Today I’m sharing my conversation with the mountain runner, Rickey Gates.

Rickey isn't just your typical long distance runner. He's a profoundly creative and expressive person whose athletic prowess is just the surface of his multifaceted identity. He earned his reputation within the competitive mountain running circuit and he grew in popularity in step with the growth of the sport as a whole. After a decade as a Salomon athlete competing at the biggest races around the world, he slowly transitioned into more creative projects and became known as a conceptual runner.

These creative projects include “Transamericana,” a documentary film about his run across America with just a 12 pound bag and a budget of $1,000 a month—which he also documented through his book, Cross Country: A 3,700 Mile Run to Explore Unseen America; And Every Single Street, a project where he documented his journey of running all 1,300 miles of roads in the city of San Francisco over 45 days. These projects, along with several other short films can be seen on his website, www.rickeygates.com.

In this episode, we discuss his origins as a runner growing up in Aspen, Colorado, his rapid ascent in the world of mountain running, his creative projects, his transition to parenthood, and everything in between.

Yet, why run so far and document these stories? As Rickey says, “The 2500-year-old legend of Pheidippides tells us about a common Athenian soldier who ran from the fennel fields of Marathon to the Acropolis in Athens to announce victory over the Persians. Upon arrival he delivered his message, only to perish from exhaustion moments later. And perhaps, that is why. Because the runner is a messenger and his suffering must be witnessed.”

Cover Photo by Dylan Harris Courtesy Janji

This episode is an interview with Jackson, Wyoming-based mountain runner and artist Kelly Halpin. Kelly is a hard person to narrowly define, as she is also an accomplished rock climber, snowboarder, environmentalist, children’s book author, forager and more. As you’ll hear in our conversation, it’s clear that Nature is her greatest muse. And while she’s out on long training runs or setting new FKTs, she spends a lot of time thinking about our place as humans in a broader historical context, and how we’ve become detached from the natural world and all that it provides us. Her achievements and perspectives on living in balance are inspiring and I really respect her all-encompassing approach to being an outdoor athlete. True to Kelly's character, we cover a lot of ground in this episode. Enjoy!

Cover photo by Mike Thurk

For today’s episode I interviewed ultra endurance bike racer and runner Eszter Horanyi. In today’s hyper connected world of endurance sports, she may not be a household name, but before there was Instagram, she was a pioneer in bikepacking and ultra endurance bike racing, setting course records at The Tour Divide, The Colorado Trail Race, The Arrowhead 135, The Stagecoach 400, The Arizona Trail 300, The Dixie 200, the Iditarod 350 and more—not to mention countless other victories including a win at the 24 hour mountain bike national championship at the 24 Hours of Moab. She’s no longer an ultra endurance mountain bike racer, although she still gets out on plenty of impressively long rides. Today, she’s an occasional ultra runner and full time photographer and wordsmith, and decade-long van resident. On today’s episode Eszter and I discuss the early years of women’s ultra endurance mountain bike racing, her transition to running, and what living out of a van for a decade is all about.

Cover Photo by Scott Morris

Danny Larsen specializes in dark, yet beautiful paintings that are done entirely by small, individual dots with an acrylic pen. When I first discovered Danny on Instagram back in 2019, I was initially drawn to his work, not just the quality and style, but the endurance required to do large pointillism pieces. Shortly after, I saw that he had done the artwork for one of my favorite modern black metal albums, by the Norwegian band Djevel. Danny was also a professional snowboarder in the early to late 2000s, riding for K2 and several other brands—designing the artwork for those brands as well. The more time I’ve spent learning about Danny and interviewing him for this episode, the more of a fan I have become of him and his work. I’m really grateful for the opportunity I had to speak with Danny, and I hope you all find our conversation to be as interesting, surprising and illuminating as I found it to be.

Music:

Intro: Saa Begynner Det; Djevel; with permission from Aftermath Music, 2018

Outro: Alt Som Her Var Er Naa Borte; Djevel; with permission from Aftermath Music, 2018

On today’s show we have the American cyclist, Keegan Swenson. Keegan’s story is one of pure grit and determination. From a young age he has been drawn to the challenge of pushing the limits of his mind and body on the bike. His persistence helped him earn Junior national, Under 23 national, and Elite National Championship titles in cross country mountain biking. He was on track to go to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but after a 1 year delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a couple of bad days on the bike at critical races, Keegan was not selected for the single spot available to an American.

Since then, Keegan has shifted his focus from the short, hour-and-a-half World Cup XCO races to endurance gravel and mountain biking. The change in disciplines has resulted in a commanding winning streak that he wasn’t able to achieve in the World Cup XCO format. Since 2020, he has set numerous Fastest Known Times, an Everesting World Record, an appearance at the elite road world championships, LifeTime Grand Prix overall titles, and in 2023 he obliterated the Leadville 100 course record by 15 minutes—a record held since 2015 by Alban Lakata, who is known for being one of the greatest endurance mountain bikers of all time.

In this episode, we cover the importance of building a support team to help you achieve your goals; the importance of rest, recovery and nutrition as an athlete; and the psychological aspects of being one of the world’s greatest endurance athletes.

Cover Photo Courtesy of Wil Matthews (@photowil)

Joining us on the first episode of the Foray Podcast we have Brett Hite, the co-frontman of the music group known as Frenship. They’ve ranked in the top 100 of dozens of world wide charts, with 1.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify and nearly 640 million streams of their best known hit, Capsize. Brett has lived a three dimensional life—in addition to being a successful musician, he was an elite soccer player at the University of Washington, and since 2018 he has been an extremely dedicated and perhaps obsessed cyclist, riding over 500 hours in a single year. Brett’s story is one of endurance, perspective and resilience.

Welcome to The Foray Podcast. I am your host, Robbie Stout. This is a brand new podcast and I want to provide listeners with genuine interviews featuring influential figures within the outdoor community and beyond. I hope you all find the show entertaining and hopefully you can gather some valuable insights from each episode. I believe there’s unique truths that exist within the outdoor community, and my goal is to find out what those are.

All outside athletes are seeking something. Whether it’s within them or out in the world. There is an infinite, unknowable aspect to nature that keeps us seeking. Unlike major sports, outside athletes never have the same playing field. We never step into the same river twice… Our ever changing environment is the only constant. The macro aspect of our mountains won’t change in our lifetime, but the micro changes that happen regularly keep us inspired and searching and trying to understand our landscapes that can never be entirely known.

In this search, some of us choose to be the best we can at our particular pursuit of movement. And some of us use this pursuit to inspire our work and creativity in other areas like art, writing, music, food, business, politics and wellness. This podcast is mostly about active people, but it’s not exclusive to them. I value anyone who is inspired to create by our vast natural world.

Each week I’ll interview a new guest and share their insights and experiences from living a life inspired. So please subscribe to this podcast and join me on my weekly forays into the lives of these exceptional people. And for a more visual experience, follow the Foray Instagram @forayjournal.