Western States, Anti-Doping Efforts, and European vs American Trail Media with Francesco Puppi (Sunday Conversation)
6/18/20261 hr 38 min
Francesco Puppi is a professional trail runner for Hoka based outside of Lake Como, Italy. For many fans of the sport, his debut at the 100-mile distance and Western States has been long-anticipated. It's finally here and we cover the usual topics around preparation, mentality, and racing strategy for the current moment, but I also take the opportunity to ask him about current anti-doping efforts in the sport, European vs American trail media, and lessons learned from other superstars in our sport.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsFinn Melanson· Host0:00
Welcome back or welcome to the Singletrack podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and this is another edition of our Sunday conversation, though we are publishing it a few days early so that it doesn't get buried in Western States coverage. In this one, I have the pleasure of interviewing Francesco Puppi, a professional trail runner for Hoka based outside of Lake Como, Italy. Francesco's resume includes wins at CCC, OCC, Lavaredo 50K, Chianti Marathon, Transgrancanaria Marathon, Lake Sonoma, Chuckanut. For many fans of the sport, his debut at the 100-mile distance and at Western States in particular has been long anticipated, and it's finally here. We cover the usual topics around preparation, mentality, and racing strategy for the current moment, but I also wanted to take the opportunity to ask him about current anti-doping efforts in the sport, European versus American trail media, and his impressions of other superstars in our sport. One thing we didn't cover, which I promise we will address in a follow-up interview, are some of the statements that he made around Coco Doughnut earlier this spring, which prompted widespread discussion around how we even define trail running. That said, uh, you know, as I mentioned earlier, we cover quite a bit in this one. Let us know what you think. Shoot us a DM on Instagram or comment on the YouTube version of this episode. And, uh, yeah, at the time of this recording, we're-- I mean, I'm, I'm driving to [chuckles] I'm driving to Olympic Valley on Friday morning, which I'm super excited about. I'm gonna take in all of