‘The first time I heard of Vincent Bouillard’

I mentioned Joaquin Lopez’s website just the other day and was all excited about hearing more from his voice and his second post did not disappoint:

As I ran, my mind kept playing this game, trying to figure out who this mysterious person leading UTMB was.
…
I had listened to all the pre-race podcasts, and I was sure no one mentioned the name Vincent. He must have gotten it wrong.

What a fantastic retelling of lat year’s UTMB race from a first-person perspective. I was just talking with Aaron Shimmons (Trail Talk) and Troy Meadows (The Midpacker Pod) in the sadly unrecorded aftershow of our ‘Media Pass’ show about how live-streaming is stealing some thunder from the personal, well-thought-out, long-form retelling of a race and that we might be losing something in our sport. But this post makes me believe that there’s still room for it.

Lopez concludes his post:

There, in the anti-doping room and on that podium—including Baptiste—we were three runners who had just proven something important: what makes this sport beautiful is its unpredictability. You can work eight hours a day, have little support, come from completely different places and training backgrounds, but in the end, pouring your full heart and soul in a cause—can still prevail over professionalization.

Thank you, Vincent, for shaking things up and rocking the world. Hats off to you, Chapieux.

“what makes this sport beautiful is its unpredictability”

Ooooof, there it is. Lean into this, media people. Look for the unpredictable story line, not the prefabricated talking points pushed by the brand partners. This is the excitement and thrill we’re here for.