Watch the film

Creating documentaries is hard work and today everyone gets to view the product of that hard work. I’m excited to finally make this doc public. It’s been about a year since we wrapped filming and about 8 months since we had the first premiere. Since then, it’s been touring around eight different film festivals and we’ve only heard good things from those who’ve seen it. Up to this point, it’s been a self selecting crowd that definitely had a higher likelihood of enjoying it. Now anyone can watch it and I’m so curious what the public response will be. Will people like it? Will people even watch it? Maybe it will just fade into the background of never ending YouTube content.

I’m curious but it doesn’t matter. I’m proud of what we created and I’m already stoked on the reception it’s had. The process of creating this was in itself the reward. I know that sounds tacky but it was. Although, I wouldn’t have told you that during production; I now see it that way.

Docs are hard.

Starting is always fun. There is energy, we dream about what we could do, and there are fun meetings and milestones with friends. I got to work along side one of my closest friends, Paddy O’Leary, another friend who was my original inspiration for getting into camera work, Ryan Scura, and a newer friend who had been helping me edit on other projects, Nicole Amyx. There is so much more I could say about each of these people and how awesome they are but we have a lot to cover today so you’ll have to meet them in person someday.

Production

This was my first time working on a team with so much overlap. Ryan, Nicole, and myself all had editing and camera experience. We each have our own strength and weaknesses that balanced out but this overlap allowed us to divide up the on-location filming. This leads to the first hard part, scheduling shoot days with the subjects, their families, and our team. Everyone is busy and often this led to very long email chains trying to find the perfect date. The kids and families we had to film were local but some of them were 2-3 hour drives one way. We were lucky Paddy was unemployed at the time. As the director, he had to show up more than any of us and all the scheduling fell on his lap. The rest of us wrestled with timing between other gigs or family obligations.

I look back on this part with a bit of regret. I wish I could have been more present for the filming days. At the time I had been dealing with burnout, overwhelm, and a sense of failure at my normal day to day of photo and video making. These stressful feelings caused me to back out of many filming days I had said yes to so I could focus on client work. It was nice to know I had a team that could handle things without me. But I know they wanted me there. And I wanted to be there. It’s always more fun together. Even those long car rides were a good time. Not just for the connection with them, but also for the connection with our subjects. I didn’t get to know all the families and kids because of this. I watch our film now, fall in love with all the characters, and wish I had prioritized it. At the time, it felt important to work on whatever client project was pressing. I was stressed out to make social media videos that have passed while this doc has lived on, become a beautiful film, and has brought so much positive change to the people in it and to those who’ve seen it. It’s growth for me and hopefully next time, I will be more involved.

Documentary filmmaking isn’t known for being a money maker. Filmmakers know, when you have a passion project like this, part of the artistic constraints of the process is fitting it into your life with everything else. It’s what makes it hard and also special.

Post-production

It might have been like a week after The Dipsea Race in 2025, our final day of filming, that Nicole had an assembly ready. For those of you not in “the biz,” an assembly is a super rough draft of a film. There are usually tons of holes but the bones and structure are kinda there. This is a big moment as you’re no longer staring at a blank screen. Now we have something to consider and fill in. I don’t know how Nicole did it. It seems to be a bit of a super power of hers. She also did this on another film we worked on. It’s impressive because I struggle with this part. With a seemingly endless amount of possibilities, it’s hard for me to make progress on assemblies. I was super thankful she had tackled it so quickly. The rest of the edit did go well and I mostly leaned on Nicole and Ryan to handle it. Again because I had a busy summer lined up with the June and July race schedules. I did get to dive in though and had some fun editing scenes; some that I had filmed and some I hadn’t filmed.

One challenging scene in particular was the race. I think all of us struggled a bit on this one. It’s hard to change tempo from a slower story to a fast paced race. In some ways, the race wasn’t super important. Or rather the outcome wasn’t. The experience the kids had was the story, but this made it even harder to edit. With my usual ultramarathon race work, there is more of a story within the race to tell. There are moments when you can interact with the runners that adds to the story. When I work on shorter races, you can lean into a funky edit to carry a sixty second Instagram recap. This was different. How do we make the race exciting without fancy editing and without much interaction? We had six people out there filming that day and about seven people to film. For how difficult it is to film and move around this race, I think we did a good job. But I still don’t love our race scene and I cringe every time I watch it.

During my time editing, I had many moments of, “What are we even doing with this?” Or, “Does this matter? Do we just cut it?” Which are good questions to ask but were paralyzing for me. Again, I leaned on our team. Ryan and I did a few power hours where I would edit for a bit, then call him, chat about it, then edit some more. And moments like that pushed me forward. More growth and connection.

Comparison

Ah, the theft of all joy. It was the only negative part of working with such a skilled team. In some ways it pushed me and supported my own growth, but there were moments when I felt like an imposter. Some of the scenes and kids I had filmed solo and those looked a lot different in the film. In my head, that was a bad thing. And I struggled to edit those sections feeling like we had similar shots for all the kids except the ones I filmed. It wasn’t until one of the last days of editing that I admitted that to Ryan. He immediately reframed it. Different was good! It added variety to the film and he actually really liked the scenes I had filmed. Another moment of growth.

Thankful

Making docs it hard, but incredibly rewarding. I love what we created and that we did it as a team. I love that our community supported us and trusted us with crowdfunding before we had made anything. I loved every premiere we did. Bringing the community together to see the film felt otherworldly. To see the kids embrace their stardom and enjoy being part of the viewings was so cool. We even got on live TV! To make it into eight different film festivals was epic, even if we didn’t get into Mill Valley which we think we should have.

Yes, making this doc was challenging in many ways from me, but I grew from it and that’s the point. In art, we pour ourselves into something we care about and are transformed by the process. I am a different Tony, a better Tony for having been a part of this doc and I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you to all the folks who supported us, were part of making this film, were in the film, who came to our premieres, and of course, thank you Paddy, Ryan, and Nicole for being the best filmmaking team there is. Can’t wait for the next one.

Watch Dipsea Generations

The Day Rate

If you search the internet for how much you should be charging, you’ll either come across a lot of numbers that have no meaning and seem pretty low or a vague statement that’s like, “Charge by what you need to sustain your lifestyle divided by how many days you want to work.” This statement always bothered me. First, “sustain my lifestyle” really doesn’t leave much room to grow, save, invest, start a family, etc. Second, “how many days I want to work” is equally vague. I want to work quite a bit of days but I don’t always (almost never) get to choose those days. So let’s actually look at this statement and make some calculations.

How many days can you actually work?

We have 365 days a year but most people only work 5 days a week, plus 15 days vacation and we’ll throw in 10 sick days. So really, we have about 235 days of workable time. BUT you have to remember we’re not working all of these days despite what may be our best efforts to do so. As a freelancer, we’re also CEOs, CMOs, COOs, CFOs, sales people, customer success people, check chasers, idea pitchers, and sometimes on top of all this, we have second jobs! So, realistically, we get a quarter of that time to actually work for clients as the rest of the time we’re working on the biz or trying to get clients. 58.75 days. We’ll round to 60.

What do you need to live?

Now how much do we need to live? Check your rent and your past few credit card payments for a good baseline. My rent is $1450, not bad for SF. My personal expenses are about $2k a month including grocery shopping, utilities, going out every now and then, gas, tolls, and whatever the heck else I want! Stop snooping on my life! OK, OK. Let’s say $3500 a month to sustain my lifestyle. Yours maybe very different. I live in an expensive city and I think I’m still pretty low. When I first started this career, I lived in a community house where I shared a room with another person. We can do wild things to start living our passion but I don’t think it’s sustainable. Eventually, most of us want partners, houses, and retirement savings.

On that note, let’s add a meager 10% for our savings so we can first build a runway buffer as we won’t always have work and then be able to add to a retirement fund and invest. And then of course we have the camera gear and accessories we need to actually do the jobs. Let’s add another 10% for continuing gear upgrades and maintenance. Ah, but then the government sees you living a pretty good life and they want their cut! 20% more! A very rounded tax estimate. Taxes are so friggin complicated when you get in the weeds, so I’m just making it simple for now. We’re now close to $5000 a month, $60,000 a year! That’s some poverty levels for San Francisco. I think for a new Freelancer, this is a good benchmark to aim for. Strive to get a 50-60k year under your belt as quickly as you can. And of course, this divided by our days we can work, we get about a $1000 day rate. Not bad. Again, I think new freelancers should try to get up to a 1k day rate as quick as they can.

Beyond the Day Rate

It’s not just about a day rate though. All gigs need more time than a “day.” Days you’re traveling aren’t days you can be working. Days where you have client meetings, virtually or otherwise, aren’t days that you can be out for another client all day. So we should be charging for these things as they eat into our workable days. Travel Day Fees, which is different from Travel Expenses, and Pre-production Fees are all widely accepted things to charge for.

I laugh sometimes when clients just ask for my rate sheet or just my day rate. I try to convince them it won’t help and that understanding and proposing a budget based on the project and deliverables is much more accurate. I digress.

A Day isn’t just a day

Now let’s get into the fun part. I work a lot of events in the trail running world. 100 kilometer and 100 mile races where runners are out there 8-24+ hours! That, plus all the time you need to capture them before and after these races. We’re not talking about the standard 7-8 hour day. These longer days deserve higher rates. And when you’re outdoors, running around capturing runners, and sometimes not sleeping much or at all for days in a row, there is a recovery time. I can’t do another big gig for at least a few days after working a 100k and maybe even a week after a 100 miler. So I think these rates should be 2-3x to account for that. We should have a separate, lower editing day rate when we’re in the comfort of our homes doing a normal 7h day, but the out-in-the-field rate should reflect the time it takes out of your workable days.

How do we grow?

All this and we haven’t even talked about skills, quality of work, proprietary knowledge and access, or the long term toll it takes on our bodies all of which increases with time in the industry. Eventually, you might be starting a family and buy a home. Totally normal things. It feels wild that I might have to justifying this.

These numbers of $1000-2000 day rates are good for new people coming into this industry but eventually your skills and knowledge grow and your expenses with kids and a mortgage grow. $3000-4000 day rates should be normal, but this is around the range where I’ve seen push back from brands. Perhaps that’s because I’m working events and the real money is in campaigns. It’s also because the Outdoor Industry just isn’t as mature as others. I know Tech has even higher rates.

The Perfect Day Rate

Without a guide at my side, I went from taking whatever I could get to eventually standardizing on 1k, then 1.5k the next year, and after a couple years of that, I’m mostly using 2k with some exceptions depending on a lot of factors including the client size, the difficulty of the work, my current workload, and of course, does it sound fun? One metric I’ve used to grow, is to just keep raising your day rate until you start getting too many “No’s.” Good for experimenting but a bit nerve wrecking if you can’t hear too many “no’s” before you worry about rent checks.

The perfect day rate, though, is the confluence of happy client and happy you. It’s as much as the client can pay while being happy with the deliverables they get. It’s the lowest you’re willing to take and still feel valued and supported to do your best work. If anything, I think clients should be overpaying as it’s not really their money and a creative who’s happy and feels supported is way more likely to work harder and overdeliver than one that isn’t.

Considerations

There is a lot more to charging for your work than what I wrote above so you’ll also have to consider things like:

• Can the client pay this? Is it worth this to them? There are companies of all sizes and appreciations of media so don’t take it personally if they can’t. You can decide to lower your rates to them, negotiate, educate, or simply move on knowing they just aren’t the right client for you.

• I’ve seen invoices where someone’s “Creative Fee” for a day was 30k. Just for that one person. While I aspire to this level, much of the kind of work I do with events in the outdoor industry just isn’t ready for those numbers. Perhaps other industries and campaign work are better places to get those rates.

• I could be very wrong about all this and if I am, someone please tell me so I can raise my rates lol.

• Above I estimate 10% for savings which is 350 in those numbers. I put that into a compound investing calculator at 8% and it gets you to just over a million in 40 years. I don’t know about you, but a mil doesn’t feel as big as it used to. Realistically, this should be bigger. Something to raise as you grow. Also, I started this career in my 30s so I don’t even have 30 years left.

• I’m sure you can point out a lot of errors in my math here. I could too. This is a back-of-the-napkin estimation session so chill.

• Estimating 7 hours for a “day” as you need a lunch break! Not including commuting time.

• None of this is to say I don’t love what I do. Ya, I could make money easier another way, probably. But that’s not the point. It’s only advantageous for brands and for other freelancers to be building sustainable careers. The industry won’t do well if everyone has to grow out of it in 5-10 years.

• An alternative to Day Rates is Value-Based Pricing. While I think it would be great to know how much money companies make from the work I produce and charge accordingly, this information is very hard to get from a brand and sometimes they don’t even know.

Why share this?

I hope it’s obvious but just in case, I’m sharing this so that freelancers and clients everywhere can work better together. Clients might not know and may need a good gauge on what it will cost to hire people so they can factor it into their budgets earlier on. Freelancers new to the space will have no idea what to charge and most will default low because 90% of people feel imposter syndrome or think they aren’t worth that much especially if you are a normal person who still thinks $1000 is like a ton of money. For us, it might be, for many companies, it’s not. The more new freelancers know about how to charge appropriately, the less likely the rest of the industry will be undercut.

Will you share with me?

Probably should have done this before writing the post but here we are. If you don’t mind anonymously sharing with me your day rate(s), I will compile all my findings and share some of the statistics in another post. Share this post or at least this survey with other people in the industry. The more responses we get we better the findings will be!

Day Rate Survey

The low hum of chitter chatter, the moist air from the winter season rain, every now and then, a laugh sounds out over it all. It’s Saturday, and the trail running community gathers for the group long run. The energy is excitement for some and subdued for others. Maybe they’re new. Everyone who’s here chose trails this morning. Everyone who’s here chose to do it with the community. The promise of other people to run those trails with. So why then, I wonder to myself, am I running up this hill alone?

We’re 2 miles into the group run and starting the first big climb. It’s about a 2-mile climb and reasonably runnable. But here I am, alone. I can see the “fast crew” up ahead, slowly pulling away. I swore they told me they were going to “take it easy” today and were “just here to socialize.” Maybe so. Their easy pace, I guess, is still too fast for me. I started with that group, but when they started pulling away on the flat start while I was doing 7:30s, I had to chill. No way I could burn matches then, when 15 miles still stood in front of me.

As I curse the “fast crew” for duping me yet again, I get passed. Another solo runner like me doing his best to catch that lead group. Go get ‘em, buddy. A minute later, another passes. Damn, I didn’t think I was that slow up hills. Another passes. This time, it’s two of them. They say, “Hi” and the lady asks me how I am. I mutter “Hey, good good” back, but it’s strained. They too push ahead. In my state, that interaction means more than she probably thinks it does. Thanks for the acknowledgement.

We’ve barely climbed halfway up this hill, and I’m losing it. Did I really come here to run alone? Should I slow down and wait for one of the groups behind me? Maybe I’ll catch them on the downhill. Should I take a shorter route? Am I really this slow, or is this lingering from the cold I had last week? It’s funny how quickly your mind can turn on you. You can show up to enjoy some time with friends, time in nature, time in motion, yet your mind can always find ways to make it less fun.

I’m passed again. This time, it’s a small group. They don’t seem like they’re going that much faster than me, so I pick up the pace to hold on. They’re talking about shoes, classic runners. Upper this, outsole that, I hear “Oh, I liked those a lot until they updated the tongue.” I’m working hard to keep up, so I don’t say anything, but I’m happy to be running with someone. I enjoy what I call the Trail Radio, when you’re working too hard to participate in a conversation, so you just listen as you put one foot in front of the other, breathing the cool air hard like a metronome.

Eventually, they too pull away. Alone again.

“Hey, Tony!” I look back to see that the group of friends that I was going to “slow down for” has caught me. Silly me to think I had to wait for them. Again, I hold on for a few minutes, and again they pull away. “See you back at the store,” they say. “See ya,” I squeeze out. We’re only just over 3 miles into this damn run.

Group runs are great, despite what you might be thinking. I love community. Community has helped me through some tough times. It’s where I fell in love with trails. We have a large trail community here, and I regularly participate in 3 or more group runs a week. Usually, there are enough people that you’re guaranteed to find someone at your pace. BUT, I wonder about that as I’ve found it hard as of recent to find that pace group. Seemingly too slow for the “fast group” but pushing too hard for the “medium group,” I’ve done more solo group runs than I remember ever having to do.

The more I think about it now, the more I wonder if I actually prefer running with just one other person. Someone who will run my pace not because it’s their pace but because they want to run with me. And I run their pace because I want to run with them. A mutual pace we establish together, sometimes with no words said, but contradictingly so we can speak more words. Someone I can chat and connect with. The “group” or “community” feels too impersonal these days. It’s commitment for those who hate commitment. You come to the group because anyone will do for your run buddy. It’s almost an excuse for not having a deeper connection. In a group, it’s too easy to hide. Too easy to claim I’m too slow or too fast to run with anyone. Too easy to forgo the effort required for an actual connection with another human.

I come around another corner, and I can see the top of the climb. A few people are standing there waiting. Maybe they’re waiting for me. I’m passed again. It’s a small crew of high schoolers, maybe college students. They blow by me. Must have started late.

At long last, I reach the top. Thank goodness. Those waiting at the top weren’t waiting for me, but in the distance, I can see that group of friends from earlier bombing the downhill. Downhills are my thing, so let’s go! I put on a bit of gas and slowly reel them in. Just as fast as the trail’s grade turned negative, all doubt has cleared my mind. Oh man, they’re bombing! Burning a match or two here is worth it. I had my alone time. Go join the group, Tony.

I catch them. “Hey, Tony!” Someone says again. “What’s up, y’all?” I can finally say with some breath. I’m finally

running with people. All feels right in the world. Weird that I ever had doubt. This is easy, I’m cruising! We chat, we laugh, it feels great. Then I look up, and there is the next hill. Here we go again.

I love this conversation not just because Luke is an easy guy to talk to and endlessly interesting, but also because he takes the time to think deeply about his work and how he presents it. So much of our modern social media consumption is quick hits. Luke takes a different approach by using time to pause and think about what he’s saying to tell a deeper, more meaningful story.

P.S. Sorry for the wind noise.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Luke’s journey from 20+ years of sport brand building to freelancing creative himself.

• How working at Rapha changed how he viewed working with athletes and Brands.

• How he grew up with sport as part of his DNA.

• How he’s excited by the never-ending evolution of media in sport.

• How he uses every aspect of social media to tell stories.

• How he takes a moment to think about and tell a better story instead of just posting immediately.

• Judging his creative against all creative, not just within his sport.

• His love of shadows.

• How spending more time with his work brings out more creativity.

• How constraints add and grow to your creativity.

• How brands and creatives can work better together.

• The importance of brands using creatives that are already doing cool things in the sport.

• How photography and storytelling changed him.

• His creative process and how he works with brands.

• His thoughts on social media and how it changes creativity.

• The importance of building different skills.

• Staying true to your viewpoint.

• How getting to know a creative on a personal level tells you so much about their work.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I do!

You can find Luke and his work on his Instagram @theother12hours.

He also referenced some of the people he gets inspiration from: Ben Clement & Mark Clinton

New City, New Vibe

I’ve only been going to TRE for 3 years, with this being my 4th. Perhaps the city has changed in the past, but this was my first time with a city change. The past few years, it’s been in Austin, and this year it was in San Antonio. Austin is a blast. The live music scene, the unique and creative bars, and the general going-out vibes are stellar. San Antonio was pretty damn fun, but the vibe just wasn’t there. Or at least I couldn’t find it.

Now, of course, this conference is an actual trade show, and it’s not just about going out and the parties, but that definitely is a big reason I love it, and where I find it fun to meet new people and “network” but really just meeting good people and having fun. When people are at their booths on the conference floor, they are focused on their job. But at night, that falls away, and everyone is excited to socialize. And so, I believe it’s important to have good places and vibes to socialize in.

While Austin is just better set up for this, I think a large part is just everyone trying to figure out this city and what’s good and what’s not good. In a few years, I’m sure we’ll have figured it out. We have at least 4 more years in San Antonio. I will say, the River Walk was pretty cool and definitely the highlight of San Antonio.

The Show

The conference center is much bigger and more modern than the one we had in Austin, which was definitely noticeable. The floor and the booths themselves all felt pretty similar, though. Some brands keep it simple and show off their latest products, while other brands try to make a splash and stand out. The best booth design, hands down, goes to Tantrums for the second year in a row.

Adam and his team created a bodega with so much detail, I can’t even name it all. Everything in the store was Tantrums branded and there was even a classic security video camera; it was just perfection. Nice work!

I also liked The North Face booth, where they recreated a bit of the outdoors and had some nice nature sounds playing. I liked it as a contrast to the more industrial booth designs, and it seemed to fit their brand really well.

Satisfy did their usual closed-off, exclusive space, and Soar did a similar thing on a much smaller scale.

I actually had to work all day Wednesday, which is the biggest day to roam the conference floor, so I missed out on a lot of things, I’m sure. I did a speed run on Thursday to make up for it. I’m sure there were many other cool booths, but the ones that caught my eye were SuperFeet, Nike, and Altra.

Altra’s booth design wasn’t much different than last year, but they have continued to rebrand and find their place in this giant, saturated sea of running brands. Their new direction seems to lean into some edginess with the “AF” tagline in most of their wording. From what I’m told, it’s been doing better with the younger crowds. I actually like it personally, too. It’s different than what I saw anywhere else. It feels like a giant shift from their usual brand imagery, but I think it actually does align with their ethos of being different. When everyone was going big cushion, they went zero drop. Whether that’s your thing or not, I think they are a bit unique and radical for continuing to push that. “Unique AF*” they might say.

The Brands

I read a few posts about no one innovating and everything feeling similar. I get that. There doesn’t feel like there is a huge standout innovation. Maybe that’s because the industry is slowing, maybe it’s because they are hiding all the good stuff now that the show has grown to include too much media. Either way, I don’t mind it. If I think back on the big innovations we’ve had in the past ten years, it’s been super foam manufacturability and carbon plates in road shoes. That’s about it. We don’t need to and probably can’t innovate every year. Small incremental steps seem like a better way. And sure, every now and then, throw in a crazy innovation.

I thought ON’s LightSpray was going to be the next innovation, but it hasn’t seemed to catch on, and no one is trying to replicate it. I think what Nike is doing with that weird-looking cooling shirt, Radical AirFlow, is super interesting, and I wonder how that will grow and influence other brands. It was also interesting to see Nike leaning so hard into the ACG brand. They have signed a bunch of great athletes and are sponsoring some of my favorite races in 2026. They’re coming back in hard after that hard pull out of Specialty Run they did a few years ago. I hope they’re in it for the long haul. Excited to see how they keep investing.

The People

My favorite part of TRE is, of course, the people. I love going because people aren’t working in the same way they do at races and events throughout the year. It really feels like a fun chance to connect and chat with all the people I saw this year in a non-pressured situation.

I had a lot of conversations, and my favorites were with a few peers who all want the same thing. More community, better storytelling, higher quality content, and deeper connection. We’re probably biased, I’m sure, but it is really exciting to talk to people who are looking for the same things and trying to build those things. This conference is 95% about gear, but I think that’s the least interesting part of it. I love the planning and scheming. The hoping and dreaming. Of a better running industry and one we’re all more excited to be in.

Is anyone else feeling this?

Emily Cameron sits down with me to talk about the creative life she’s built for herself by following her passion and having fun. Emily was once a committed athlete, and one day picked up a camera to photograph her sport and fell in love. A story that many of us media folks can relate to. In fact, every person on this podcast so far has had this beginning. Maybe there is a theme here I didn’t see coming.

Emily has been joining our media crew at the Broken Arrow Skyrace for the past two years, and it’s becoming a bit of a tight community. Thanks, Scott! When she’s around, we’re always laughing and having a good time. Good energy for long, stressful shoot days.

I really enjoyed learning more about Emily’s journey to picking up a camera and falling in love with photography, as well as the way she thinks about her business and creativity. We also talked about:

• How people are her real creative inspiration.

• Her background as a swimmer and triathlete, going for pro status.

• How COVID changed her whole trajectory.

• How she interviewed 60 people in her town to decide if she wanted to stay.

• How she fell in love with photography.

• How she’s always “finding the hole.”

• On taking chances and big swings on personal projects.

• The struggles of social media and running a business.

• And how mentors and her support network help her steer the ship.

Enjoy the conversation!

Check out Emily on IG!

*Cover photo by Will Saunders.

The Pyrenees

…are beautiful! This mountain range wasn’t really on my radar, but now I really want to go back and explore. It doesn’t have the epic glaciers that Chamonix has, but it does have epic mountains, vast expanses, dramatic reliefs, and rock coloring and formations that feel like the American Southwest had a baby with the Alps. Like the Alps, it has huts and great walks. The Camino de Santiago walked through many of the places where we were hanging out. I’m definitely going to scheme a little hut-to-hut trip here someday.

The Competition

…was deep! The races were unlike any race I had been to before. You can’t just sign up for a World’s race. Everyone out there was an elite athlete in their country. The races were so fast, and if you weren’t having your best day ever, you easily fell 10s/20s of spots. Seeing some of the best athletes we have in the states getting in the 30s and 40s was kinda crazy. It led to some great racing and close finishes, although we still had a few blowouts, *cough* Katie *cough*.

The Team Aspect

…was super fun and added a new dynamic to the whole weekend. If you were the third person in your country in a race, you still had to work hard even if you were in 20th or 40th place. Every minute counted for a country’s top 3 runners, and it added a bit to the excitement. Cross country fans won’t be surprised by this, but for a trail running, this was a bit different. It was also fun to see big groups of athletes walking around together in town, all dressed in the same colors. You could spot someone on the German team or the Irish team from a mile away.

however

Not every team was equal. I’m not sure how accommodations are planned, but some teams definitely seemed to get the short end of the stick with hostel-like places, while some teams, like Team USA, were in beautiful hotels. Many trail teams are an afterthought when compared to their track and field counterparts, so I heard some complaints about the lack of support, terrible race kit options, horrendous food, and many other things that definitely didn’t set up the athletes for success. Feels like an unfair advantage for a team to just have a ton more money than another team, but I guess this isn’t that different from normal trail running.

Speaking of the Food

It was a shock. As a plant-based eater, I struggled quite a bit. Spain, or at least the area we were in, was meat-heavy. Finding a vegetable was challenging, and Jaca, being a small town, meant places that did have vegetarian fare sold out quickly. There was also the midday siesta that made eating times very specific and not conducive to whenever you get off the mountains. All this, paired with the off-season ski town of Jaca having many places closed for the fall, led to a shitty diet for me. If I had to do it again, I’d stock up on groceries and pre-plan meals.

A Vision Toward the Olympics

I was told that if any part of trail running has a shot of getting into the Olympics, it’s this format. The Olympics want standardization and rules. Which feels a little antithetical to Trail Culture. I get it, though. I would love to see some form of trail running in the Olympics as well. It won’t be the trail running I know and love, but it will still bring a lot to our sport. That said, Worlds is trying to apply and enforce rules to get there. Some of these rules are impossible to enforce, though, and so I want to look at a few examples I saw.

Media Regulations

Like the Olympics, Brands can’t activate with their athletes, although it’s definitely not as strict as the Olympics, but it means many athletes can’t be celebrated by their sponsors. This race doesn’t pay out, and with media restrictions like this, sometimes athletes can’t make money on sponsor bonuses from doing well. Many athletes don’t prioritize Worlds because of their sponsors and contracts. Does it have to be this way? Could we start doing better in trail running instead of following track and field’s path?

Another silly rule was the restricted areas for the media. We got a PDF explaining how some areas were off limits due to athlete safety. Seems reasonable, and I avoided those areas like a good little rule follower. Except I come to find out many media people went to those places and got some cool shots because no one else was there. And of course, there was no punishment and no one cared. That will be the last time I follow the rules.

My final media restriction gripe was the finish line vests. They only allowed 20 media people into the finish line, and so you had to request ahead of time to get a vest that allowed you in. Not a bad plan except that once someone left the finish line and returned the vest, no one else could get that vest. So after the top people finished, the media corral slowly dwindled to nobody. No one was there to watch women finish beyond 10th place. And with more than 20 countries participating, not every country could even have a photographer in the corral. It felt super restrictive for no reason. I have a lot more I didn’t like about the finish line, but I’ll leave it at that.

Athlete Kits

Athletes had to wear kits from their team sponsor, Nike in the case of Team USA. But it was easy for the athletes to wear a running vest that covered up the Nike logo and had their Brand’s logo instead, so it kinda of seemed like a silly rule to me. I also hate this restriction because why do we have to force athletes to wear gear they are unfamiliar with and maybe don’t like? At least they were allowed to wear whatever shoes they wanted. It feels like we’re not really interested in athletes performing their best or prioritising their experience; instead, they are our little billboard advertisements running around a mountain.

No Aid Outside Aid Stations

What constitutes aid outside of an aid station? It seems like it should be obvious, but also so hard to define. You can’t give or take anything to or from a runner, that’s pretty clear-cut. But deciding if someone is pacing an athlete is harder. We’ve decided on a time or distance rule of not running with an athlete for 100m or whatever it is, but this seems silly. I saw a woman somewhere between 10th and 20th get yellow carded, a time penalty, because a friend or even just a random fan ran with them 100 meters into an aid station. They weren’t even trying to help the athlete; they were just cheering and waving their flag. This kind of upset me. Who cares? Did that little jog really help that athlete beyond what anyone else was getting? There were big crowds all over the course cheering for people. The French were out in force, cheering harder every time a French athlete came through. Is that unfair? What about the huge crowds dissipating after the top runners came through? Is that unfair for the rest of the field? What about the remote areas of the course where someone could (and did) run with their athlete for some miles? That seems unfair, but no one was there to enforce it. Having some guy pull a yellow card on the 15th female for having a fan excitedly run with her for 100m felt like overkill and a power trip. If we can’t enforce this rule everywhere, maybe we can be more relaxed about it in places where it doesn’t matter.

I’ll still go back

Despite all my complaints, I had a great time and I’ll be back. I’ll definitely be back to the Pyrenees as I want to explore those mountains. And I hope I can go back to Worlds in 2027 in Cape Town! Stu, the race director for UTCT and a friend, is helping organize it, and I hope I can chat with him about some of these topics, but I also know he’s an excellent race director and maybe is already thinking of things he wants to do differently. Can’t wait to check back in 2 years from now!

Want to change the world you live in? Be like Molly.

Following her passion for biking, Molly ended up in Portland and saw a need to create a community where anyone felt welcome. She started a bike shop, assembled a legit all-women’s biking team, and created a community where non-binary, non-gendered, trans, and queer folx could be supported on their biking journey. Molly was a major part of the movement that led Portland to become the thriving, diverse biking community it is today.

I had the privilege of working with Molly at the GU Energy athlete camp in Tucson earlier this year. We immediately hit it off, and so I asked if we could record a podcast. The discussion ended up being fascinating. Molly has a depth of experience in community building that kept me asking more. As a community builder myself with the November Project, I really enjoyed hearing about her experience. We covered a lot in this 2-hour conversation, and yet there was so much more I wanted to talk about. I would definitely do this again with Molly.

We talked about:

• Her journey from a punk-rock skater in SF, to building much-needed bike communities and professional teams in Portland, to picking up a camera and telling the overlooked stories.

• The artistry behind athletics and moving through a space via a bike or your feet.

• Her creative process, involving instinct and experience, and always starting the day with a clean slate.

• How she’s trying to create a process that gives her more time to be with family and friends.

• The importance of considering BIPOC folx and their skin tones in your photography.

• Access in the sport and our responsibility as media people.

• The power of relationship building over decades.

• Inspiration through movement.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!

Follow Molly on IG!

Watch on YouTube

If you missed episode 1 with Zach Litoff, check it out. I just received his book in the mail from the Olympic Trials last year, and it is stunning! I’m taken by the sheer amount of work that went into this book. Not just the creation of the book itself, but the body of work that he put in here. It’s visually stunning, beautiful, creative, and even funny at times. Highly recommend purchasing a copy and supporting his work!

I’ve had a lot of new readers subscribe because of my last post about Western States, so I thought it a good time to level set with what this Substack is about.

First off, you probably noticed this, but I don’t post often or on a normal cadence. I work as a full-time photographer and filmmaker in the running industry, and I don’t always have time to write. Because of this, it’s free to be here. I enjoy writing when I have the time, and it’s nice to have an audience. So enjoy the posts when they do happen, and interact with me if you like them!

Second, what do I talk about? It’s mostly me working through the problems I encounter in my career/life, which are often more mental than physical. If you’ve read back through my past work, you’ll get the idea. Sometimes it will be a thought exercise that I’m working through, sometimes it will simply be complaining, sometimes it will be sharing what inspires me, sometimes it will be about creativity, and other times it will be more technical. It won’t be focused on one area as it will be a reflection of myself, which I’d like to think is multifaceted.

A couple of guarantees, though. It will never be written by AI. That would defeat the purpose of my enjoying the writing. I won’t try to sell you on anything. I don’t plan to monetize this, so my only incentive here is to entertain you and me, and if I’m being honest, I mostly am doing it just to entertain myself. And if you ever want to ask me about something, I’ll respond.

With that out of the way, let’s get into today’s topic.

NonDē and Running Media

I recently stumbled upon the Substack world of NonDē, led mainly by a guy named Ted Hope and his Substack, Hope for Film. He claims that Indie or Independent filmmaking never lived up to its promise and is dead. Instead, he hopes to facilitate the next version of this. NonDē or Not Dependent means to have a thriving film ecosystem that isn’t dependent on corporations or the Hollywood systems of the past. Don’t worry too much about this NonDē concept, as I’m still trying to wrap my head around his message and this movement. It was a post from a different author about NonDē culture that got me thinking. The post was from Ted Gioia where he shared this graphic as a summary.

Artist vs Entrepreneur

This NonDē movement and the thoughts on Indie culture feel more tied into being an artist, but that’s not fully me. I like working with Brands and teams of creative people to make something bigger come to life. So, how does all this fit into a career path more like that? This and all aspects of the Indie culture above have been bouncing around in my brain recently.

End Isolation

Freelancing can be quite isolating at times. I miss the collaboration of a team, and when I do get to work with others, it’s a joy. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how to bring the community of trail creatives together, and I hope to start bringing these ideas to life soon. There is a lot of power in bringing us together. So much we can share, so much we can learn from each other, and so much we can support each other with.

Sharing can be scary, though. The past has instilled a Scarcity mindset in us, and it can be hard to kick it. If I share my “secrets,” how will I keep my advantage? Should I sell this knowledge instead of sharing it freely? How do I win? These questions are the lingering scar of scarcity, and their answers are meaningless in abundance. Abundance is a practice, and some days we’ll get it right, others we’ll get it wrong. As long as we can trend in the right direction.

Build Platforms and Alliances

I remember not long ago, a group of creators started a joint Patreon to use existing platforms to create a different kind of collective work model. I wonder how they’re doing. Either way, this is an area that we’re lacking. Patreon and the like are focused on single users or brands. It’s not their fault, though. So much focus is on the individual. That’s the direction we’ve been going in as a society. Leaning more and more into individualism.

Influencers, creators, solopreneurs, freelancers, whatever you want to call them, it’s on the rise. We’re leaving the old company model behind in search of time and location flexibility, being our own bosses, and with the hope that we can make it big. This brings us back to ending isolation. Time is a flat circle. Next thing you know, we’ll form collectives of individuals working toward a shared goal, and we’ll call it “a company!” Genius! Joking aside, what will this new middle ground be? Can we have collectives and alliances of individuals that can truly be themselves as well as share in the collective growth? What kinds of platforms might we need to accomplish this? What’s next?

Defend Our Rights

I believe our creations are ours. We should own what we create. As a photographer, it’s simple. We own the photos we take, and we can license them to companies for use. I’m sure there is nuance in there, and not every photoshoot needs to be this way, but I believe this should be the default. We shouldn’t be scared to push back on clients who want copyright. If a client wants copyright, they know these images have more value, and I don’t think we should give up that value so easily.

This concept gets more difficult to understand with larger productions. Who owns something when multiple contributors caused its creation? We haven’t yet created good structures for this type of work. Usually, it flows up to the company that paid for the production. But is there a better way? A way that supports the people who created it? Maybe a fractional ownership model. More thought needs to be put into this.

Create an Ecosystem of Risk Taking

How do we encourage risk-taking, fresh perspectives, and innovative work? Support. The more support you have, the more willing you are to take a risk. A recent example I can think of was at the Miwok 100k. I hired a second photographer to help photograph the race. We had to capture every runner as well as more of the “marketing shots.” Having the support of two photographers meant that we could dedicate some of that day to taking risks and trying something new. I shot a lot of the race with a fish-eye lens. I knew every runner was still going to get a typical trail running shot, and maybe they would also get something a little different. Not a risk I would have taken if it were just me out there.

With support, we can grow ourselves and the industry. This brings us back to the previous topics of bringing us together in community and building platforms and alliances to support each other.

Support Initiatives

I’m always looking out for people doing things differently. It’s exciting to find those smart people out there, and one person who keeps landing in my feed is Yancey, one of the founders of Kickstarter. He recently created a new Kickstarter-like platform for artists and collectives to sell their work. Check out MetaLabel if you have a second, but more interestingly, he’s been pushing for a new kind of legal structure. A-Corps, or Artist Corporations, would help artists and collectives finally have a corporate structure that reflects the way they want to work. The concept of A-Corp is still in its infancy, but the idea is exciting.

And this now ties us back to NonDē. An initiative I’m infinitely curious about. Mostly because I wonder if it’s possible. Can we really change? If I’ve learned anything, it’s that we can’t do it alone. If change is coming, it’s coming because we’re all moving together.

I’m not sure where I’ll land with all of this, but if this post sparked something in you, reach out. If you’ve been grappling with these questions and ideas too, reach out. If you just want to connect with another creative, reach out. Let’s build a better future for all of us, together.

In today’s episode, I sat down with Aisha McAdams on the eve of her Boston Marathon run. She was nice enough to meet up with me last minute after what I’m sure was a long weekend of work. I walked into her Airbnb as she was destroying a sandwich, carbo-loading for Boston no doubt, along with three sweet potatoes roasting in the oven.

Aisha is very talented and I was stoked to chat with her. The conversation turned out insightful beyond what I could have imagined. Seriously, every moment of this is packed full of wisdom. Conversations like this are why I started this podcast and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

We covered:

• Her relationship with running and how she got into photography.

• How she follows her gut when deciding what stories to tell.

• How focusing on your own community and the people within it is the best place to start.

• Finding child-like joy and awe when picking projects.

• Her journey through burnout and finding ways to a sustainable career.

• Clients as booty calls vs relationships.

• Her thoughts on Social Media and comparison.

• Why she started Rhoam Creative Studio.

• How she’s thinking about her future in this career.

Links:

• Aisha’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/ai.shoots

• Rhoam: https://www.rhoamcreativestudio.com/

Growth

It’s undeniable. Our sport has grown a ton. It seemed on a steady trajectory until this year at States. The crowds were massive. I was slack-jawed a few times just from the sheer numbers. We’re seeing a huge boom in trail running. It’s both wonderful to see and horrifying to witness.

With growth comes money to support the storytellers (like me), the athletes, the races, the tech improvements that help every runner, more sustainable businesses, tourism dollars, etc. In many ways, creating media and telling stories has been supporting this growth. But I wonder, is it growing too fast?

I’m not the first to ask this question. Dylan Bowman has been asking it for years. Before him, others have asked. Growth brings change, and those who were involved before the change will always question it.

I’m not here to stop it. In fact, I can’t. My career relies on its growth, and just stopping what I do won’t change anything or make me feel better.

Bursting at the seams

The Western States course runs through a lot of small, old gold rush towns. Towns with populations in the hundreds. I think we 2-5x’ed the population this weekend. For even smaller towns (neighborhoods?) like Michigan Bluff, we probably 50-100x’ed. Cars lined the streets for miles as parking became a struggle. Giant crowds took up the race course through Forest Hill, causing a small opening for runners and media to cram through. Did this bring a lot of hype? Yes. Did it make the media people’s job harder? Yes.

One sad moment I had at Forest Hill was the lack of trash cans. So many brands showed up with booths to activate the masses. Food and handouts galore. But I couldn’t find a trash can anywhere. This seems like a simple oversight. I wonder, is there any control over which brands can show up there? If so, can we require them to provide trash if they are giving things out? If there is no regulation, then all these brands just decided they didn’t want to deal with trash. I didn’t get to stick around for long, but I hope we didn’t leave Forest Hill a mess.

One thing I am curious about is the athlete’s perspective. Do they like this? I’m sure many love the crowd support. It’s one thing that makes marathons so attractive. But these large crowds are only present for the leaders. The mass noticeably dips by the time the top 10 men have come through. Then again, after the top 10 women. By the time the other 90% of runners come through, there is less hype. So then, do those leaders like it?

I’ve been curious about this topic with the popularization of live streams, too. In Europe, a lot of the big races have constant cameras on the runners. Following via mountain bikes, drones, camera runners, and sometimes helicopters. Do the runners like this? With so much of our sport being about solo runs in nature, does the big race energy kinda suck? Does the constant buzzing of a drone or bike gears for 24 hours suck? I’m actually curious.

The Future of WSER

I can only look at UTMB and see where we’re headed. Congested roads and small towns bursting over capacity. Nightmare getting around and environmental impact issues. Lead athletes who are never given a moment alone on the trail. Local residents dreading the event. Big brands raking in money.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, WSER participation is constrained by the number of runners who can run it, so there is some sort of cap. And I think spectators will fluctuate depending on the athletes (stars) who run that year.

But Hype though!

Don’t get me wrong. I like hype. I felt the energy on the escarpment and through Forest Hill. And of course, the wonderful energy at Golden Hour. I loved it, and I’m sure many of the runners did too.

What do we do?

I don’t actually have a solution. I don’t think we should try to stop growth, but I also don’t think we should be willy-nilly about it. It should be on Brands and race organizations to help with the people flow during these events. There is space for improvement here. What could a curated spectator experience look like?

An uncontrolled expansion will probably ruin the experience for runners, crews, race staff, local residents, and even the spectators themselves. It seems to me like a huge opportunity to craft the spectator experience.

Just one idea could be spectator shuttles. I hate to bring up UTMB again, but they have been providing shuttles to help people get around to crew or spectate. Although the issue is the large groups that seem to follow the leaders. UTMB shuttles make leader following impossible. They’re optimizing for the rest of the field.

What if people could park in Auburn somewhere and have buses that go from there to Robinson to catch the lead men and women, then go to Michigan, or perhaps skip that one and just head to Forest Hill and the finish? Or maybe restricting Robinson and Michigan Bluff to media and 1 crew vehicle like other aid stations do. I’m sure there are smarter people than me who could think of some way to do this.

What was it like for you? If you attended States, did you notice the crowds? If so, what were your thoughts?

I’m so excited to finally launch this documentary to the broader public! It’s been traveling around with the Trail Running Film Fest, showing in trail communities all over North America. The feedback has been so positive, and it’s time to bring it to everyone.

We Run Long is an organization trying to change representation in the trail running world. It’s full of really great people that I got to spend three days with in Colorado last year during their camp.

Although I was a fly on the wall, I felt the power of this gathering. People were vulnerable, supportive, and uplifting. And for many, this was something they had never experienced before. With the support of Altra Running and Freestone Endurance, everything was taken care of, from lodging and transportation to food and gear. The red carpet was rolled out, and it allowed the campers to relax and focus on community and being in nature.

It’s hard to describe how it felt to be there. Tears were flowing at the finish line of the 50k and 30k, which is the race that the camp culminated in. I think everyone walked away fulfilled and excited to be a part of the trail running community and to continue to seek positive change.

I’m truly grateful to have been a part of that weekend, and I hope I did it justice with this documentary. Please enjoy it and let me know what you think!

Watch on YouTube

Watch on Vimeo

What does it look like when joy, community, and representation converge on the trail?

This is Camp We Run Long. A celebration of belonging, leadership, and the power of showing up for each other in the outdoors.

For three days in the Colorado mountains near Buena Vista, trail runners from across the country gathered to learn, race, and simply be together in a space created for and by BIPOC runners. At the heart of it all are four runners: Kelsey, Rebecca, Ayako, and Alissa. They are the leaders of We Run Long, a community of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color runners seeking to expand their presence in a sport that they don’t often see themselves in.

Through workshops, shared miles, and the West Line Winder trail races, Camp We Run Long became more than an event—it became a reflection of what’s possible when people feel seen, supported, and free to be themselves.

Founded in 2021, WRL partners with races and brands to amplify BIPOC presence on the trails while honoring the Indigenous lands they move through. The 2024 camp was supported by Altra Running and Freestone Endurance.

This film is a joyful portrait of that weekend, and a glimpse of the future we’re running toward.

🎥 Directed by Tony DiPasquale (tonywithasony)
📝 Edited by Nicole Amyx and Tony DiPasquale
🎵 Music by Jacob Connor
📸 Cover by John Larracas
📍Filmed on Núu-agha-yuvu-pu (Ute) lands

The vision is simple. Have great conversations with talented creatives in the running industry. I hope to bring on photographers, filmmakers, artists, and storytellers of all mediums. We’ll chat about their background and how they got into running and creation. We’ll also talk about lifestyle, business, and balancing it all.

The goal is 12 episodes, once a month for a year. This should be a sustainable pace while working my main job. It also allows me to do them in person, which I think will make them special and unique in our digital age.

So onto the first episode! The first feels like a big step and I was so excited my buddy, Zach, said yes. He’s an amazing artist, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with him on a project before. You’ll just find the audio here, so please check out his work on his Substack () or Instagram.

Episode 1

In the first episode of Run of Show, I talk with Zach Litoff, a runner and artist. We discuss his journey from focusing on running to embracing art and transitioning from a physics major to a studio art major in college, influenced by a professor's advice to post art on social media. Zach's art, often blending running themes with different creative styles, has gained traction in our local running community and has even gone viral on Instagram.

We talk about:

• The importance of mentorship and the evolving role of social media in promoting art.

• The value of physical art over digital, emphasizing the importance of tangible creations for galleries and meaningful art.

• The benefits of digital tools like Procreate for experimentation.

• The challenges of running a creative business like managing finances and client relationships.

• The concerns about AI's impact on art and building a personal brand to differentiate from AI-generated work.

• Zach's inspirations and his recent work on a book about the changing landscape of track and field. Enjoy!

If you prefer video, check out the YouTube channel.

In one “ear,” I hear that any content I create must be valuable. You, your time is valuable. If you’re going to spend it reading, watching, and engaging with my shit, it better be worth it for you! You must be entertained, taught, or given 5 secret tips to make a million dollars in 5 seconds (buy a lot of crypto 15 years ago).

In the other “ear,” I hear that I should just create for creation’s sake. It’s about the journey. Just make what you want to see in the world and the weirdos who like it (you) will come.

This is often why I have struggled to write. What value am I bringing you? There are a bazillion (yes that’s the right number) different content pieces that exist in the world today. Why should you read mine? Hobbies don’t need to be valuable. Art doesn’t need to be valuable. I’m not charging you to read this but you are paying with your time.

Should I promise you the secrets of getting rich? Well, they haven’t worked for me.

Should I promise you the secrets of a successful business? Probably not, I don’t really know what I’m doing. You should talk to a business person about that. I ask my friend Elan. (not Musk)

Should I teach you how to use a camera? Just go watch a YouTube video.

Should I make you laugh? Eh, go watch Laura Green’s videos on IG. She’s pretty funny and I’m only funny in person … or at least I like to think so.

Should I give you life advice? I don’t even know you!

Should I just show you beautiful images and videos? What’s the value in that? A moment where you think, “Oh, cool image bro.”

Are all the people providing value with their content just grifters and con people? Trying to convince you they have some knowledge you need to do whatever you think you need to do to win, succeed, be happy, or find love?

“5 secrets everyone should know before they take a photo.” “DON’T pick up your camera before you watch this!”

Fuck that, just go take a photo.

Oops sorry, that was advice. I swore I wouldn’t give that here.

You want the dirty secrets, don’t you?!

We know clickbait titles when we see them, yet we click them anyway. We are obsessed with finding an advantage, a shortcut, or an edge. Is this hustle culture, capitalism, or just an evolutionary trait we needed to out-compete our rivals?

For some of us, it might be because we feel insufficient, unprepared, or an imposter. Are we looking for a guarantee, a path already taken we can follow? This is a fool’s errand. There are no guarantees and we are all unique enough that proven paths are unlikely to work for us. We are told to embrace the uncertainty. To do the work and not take shortcuts, but that’s easier said than done.

“You don’t need anything.”

An epiphany I had in a life coaching session once. It doesn’t mean anything to you. It’s not even helpful to you. I already can hear your “buts.” Of course, you need things. To me, it means freeing myself from the toxic preconditions we all feel before we take action. It helped me change my life. But it won’t help you.

I cannot give you the wisdom that I have found for myself. It only applies to me and I had to earn it. My “shortcuts” won’t help your life. You’ll have to “do the work” to learn your own lessons and find your own wisdom that works for you and your life.

The never-ending search

I find myself reading a lot of advice-style/personal growth writing. One day, my wife asked me, “What are you searching for?” I know that none of it is actually useful for the same reason described above, but every now and then, something resonates, and all of a sudden a click happens, an epiphany, and something I’ve been dealing with or mulling over becomes clear.

These epiphanies are everything.

I also read a lot of fantasy books and main characters always experience power growths from epiphanies into their own life, purpose, or journey. We’re the same. With epiphanies, we gain power over our lives. But everyone’s path is different. Life lessons may be similar among us but we often need to learn them our own way.

It’s funny how so much of human history has been learning new things and passing information to new generations. By doing this, humans have advanced technology to mind-boggling levels yet we still deal with the same human issues that our ancestors dealt with. Seems like it’s much harder to pass down those lessons.

So how do we find these revelations in our lives? I don’t really know but my best inclination is to live. Live life to its fullest, be human, talk to people, do things, just live. To be human is to have tensions in your life. Tension is the precondition to an epiphany. Reflect on your life often and take in info of all kinds. You’ll find your epiphanies and you’ll change your life.

I don’t need to give you value. Heck, I can’t give you value! But I guess I will give you some advice—get out there and live!

Some articles I’ve been pondering:

Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life

Toxic Preconditions

Amie’s Substack

We Need Men's Art.

Read more

a year ago · 364 likes · 114 comments · Amie McNee

First, I’d like to highlight a photographer I see at many races. He’s very talented and a really nice guy. He’s always good for a warm hello and a quick chat about the work weekend ahead. I’m talking about Miguel who shoots for Craft at every race. Take one look at his IG feed and you’ll see he’s quite good. I’m often inspired by images he takes at trail races. The post that caught my eye contained his photos but was posted on Tim’s feed.

Take a look at the original post for more and bigger photos. It reminds me of the old Pantone swatches I used to play with in Home Depot when I was a kid and my parents were buying paint. The photos themselves are great but this arrangement stopped my scroll and inspired me. It’s such a creative way to bring the physical back into the digital realm.

It also resonates for its storytelling. These aren’t just running photos. They’re photos of the team hanging out before the race, getting their bibs, relaxing with family, being with the team at the start, running the race, hardships throughout, and the finish line emotions. The full story of the weekend. They even used the text on the side that would normally be the Pantone color for extra storytelling.

Craft has another recent campaign that inspired me. They took out full-page ads in a Swedish magazine to print a blown-up face of one of their athletes and an entry of their training log overlayed. They bought 10 ads over 10 weeks of this athlete going for a run and measuring their stress levels. The goal was to show the healthy aspects of getting out on a run.

I love this not just because they used physical media, which I’ve been very into myself lately, but also because they invested in a long-form media project. It took 10 weeks and audiences had to buy the next magazine every week to see her progress. I have no idea if this did well or if the audience even knew what was going on but still was cool. Good job, Craft.

Inspiration Strikes

As with most inspiration, it just sits around in my head until it culminates into an idea. The final straw that broke the camel’s back happened during an interview for the Dipsea Documentary we’re making. We interviewed Sal Vasquez. He’s a legend of the Dipsea race. One of the most winningest people and even has a rule named for him after winning it too many times in a row.

After the interview, he showed us his old Dipsea scrapbook. It contained all the stuff collected over the years of his Dipsea career - race bibs, photos, news articles, etc. We were flipping through and toward the end, we turned the page, and boom! An array of old photo proofs!

So cool! Back in the day, photographers would get all the photos they took printed small so they could proof them and decide which to print bigger. They also would cut out these proofs and send them to the athletes to see if they wanted to purchase a print. I love film and this was an extra step in the long process of delivering photos to people. It's funny that the proofs aren’t much smaller than what we see on our phones nowadays.

I was struck with a bit of inspiration and had the idea to make some of my photos from Black Canyon look like old photo proofs. An old film look already inspires my editing style so adding this “proof look” wasn’t a giant leap. I mocked up a quick film strip in Photoshop and inserted my photos then cropped each photo a bit differently to give the effect of an imperfect scissor cut.

I’m pretty stoked about how they came out. A digital representation of an old physical thing. It would be a lot of fun to try and recreate this with real film next. Something I’m contemplating for the next race I shoot. Big Alta? Canyons? We’ll see!

It was a fun time and probably one of the only authentic experiences I’ve had abroad.

I’m just returning from a two-week honeymoon in New Zealand, a place that’s been on my list for a long time, and it has me thinking about the tourism industry and what an actual authentic experience is like.

“Authentic” has become a bit of a buzzword recently. We’re seeing consumers seeking it out in the Brands they buy from and the influencers and content they want. So what even is it? And can we even obtain it? I like to think of it as someone or something being true to its nature. An American cuisine restaurant on a small Caribbean island nation is probably not authentic.

As a trail runner, I’m often running on the beautiful trails of the places I visit. Although, if I think about it. These are curated experiences. Someone made these trails. Someone decides when you’ll go up and down. Whether you take switchbacks or hike straight up to reach the peak. What areas you avoid and what peaks you can even reach. Heck, most, maybe all of our experiences in the outdoors are curated. Rock climbers climb established routes, hikers and bikers are on the same trails as runners, rafting is guided and sometimes water levels are gifted via the dam upstream. Are we truly having authentic experiences in nature? Of course, there are many times backcountry options where trails disappear. These seem like the most authentic experiences but are enjoyed by only the most skilled and the fewest of outdoor enthusiasts.

Let’s not even get started on the thrill-seeking side of the outdoor tourism industry with its Shotovers, bungee jumping, and zipline or rope courses. As if the outdoors weren’t interesting enough, weren’t thrilling enough. Maybe a sign we’ve made it too boring by making it safe.

Never Stop Exploring

I remember visiting Ireland with the Bay Area local trail legend, Paddy O’Leary, where he’d take me on peak bagging adventures where there was no trail. If there was a peak we wanted to get to, we looked at a map, decided our course, and made our way up changing course as we read the terrain. At first, this was a very off-putting experience. Leave no trace principles of staying on the trail were screaming in my head. There were no carved paths, no parking lots, no bathrooms, no signs or markings, just the raw terrain.

Probably for good reasons, this won’t work everywhere. I do see value in preserving our natural spaces by having these curated trail experiences. It’s safer for nature and for us. But we lose something. We’re losing what it actually means to be in nature. Perhaps this loss is what keeps us from connecting more deeply with our land and respecting it as much as we should.

So back to tourism. It is a booming, multi-trillion-dollar industry today. There is money in it for everyone. It seems a reliable industry for any small nation or town that has struggled to produce other exports.

I recently learned about a small village in Newfoundland whose main industry was fishing. One day the fish dried up. Perhaps a product of commercialization and overfishing. The town was on the brink of collapse. They gathered together and decided to go all in on tourism. The entire town was transformed into a sort of Disneyland of the former fishing village culture. Tourists can come and see the show put on of a culture now dead. Now tourists are the new fish waiting to be caught in the nets of the local gift shops.

Extracting

What’s cringy to me are places that put on cultural dances or ritual shows to tourists at hotels. Think classic hula dance at a Hawaii resort. When colonizers first came to these places, they conquered and tried to erase the local cultures, now tourists come and want to see these inauthentic cultural displays. Maybe it is a good way to preserve the culture. The people have turned to the tourism industry for their careers. It’s good money entertaining tourists and that money can then be used to help rebuild and preserve the culture that was overtaken. But is it authentic? These rituals and dances were never meant for us. Now it’s a show, entertainment meant to wow tourists and give them a story to take home.

Something to take home, a story that you can use to impress others, a way to signal status. Is tourism more about what you can extract? Kyle of “Here & There” recently wrote about a photo taken in Japan of a convenience store with the backdrop of Mt Fuji. The image went viral on social media and then tons of tourists came to take that exact photo. Why? Why did so many want that photo? Just to have it? This influx of tourists caused many issues with local traffic and businesses. Kyle goes on to talk about this happening around the world.

While driving through New Zealand, there are signs on the side of the road with a little camera icon. “Take a photo here!” it screams. It’s funny to think everyone just stops in the same places and takes the same photos. Are we touring or checking boxes? It doesn’t feel very authentic although perhaps it is a good way to funnel the masses of tourists to known locations.

AI

I’d be lying if I told you we didn’t use ChatGPT to plan some of our trip to NZ. It’s really convenient and even if I don’t like the output, it’s a good way to get ideas. Although, all these ideas have come from somewhere. The AI didn’t visit New Zealand. Maybe you already see where this is going. Turns out, these AI LLMs have been trained on travel bloggers’ websites. Without permission, OpenAI and many other companies used existing knowledge to train their AIs. This means when we ask ChatGPT about recommendations we’re getting all the hard work of these travel bloggers without giving them any of the ad revenue of going to their site. These people had found a sustainable business and were bringing us useful information and now they’re struggling.

What’s more authentic here? An AI bot telling us its favorite parts or us finding a travel blogger we resonate with and seeing what they enjoyed on their trip?

Wrapping up

We recently watched the movie, “A Real Pain.” At one point Kieran Culkin’s character has a bit of a breakdown about their tour through Poland saying, “Have we even met one Polish person yet?” That might not be his exact quote but I think the points stands.

All of this leaves me thinking about how I travel. Authentic experiences always resonate more, so how can I ensure I’m getting them? I think back to the old TV series by Anthony Bourdain. When he visited places, he had local guides show him the food scene, meet local restaurant owners, and learn about the history and culture of the place. While I can’t travel like Anthony despite our names being the same, I can try to focus on the local people, try to engage with them, and try to see their home through their eyes.

How it started

We’ve all been feeling it—this tiredness of social media. I’m not original in speaking about this. It’s been on my mind for years and has been validated by bigger cultural writers and thinkers like Ted Gioia and Robbe Reddinger to name a few recent reads about this. But I could probably list twenty to thirty other articles I’ve read or conversations I’ve had about this topic.

In the latest article I read, Robbie talks about social media and the algorithm concluding,

And I hate it.

I hate how the companies took something with a grain of good and turned it into a drug. A seed of promise for artists and creators and sharers, relentlessly pivoted and regurgitated into a cascading slop of senseless garbage, layered into a landfill lasagna of advertising. No skills learned, no inspirations gained. Just forgettable nonsense.

I hate how the algorithm knows me so well, that it can prick the parts of my brain and light it up like Rudolph’s nose when I see a skateboard trick, a largemouth bass, or someone unclogging a drain on my phone screen. I hate it for the slot machine that it is, that I physically can not stop myself from scrolling and losing 15 minutes to two hours of time whenever I open the app.

I hate the hours its taken from me. The first thing when I wake up, the last thing before I go to bed. Hours that I used to use for reading, or working on a project at home, or even watching a movie from beginning to end. I hate it for pulling my eyes away from my kids when they’re telling me a story about their day or asking me a question about anything at all, no matter how stupid or inconsequential it may seem. I hate it for running like a background server in my brain, all those bits of information and opinions and ice-cold hot takes distracting me from pinning down a real original thought. These moths and mosquitoes flying around and taking up whatever little space I have left to think about things.

It resonated hard, summing up much of how I’ve felt about it but didn’t know how to articulate it.

Antisocial Media

The positive argument about social media, the internet, or technology in general is that it has connected us like never before. Great organizations have been able to unite and push for change. People have found communities that bring out the best in them, and make them feel safe and heard. Families and friends can reunite and stay in touch.

AND all the opposite is true too. We’ve never been so disconnected from each other. There is a loneliness epidemic. Organizations that seek control over others and spout hate have pushed for change and won. People have found communities that play to their worst possible thoughts or traits only exacerbating them, forming large echo chambers of garbage conspiracy theories or endless hate speech. Division is at an all-time high and families and friends have been broken apart by it.

Was it all worth it? Can we accept all the bad it has brought along with all the good? Could there have been better ways forward? Will we continue to learn of many more negative or positive side effects of this moment in time? I have more questions than answers.

Mourning the loss

Robbie speaks about a loss of time and attention with other people. I see it. I see my friends do it. It’s not just Social Media. It’s our entire phone. I have distinct memories of being in a group of friends and seeing everyone on their phone so I begrudgingly take mine out too to fit in. I see friends on their phones half the time or more that I’m with them, even if I haven’t seen them in months. They may change the subject or bring up a topic out of nowhere that is influenced by an interaction they just had on their phone. Or worse, they just chuckle.

How wild this new world is. You can be spending time with a friend or family member and they aren’t even there with you. They are having an interaction with someone else. Think about that. What if you were in a group of three friends and one person wouldn’t talk to you but instead whispered to the other as they chuckled? How would you feel? You’d probably have some type of FOMO. I would like to think we used to see that as rude and would never do that to a friend, but now it’s commonplace. Someone might be having multiple digital conversations or ruminations about the digital world happening while spending time with another in real life.

What if you were having a drink with a friend catching up and every few minutes someone walked over, tapped on their shoulder, whispered into their ear, your friend waved their hand, and then the person walked away? This is what smartwatches do. Who thought this was a good idea for humanity? There is no way that you are really connecting with any of these people. Not the one you’re with in real life, not the one you’re having side convos with digitally. What are we even doing? It’s no wonder we don’t feel connected to anyone anymore.

Robbie makes the argument that we went from cigarettes to social media but even with cigarettes, people were social in real life and the risks were clear.

They but not me right?

I’d like to think I’ve gotten better. Most of my notifications are turned off, I don’t let them come to my watch, and even when I get notified, it’s a vibration instead of a noise. But it’s not enough. Even the feeling of the vibration can take me out of the moment. If I put my phone upside down on the table, it can still draw my attention because I know deep down the power it holds. The mystery, the promise hooks me. Maybe I missed a text or email. Maybe it’s an emergency and I’m needed now. Or maybe it’s an opportunity that I have to read now, reply, and seize before it’s gone. Or anything else that my black hole rectangle of limitless potential could spit out at me.

Notifications don’t even matter. All it takes is that well-known shape in the corner of your vision or that familiar pressure in your pocket. It’s ever-present and your attention could drift to it at any moment. But who am I kidding? I’m not immune, it has me addicted just as much as it has everyone else. I don’t need a notification, a feeling in my pocket, or a visual cue. It’s imprinted itself in my brain. Even if I’ve left it in another room, I might still try to reach for it in my pocket or reach over and tap the empty table like my phone was there and I wanted to see the notification screen.

This year, I’ve started to leave my phone on a nightstand out of my reach when I go to bed. It helps prevent me from endless scrolling while in bed, but I can still feel its pull. It almost pains me to put it on the charger and leave it. The potential it represents calls to me. I have to beat down this inner yearning that tells me I’ll miss out on something really important if I leave my phone seven feet away from my person. And then when I wake, my first thoughts are to my notifications, my email, and my texts. I can’t wait to get up and check them. Are these the thoughts and feelings of a well-adjusted human to a tool or an addict to a drug?

Like Robbie, I hate all of this. I hate that I have those impulses and feelings around this stupid rectangle. I hate it when I see friends focused on their phones while I’m hanging out with them. I hate it when I let my attention drift to my phone while hanging out with others. I hate that it causes this FOMO or anxiety around what I might be missing. I hate that it’s altered my brain, that this silly little lump of metal and silicon has so much power over me, and that there are “corporate overlords” who know how to wield it better than me to get anything they want.

It saddens me to think of the lost time and connection with friends and family or lost creativity. What is each of us capable of creating, learning, or connecting if we didn’t have this addiction to consumption? This question bothers me deeply. I believe we are all capable of so much more and I love investing in friends’ hobbies or passions. This isn’t to say we need our work or source of income to be our passion or a creative output but with all the hours outside of work what are we not accomplishing because we are on our phones?

Ça va?

Our phones are a powerful learning resource though. I am trying to learn French and of course, there is Duolingo. I almost had a year streak under my belt before I gave it a rest. Then I started taking French lessons from a local language center. These lessons were on Zoom, which worked better with my schedule, and even though they weren’t in-person it was incredibly more challenging than Duolingo and I learned a ton more. Then I came across something that resonated with me. Language is quite literally what humans invented to communicate with other humans so why would you base your learning off of communicating with an app or a bot? Because of my year on Duo, my listening and speaking ability is shit while my reading ability is barely passable.

The Conundrum

Here’s the funny thing of it all. As much as I hate it, I’ve built my life around it. I’ve turned into a bit of a content creator. I use my human powers of creation to feed the machine. 95% of my work in 2024 was for a brand or myself to post to a Social Media platform. Reflecting on my year, I look back at overwhelming and stressful moments. Yes, I had a ton of fun, traveled to some beautiful places, made some great content, AND I was hanging on by the seat of my pants the whole time.

It felt very much like the content machine itself. The hungry ghost, never satisfied. I worked so hard and now most of my work is irrelevant. Gone down the scroll so far that it will never surface again. The things I’m pouring my hard work into last for a significantly shorter period than it took to create. Smells like a recipe for burnout if I’ve ever smelt one.

Business is Business

However, I am running a business that needs to make money and I need to make things or provide services other businesses will pay for. Businesses want Social Media content. They want to feed the machine, vie for attention, and stay relevant. That’s where I come in. I help them create the content that is supposed to convert views to clicks by appeasing the algorithm and getting as much attention as possible.

Is that what I want? Do I want to create things that get as much attention as possible? Is there more to all this? Am I forever bound to the business of making ads?

Attention

Attention feels like the latest gold rush of humanity. Bronze and iron turned into oil and plastics and now attention mining. It’s a scarce resource and mining it for corporate profit is ruining our minds the same way oil mining has been ruining our planet. I don’t think participating in this is the way forward for me or my business. I’m starting to wonder about new directions.

I’m fortunate to have some amazing mentors in my corner. One is a great filmmaker and he’s always talking to me about the process being his main motivator. When he creates a film, he’s looking at how it helps the people in the film connect more deeply with themselves, each other, or their community. His films are always beautiful. He’s not focused on creating a blockbuster or promoting his new short film, maybe to a detriment. To have the process of creation being ENOUGH. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t that amazing?

But what about a business? They can’t make money that way. It’s a funny thing that sometimes attention and recognition come to those who don’t seek it. I have to believe that the journey matters more than the destination. How does creation change when we focus more on the journey of creating itself? “Journey before Destination” is another mantra and is a direction I want to investigate for my business.

Wrap it up already

If you made it this far, thank you! I didn’t expect anyone to read this whole thing … which is kind of the point right? I’m not writing these blog posts for attention. I’m writing them for the process and connection. Writing is a powerful tool for reflection. Writing this blog helps me think through the ruminations in my mind. I inevitably grow from it with clearer reasoning and direction. I’m also writing this for connection. To connect with others who’ve noticed their phone habits. To help anyone connect with the person sitting next to them. And I hope that you also changed by reading this.

And so, here we are, back to the mantra. People over Platforms. In my personal life, it means prioritizing human-to-human connection over social media: coffee dates, dinner parties, a beer after work, etc. It means before I scroll, open Instagram, or even tap on my phone screen, I pause and think, “Is this the best use of my time in this very moment and place?” For my business, it means being intentional about what I’m creating and how it can help people connect with others, themselves, or nature. It means working with clients or finding clients who want to create content that matters. Not content but art. Images and videos that can bring people together, tell stories, and inspire others.

I want to build the world I want to live in. That world is full of beautiful humans with all their personalities, flaws, and creations. A world where we feel connected to each other and where we live. Won’t you join me?

Before I dive in, I want to say that my first post on Substack which you might have read was a little tough-lovey and I honestly wasn’t expecting anyone to see it. While I do stand by it, I have to say I understand nuance and people posting links to their blogs for reasons I will never know. So I hope you didn’t take offense or think I’m some negative Nacy! More to say later but let’s look at 2024!

A Good Time for Looking Back

This time of year is full of peppermint in chocolate, songs of bells that jingle, and movies of full adult elves adventuring around New York. It also brings a slowdown in most people’s work lives which means more time for family, friends, and yourself. I look forward to setting aside time to reflect on all that happened in the past 12 months. There are so many ways to be intentional about this kind of reflection and I’d like to share the ways I’ve enjoyed doing it the past few years.

The Process

First, I warm up my mind by reading over what I wrote down last year. Sometimes I laugh at what I did or didn’t accomplish. It’s actually nice to see what I didn’t accomplish and think about if it’s still important to me and what I could do differently in the next year to accomplish it.

Once I’m in the right mindset, I look over my calendar, write down every event or moment, and assign it a ++, +, ~, -, or --. These correspond to how positive of an experience it was for me. Once it’s all laid out, I try to abstract commonalities or themes. I look at the people involved, the location, the work situation, what I was doing, what and who I was interacting with, what was I feeling, my emotional state, etc. The more data points you can remember the more you can find trends.

I think about all this data and try and figure out what was working and what wasn’t. From this, I extrapolate goals or intentions on what I’d like to do for the next year. What I should do more of and what I should do less of. Here’s an example.

It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to tell me that I enjoy working running events with all my friends versus corporate events where I know no one. These are two back-to-back events from my calendar and I didn’t need to wait till this moment for the understanding that I wanted to do less corporate events. Later in the year, I said, “No” to a well-paying corporate event and it felt good to be in a position to know it wasn’t what I wanted and that the money wasn’t worth the gig.

I prefer to do all this on physical paper or on my iPad, writing with the stylus instead of typing. I like the slower pace of handwriting. However, if you were to type it, I could see another level of this that takes all these keywords and makes word clouds out of the positive and negative events for even deeper analysis.

Now the Hard Part

Sharing those intentions, goals, and findings is the hardest part. It requires some vulnerability and accountability. It’s important to share with your trusted people more than anyone else. Go ahead and share on Social Media too if you want but I don’t think it’s important to do so and I don’t think it helps. Sharing with the people who truly know you and understand you is the recipe for success.

Ask for their feedback. See if you had blind spots, or if they saw themes and commonalities you didn’t see. Ask for their accountability and check in a few times a year. Close friends and family will want to be a part of your journey and you’ll want to be a part of theirs. Share in it. Nothing gets done alone so embrace your community along your journey.

and more

A few years ago, a friend shared this wonderful resource: Year Compass. It’s a booklet that guides you through a similar process I described above. It has some great thought-provoking questions too and I love doing it as another part of my review.

Last year, I created this large format calendar to keep track of my work and personal life events. I used blue highlighter for work, pink for family, and orange for friends and community. You can see the picture of it above. There is quite a bit of blue. I love this calendar because it’s such a great high-level view of my year. I highly recommend it and it’s inexpensive. You can download this file and print it at a local FedEx, Staples, or Office Depot for about $5. I print it at an Arch D blueprint 36”x24” size.

This year, I’m also going to try a similar guided review booklet made by one of my favorite podcasters. Shane from “The Knowledge Project”, says he goes through this one himself. Shane’s year reflection guide is more business oriented so it’s right up my alley as a freelancer.

So there I am, sitting in a newly formed Slack community, and I’m really trying to make an effort to engage with people. These online communities are fragile. It’s too easy to lurk. Too easy to join based on FOMO and just check in now and then or never. I decided I like the people who started this community, it’s still small, so let me put some effort into engaging people and making it a rich space of smart (or not) discussion.

I ask a question to prompt said discussion, and what do I get? Links to other people’s Substacks where they give their thoughts on the topic. Cool.

OK, I get it. You got to hustle. You need to promote yourself because who else will? Your thoughts on this topic are what I want, but I don’t want to be taken away from the discussion to read your blog. That’s basically telling me you couldn’t be bothered to engage with me.

You sat in your favorite chair, sipped some coffee in the comfort of your own home, and typed out a stream of consciousness. (Just as I am right now. The irony isn’t lost on me.) What you failed to do is connect with other humans. And you are hindering others’ ability to do the same. If you want to be a part of a community then be a part of it. That means interacting with other humans, however awkward or uncomfortable that may be. In fact, that’s the whole f*cking point!

We’ve forgotten how to connect with others. It is imperfect because we are imperfect. This imperfection of humans is what leads to deep and meaningful discussions that cause us to critically think, challenge our viewpoints, and understand another sliver of humanity.

So next time you’re tempted to send someone your thoughts via a link to your blog, please take a second and ask yourself, “Am I trying to connect with this human and other humans involved? Or am I just seeking attention?”

If you came here from a link I sent you, sorry about that. I think the irony of this post and me sending you a link is pretty funny.