Back of the Pack Podcast

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, we are back from Australia and finally diving into the big review of the 2026 TCS Sydney Marathon. Kyle opens the episode running on jet lag, very little sleep, and the aftermath of a trip where nearly everything that could go wrong did, including a travel nightmare that turned the road to Sydney into its own endurance event. After delays, missed connections, an unexpected 24-hour layover in Vancouver, baggage issues, and arriving in Sydney just 24 hours before the marathon, the race weekend started with a missed 5K and a rushed trip through...

We’re kicking off a brand-new Second Wind series called The Ultra Curious, where we start exploring what happens when everyday road runners begin looking beyond 26.2 miles and into the strange, fascinating world of ultrarunning. For our first stop, longtime friend of the show and frequent guest host Karin Velez of the award-winning Just Grow Something podcast takes over the mic while we’re still traveling after the Sydney Marathon. Karin is usually the one bringing the science, but this time she is digging into the history behind one of ultrarunning’s most recognizable traditions: the finisher belt buckle. Why do so...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, Kyle is off in Sydney, Australia chasing another World Marathon Major, so we are turning the microphone over to guest host Sierra Morris from The Run, Shattered Podcast. Sierra, also known as ShatteredRunner, brings her focus on mental skills, resilience, and the psychological side of running to a topic every runner needs: confidence. This episode dives into how confidence is built, why it matters in training, and how runners can strengthen their mindset before they ever reach the start line. Sierra explores the mental tools marathoners and ultramarathoners use to stay...

With race weekend finally here, The Final Stretch comes to a close from Sydney, Australia, just two days before the TCS Sydney Marathon. At this point, there is no more fitness to build, no more missed workouts to chase, and no more cramming left to do, which means readiness has officially stopped being a question and become a decision. We talk about the last things we can still control, from hydration, nutrition, rest, and race-week logistics to making sure a Saturday 5K does not become an accidental dress rehearsal for disaster. We also tackle jet lag, unpredictable weather, race-day nerves...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, we are recording the final episode from the United States before the podcast heads across the world for Sydney Marathon Week. Before the passport panic takes over, Kyle recaps the Head for the Cure 5K in Overland Park, a massive Kansas City-area event supporting brain cancer awareness, research, and families impacted by the disease. From there, we turn the spotlight to the TCS Sydney Marathon presented by ASICS, breaking down the race, the history, the course, the logistics, and why this new World Marathon Major matters. We talk about Sydney’s Ol...

With the TCS Sydney Marathon now just nine days away, **The Final Stretch** reaches the point where the heavy training is finished and the challenge becomes learning to **Trust What You Built**. At this stage, there is very little we can do physically to dramatically change race-day fitness, but there is still plenty our brains can do to completely sabotage it. We dig into taper brain, the strange urge to question everything we have done, and why one ugly workout or bad race somehow gets more attention than weeks of solid work. Instead of replaying the blooper reel, we look...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, we are recapping a packed mid-August weekend with two charity races, one major run club push, and Sydney now less than two weeks away. We start with a quick heads-up that the 2027 Tokyo Marathon lottery is open, along with a reminder that Tokyo is incredible, but not exactly built for back-of-the-pack comfort. From there, we head to Lawrence, Kansas for the Rexy Run 5K & 10K, where the podcast community showed up strong for Baby Jay’s Legacy of Hope and the new 10K course brought hills, wetlands, heat, volunteers, and one ve...

With the TCS Sydney Marathon now just two weeks away, The Final Stretch continues with a question every nervous marathoner eventually asks: can we make up for lost training at the last minute? This week, we tackle the urge to cram for a marathon, from missed long runs and shortened workouts to those summer races that suddenly start looking like evidence that everything has gone wrong. We dig into why panic training can create more problems than it solves, especially when the body should be shifting toward recovery instead of punishment. But this is not quite a black-and-white conversation, because...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, we are celebrating a major milestone: 300 episodes of race reviews, community stories, road trips, charity conversations, bad decisions, emotional moments, and back-of-the-pack chaos. Technically, this is Episode 299, but with Episode 300 dropping Friday, we are taking this Monday episode to pause, look around, and talk about what this podcast has become since it started as a simple “I make the mistakes so you don’t have to” running show. We look back at the race reviews that became the bread and butter of the show, the community organizations and race directors who gave u...

With the TCS Sydney Marathon just three weeks away, we are officially entering The Final Stretch and asking one deceptively simple question: what does being “ready” actually mean? Most runners expect readiness to feel like confidence, control, and unstoppable momentum, but marathon preparation usually arrives wearing fatigue, uncertainty, random aches, and a suspiciously bad attitude. In this episode, we look beyond one missed workout, one rough long run, or one ugly summer pace to examine the full body of work behind race-day preparation. We discuss why nervousness is not proof that we are unprepared and why experience often makes us more...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, we are catching up on a busy stretch of running, volunteering, night racing, and hot-weather half marathon chaos. We start at the Matt Mason Cowboy Up Triathlon at Smithville Lake, where Kyle traded in his race bib for a volunteer shirt and got a firsthand reminder of just how much work it takes to keep athletes moving safely through swim, bike, and run events. After surviving GPS confusion, a packed race morning, and a blazing-hot aid station shift, the episode shifts to the other side of the table and why every...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast: Second Wind, we wrap up our July Why Are We Like This? series with Volunteering for the Chaos. After spending the month talking about the wonderfully strange things runners and endurance athletes do, we finish by looking at the people who help make race day happen. This episode takes us to the Matt Mason Cowboy Up Triathlon, where volunteering at an aid station turned into a front-row seat to heat, hydration, grit, gratitude, confusion, and full-on endurance chaos. We talk about what it is like to be on the other side...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, we are joined by longtime friends of the show for one of our favorite annual conversations: The 2026 Rexy Run Preview. The Rexy Run 5K & 10K is coming up on August 15, 2026, in Lawrence, Kansas, and this race continues to be one of the most meaningful events on our calendar. Race director Kristina, Erica from Baby Jay’s Legacy of Hope, and Colby, the mother of this year’s Honorary Rexy, join us to talk about the race, the mission, and the family at the heart of this year’s event. Rexy Run benefi...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast: Second Wind, our July series Why Are We Like This? continues with a topic every runner eventually meets: FOMO, the fear of missing out. Runners and endurance athletes love filling the calendar with races, run clubs, team events, traditions, medals, group photos, and shared suffering, but sooner or later, life gets in the way. Whether it is a scheduling conflict, family responsibility, injury, illness, weather, travel, burnout, or simply needing rest, sometimes we do not make it to the start line. This episode digs into the emotional weirdness of a DNS...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, Kyle calls an audible from the planned episode to mark a milestone that changed the entire direction of his life: the ten-year anniversary of his first open-heart surgery. For longtime listeners, this is a story that has been referenced many times, but for newer members of the Back of the Pack community, this may be the first time hearing how a heart condition, a failed valve, and two surgeries became part of the foundation for everything that came after. Kyle looks back on the dreams that changed, the warning signs that...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast: Second Wind, our July series Why Are We Like This? continues with a look at the social side of endurance sports. Runners and endurance athletes bond over some very strange things: hills, heat, porta-potties, chafing, finish lines, race medals, bad decisions, and the phrase “never again” even though we are absolutely going to do it again. This episode dives into how shared suffering can create fast friendships, whether it happens during a rough race, on a brutal hill, at mile 10 of a half marathon, or through the shared heartbreak and celebration of s...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, we recap one of the hardest and strangest endurance weekends of the year: the Argo Half Marathon and Kyle’s first official bike race, Lizard Under the Skillet. First up is Argo, the infamous “finishers only” half marathon on Argo Road, where the hills are rude, the sun is merciless, and the shirt at the end is earned the hard way. With a 9:00 a.m. July start, full sun, 60% humidity, a dew point of 71, and a finishing heat index of 102 degrees, this year’s Argo was even nastier than expected. Kyle walks th...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast: Second Wind, our July series Why Are We Like This? continues with a look at the endurance decisions that sound terrible on paper but somehow end up on our calendars anyway. With the Argo Half Marathon and its 2,900 feet of elevation waiting on Saturday, followed by the Lizard Under the Skillet 31-mile bike race and an Evanescence concert on Sunday, this episode asks why runners, cyclists, and endurance people keep signing up for things that sound more like warnings than weekend plans. We talk about why hard courses tempt us, why...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, we recap a busy Fourth of July weekend full of fireworks, frantic huskies, Patreon gratitude, race reviews, and questionable scheduling decisions. Kyle starts by thanking new Patreon supporters and talking honestly about how listener support, social media interaction, and community engagement help keep the podcast moving forward. From there, we head to Clinton, Missouri for the Old Glory Days 5K, a small-town Friday night race attached to a much bigger Fourth of July festival full of carnival rides, food, music, fireworks, and classic small-town America energy. The course may have ended...

This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast: Second Wind, we kick off our July series, Why Are We Like This?, by asking why runners insist on turning holiday weekends into race weekends. With the Fourth of July upon us, we look at the wonderfully weird tradition of waking up early, dressing in red, white, and blue, charging the Garmin, checking the weather, and voluntarily sweating through a shirt before breakfast. From the Olde Glory Days 5K on July 3rd to Ward Parkway 4 on the Fourth on July 4th, this episode celebrates the strange little joy of patriotic races...