Argentina!

There were even some rumours that he’d died, and questions about who was going to take over the races – or whether they were done for good.

But now he’s back, and you’d best believe he’s got something extra in the bag to really set this next race apart.

It’s a true game changer. Can you guess what it is?

Mac: The money. Jason: Damn right, the money.

Five hundred thousand bucks. Two thousand dollars per mile.

Ever heard anything like that in ultrarunning?

Mac: Never. Jason: So that’s twist number one.

Mac: Kind of out of Boones’s typical ethos, isn’t it?

I thought he was a less-is-more kind of guy.

Jason: Except the question is always the same: how far will you go?

I bet he’s going to make us runners work for that cash.

Yep, that’s right – the next surprise for our listeners is that I’m going to be on the starting line!

Mac: What? How’d a joker like you end up getting an invite?

Jason: Your guess is as good as mine! As soon as the race was announced I’ve been shouting about how much I want to run in it, so maybe Boones took pity on me.

Got my invite three months ago. Barely enough time to tweak my training plan and squeeze in some heat acclimatization, but I’ll be there.

Mac: Any idea how many other nutters will be joining you on the starting line?

Jason: No clue. But the prize money and the invites are for the ‘elite’ race.

Boones also released five hundred ‘fun runner’ places – if you can call a race of this type ‘fun’ – for people who want to pay a hefty admission fee for the privilege of running in the desert.

They’re not there to compete, just to have the experience – mad sods.

But that’s probably how he’s managed to raise the dough.

Mac: What if one of the fun runners wins?

Jason: I’m sure Boones has a plan for that.

But I can tell you, the elites will be as motivated as hell.

Mac: Who do you think you’ll be up against?

Jason: Rupert, of course. I assume the top Moroccan runners will be there.

Farouk Lazaar and Nabil Alami. They’ve dominated desert races in the past. Then there’s people like Pete Wendell, Alexander Schmidt, Mariam Hussein …

but who knows? There are some wild rumours flying around.

But what I’m truly interested in this year, is who is going to be Boones’s runner thirteen?

Mac: Runner thirteen – that mean something?

Jason: It’s Boones’s pick. His ‘runner to watch’.

Whoever gets the number-thirteen bib is the runner he thinks is going to win – or, sometimes, the runner he thinks is going to flame out spectacularly.

Mac: So if you’re number thirteen, you gonna give me a share of that cool half a mil?

Jason: I’m going for the shits and giggles, you know that.

I’m not gonna win. But I want my place in the history books.

Mark my words, Mac. This is going to be a race to remember.

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