Camille's Long Road Back with The Author of the Camille Herron Articles, Marley Dickinson

Welcome to the Borderlands Trail, an ultra-running podcast. My name is Josh Rosenthal and I'm the host and I'm the founder. Today I welcome Marley Dickinson. He is the author of the article for Canadian running that was all about Camille and her Wikipedia controversy. We talk about the controversy, we talk about how it came to be, how it is going now, and perhaps where this story is going in the future. And then also on a much larger level, we talked about the importance and the role of journalism within a sport, within trauma running, within our sport. I know we celebrate what Camille is having to go through right now. In fact, just the opposite. I wish that she wasn't. And in this interview today we go into detail of why this article is also important, specifically and generally for the sport. If you're looking for a race to run this fall, come run the Salt Lake Foothills Show races. We've got a 50K, half marathon, and 10K, and the Foothills of Salt Lake City. It's a stunning race. I put it on with my friend Joey and Jared, open-range races. Come hang, Path Projects is sponsoring it. Sky Run, the only dedicated show running store in Salt Lake City. It's sponsoring it. It's going to be a great party. There's going to be some really great people there and I hope that you are one of them. Also, today's podcast is brought to you by Path Projects and Victory Insults. Special shout out to them and thanks to them for helping this content go out into the world. Look at the show notes for links to check them out. Without any further ado, here's a new friend of mine, Marley Dickinson, talking about the article with Camille Heron. It's been an interesting week in the world of ultra-trail running. There's with Camille Heron and the article from Canadian Running and my guest today, Marley Dickinson, who wrote that article. It was just this interesting week for me where I was having this discussion saying, "Hey, all the media in ultra running in America by and large is a media that's celebrating the sport of running." And rightly so, it's an incredible sport. I mean, those businesses, those media companies need to be doing it. That's good for the sport. But I'm the same. And within the same sport, there also needs to be certain articles and journalists and people looking at what's happening within the sport. With a questioning eye and willing to tell hard stories and not overlook hard things, because that's also good for the sport. And today, we're going to talk sort of like this broader look at journalism's place in ultra-trail running. And at the same time, this specific article with Camille Heron, with the author of that article, who writes for Canadian Running, Marley Dickinson. Marley, thanks for joining me today. Yeah, I know a pleasure to be on here, Josh. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Well, let's just jump right in with the article. I think that's what a lot of people are interested in hearing about. Within the world of journalism, how does something like this come to be? How does it get on your radar? And then how do you dig on it? You brought a lot of receipts in that article. And I'll have the article linked below, but everybody's read it. You brought a lot of receipts. So how does that happen? Yeah, I mean, at this point, after I've published it, it was hard not to think of myself as like, you know, an investigative journalist, especially as a fan of like True Prime on Netflix. I was like, oh my gosh, I was seeing a mirror image of myself. But, yeah, no, so it's actually funny how kind of came about an ultra-run in the community, kind of brought it upon our radar about two weeks ago. After a Stina Rex kind of challenged, I would say challenged the six day world record. Yeah. At that point, there was there was a lot of talk kind of going on the back end of Wikipedia and another ultra runner said, hey, there's these edits are very suspicious. And this account keeps like editing out this record. And they did the same thing with the 48 hour record that she also said to June. So at that point, they were like, this is very suspicious. And we, and there's also edits personalized to the Camille Helen Camille Heron page. So they were like, can you guys, when you guys look into this, they sent the original email out to about three or four journalists. So we kind of our team just decided to, okay, let's dive into this. See where things kind of line up. So as you're getting that, and you're looking into it, like, okay, we were talking a little bit before. I mean, you put out a lot of content for Canadian running. I'll link this in the show notes too. The number of articles that you put out in any given day is a lot. I would keep clicking your name to see what some articles you wrote. And I thought, oh, I must have clicked wrong because now the Camille Heron article is all the way down here. We'll know it's because you're putting out what you say four to six articles a day on running. Yeah, our team is telling for you four to six, but generally like myself, it's usually two or three a day. So it's, it's again, you kind of at first is a little tough, but then you know, you literally used to after a few years. And just like, you know, keeping yourself on your toes and knowing what's going on in the world running worlds, you know, not only on ultra trail trail track and field. Yeah, so I mean, it's quite broad like we cover kind of all all surfaces there and try to try to cover as much as we can. So yeah, so you put out, so you're putting out that amount of work. And at the same time, this is on your radar. Now, this article, is it more than your average articles workload in terms of the way that you're kind of drilling down on it? Or did it come together pretty quick? Oh, yeah, no, this is, this is definitely like when something like this kind of falls on on your plate, you know, we talk as a team and it's kind of, okay, this is the focus get like get as much respect details and researchers can. I mean, it's it like it is a journalist story, you know, it's it's it's something that you have to investigate, you have to back up with facts, you can't just put it out there, right? And yeah, you like, you know, accused someone of doing this. There's just so many serious implications that can go wrong if something like that happens. So, you know, I remember, I remember the conversation with my, my boss and my editor when we were kind of discussing the work on it. She was like, yeah, forget everything else you're working on. Just focus on this dive into it. See what you can do. See what we can find. Yeah, I mean, it feels like the way you're describing it, it feels, you know, like an old Robert Redford movie, you know, looking at journalism in this almost sort of romantic way to some degree, like, because it doesn't feel like it's that way anymore because the articles by and large that come out, like I said, they're championing the sport. So it's always these great human interest pieces, important meaningful, they have a place, but you're writing something like this that then is going to have, I mean, I guess here's my question as a journalist, are you thinking of the consequence? I think I understand you're probably thinking like, hey, I got it, this has got to be right. This is an important article. I've got to get my facts correct. But then beyond that, the outcome, I mean, that's outside of your realm of concern or control, right? Oh, for sure. I mean, even in this case, I didn't know how far things would go. I mean, when I was first approached the story, I was like, you know, can we find enough proof? And like you question your constantly questioning yourself when you're writing articles, like, okay, do we have enough? Do we have enough? Do we have enough? Yeah, we're constantly looking at it as a team going through the article being like, okay, well, we need to be, we need to be 100%. We can't be 99.9. We can't be, you know, we have to have everything backed up that points to finger to this person or, you know, especially when you're making any sort of accusations of any kind, right? There's so many serious implications behind it. Yeah, you can face like, you know, serious penalties, if you're if you're wrong or they're the ones, right? So in, yeah, it's something a man or like this, it's definitely after like, you know, cross your teeth and dog your eyes. Yeah, I mean, I imagine there's a moment where you're, you know, you get it, it comes on your plate, you're like, no, man, maybe not, maybe not. And you kind of keep drilling, you're like, oh, God, this continues to add up. But no, like, is there a singular thing or singular moment where you're like, oh, my God, I think this is what I thought it was. And, you know, we're moving forward with. I was actually a doubter since the beginning. Yeah. Which, again, in hindsight, I guess it's kind of funny, but I was, you know, at first, I was just like, it's probably some like super fan, you know, like, you know, everyone in the sport, but like, given that, you know, someone of her levels, she's probably got fans, I know she's very active on social media and chat with her fans. So it's like, let's just like some Camille Harris super fan, you know, right. So, you know, but again, like I said before, you need to look into absolutely everything. And something that began to line up for me, you know, obviously the edits of the 48 hour and six day stuff on the Ultramarathon page really like kind of like raise the flag. But what started to add up was the timeline of things that went on. I mean, the account, the Temple Run 73 and Randy Bowie account were very active and February in April. And didn't seem to be active in March at all, which was kind of like weird to me. Yeah. When you look at things of Camille Harris and her husband, Connor Holt and coach agenda in March, I mean, they were doing the Lou Lemon Further event, then they went on a media tour afterwards. And just like, it's the dates just really, really lined up. And then they edits that they made to, you know, Killian and Courtney's pages immediately after the race was like, oh, oh, my gosh. So I mean, that's kind of what pointed the finger at them a little bit more as the timeline of things that went on. And then there was, there was a certain flag on the Wikipedia count after they made the edits to Killian and Courtney's pages saying like, okay, we think this is a continuation of the original Temple Run 73 account that was banned for, yeah, soft promotion and then fluffery. That's wild. So then you get that confirmation. And yeah, again, I think what the article that you did a great job with is, you know, regardless, Camille warns opinions with the trawining community from, you know, publicly, but, you know, you're exposing something from a public figure. You know, in the, regardless if you like or dislike or so you're, you're doing this work, you're putting this out there and all of the stuff lines up. You write the article so many receipts in the article, you know, to your credit and to also what you're saying is like, you got to get this right. Was there a point where like it left your inbox, you know, you sent it left the outbox, whatever, how do you say goes your publisher, your editor, whatever, and you're like, okay, you know, that's done is. What is that like? What's that feeling like? Are you like worried about your reputation? Oh my God, am I wrong? Or it's like, nope, this is 100% right. We're doing it and it's out of my hands. Yeah, I mean, the biggest, the biggest question I think was, was we wanted, we wanted to get Camille Herens comments, right? I mean, we tried to, we tried to reach out to her several times last week, take it. We understand the shop, she was chopping the grace and we, you know, we alerted her as much as possible. Like, you know, this email in your inbox and we weren't accusing her of anything. You're just saying, you know what, there's some unusual edits on your Wikipedia page. We pretty much included all the screenshots and all the edits and that of these accounts and saying, you know, these are very unusual. Like, do you happen to know who this might be? Yeah, just question it again, just asking questions for the article. And, you know, and we saw that she was active on Instagram and Twitter. And, you know, we were, we were applying to tweets. We were sending DMs and yeah, we're just getting ignored at the point. But it's tough because again, you want to tell the story and you like, right, you figure at that point too, I could be more powerful as an article with her comment, right? So, I mean, it's, yeah, I mean, when we, when we, when it came around to Monday, when we were like, okay, you know, do we publish the story or not without her comment? We were like, you know, we can't, we can't wait at this point. I mean, she's not going to reply to us. And then, you know, and once this thing comes out, she's going to deny it. And I mean, you know, within an hour. So I got to get an email from Connoho, absolutely blind and I and everything. So, you know, at that point too, like, you know, they're threatening us to take the article down and saying, right, this is absolute slander. And I mean, as a journalist, I mean, you know, I've been doing it for a few years now so I can deal with a little bit of criticism. But, yeah, it's, it's hard when someone's like, you know, threatening you and, and then, you know, telling you, telling you shame on you and calling your stuff and false accusations. Yeah, you know, we were confident too as a team that, you know, that we had 100% of the facts and everything pointed to them. And we were ready to go with this thing. Yeah. So, I mean, when you publish it, you get that, you get that response. I mean, have you been, have people been blowing you up, like, emailing you, Instagram stuff like that, like, good job or how dare you, like, you don't have to get into specifics on any of that. But like, were you getting a little bit more email than normal? Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. I, it's funny. I come from a bit more of a track and field background. Yeah. And, and yeah, I, I was getting so, I was getting a lot of emails on Tuesday. And, my phone was, I was rigging a bit more than usual. So, yeah, I think it, yeah, it's, but it's always nice to have a kind of a big story to, to arrive a little bit and be able to kind of elaborate on it too. I'm a, I previously worked as a, as a kind of a database marketer. So, I'm a big statistics guy. I also have a huge baseball fan. So, I love, I love baseball for the reason of that it's, you know, there's so many statistical components to it. Yeah. And, and you can kind of figure out what someone's going to do at the plate, depending, like, depending on their previous kind of history, right? So, it's, yeah, I like falling if we're kind of like that purposes. So, this is guy, this, this story was kind of like right up my alley in terms of finding details, discovering facts and kind of getting it out there. Yeah. So, since you mentioned baseball, one of my all time favorite baseball moments is Joe Carter's walkoff. Blue Jays, your, your Toronto Blue Jays. I assume since you're in Toronto, are you a Blue Jays fan? Of course, of course. It's been a tough year for us, but yeah, I know the Joe Carter home round and the, yeah, the Joey Batista bat flip in 2015. Oh, that was so good. I try to watch those moments, like a couple times a year, just to, you know, especially during bad seasons, just to remind us of the good times. Yeah. Better days are coming. Yeah, the days are coming. Yeah. So, your, so your stats guy, like, small ball kind of thinker, and so this was up your alley. When you write an article like this, then do people start reaching out with like other tips, like, oh, you're the guy that'll actually write an article. Hey, look at this. I mean, like, or as a journalist, you get that in general. I mean, obviously you got that with this particular article, like, hey, you should look at this. Does that volume get turned up when you release, you know, a hit like this? Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. Hit meaning, sorry, I want to clarify that because that word's maybe not a great choice. Hit meaning like popular, not like a hit piece. I was thinking more of a baseball reference there with you. Oh, man, three, three, I'll take two or three of those connotations. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, I've already gotten a few emails. People like asking me to investigate some other stuff. So, yeah, I mean, I enjoyed doing it. Again, it's the thing about what makes this story very interesting is the why factor, right? Yes, is the athlete is one of the best in the world at what they do. And it just seems, you know, so like you just question after reading, you're like, well, what, you know, why would someone at this level do such a thing, right? Yeah, and I think that's what makes something like this unique. You know, people have asked me to investigate, you know, small-time coaches or like, you know, certain, you know, funding in a certain organization. But that's, you know, stuff like that's a lot tougher because they don't have the same, how do I put this? They don't have the same, you know, what Camille here is a huge star. So, you know, something like this, this story will tell itself and she's had such a big audience that it was kind of known that I didn't know it was going to blow up the way it did. But yeah, in the sense that I know it was, I knew it was going to be a big story when I came out because it was like, well, beyond belief, because you're just like, who would do such a thing? You know, right? Yeah. But yeah, there's definitely been a few emails since people saying, oh, I saw here Camille here in the story, you know, would you be able to look into this as well? Yeah, I mean, since you kind of touched on it, this was just kind of my take on it, is that what's hard is that, like, she is the best in the world at what she's, what she's good at, she's great at and probably the best at. But it feels like just from my perspective that what she's best at and what Courtney's best at and then even what Killian's best at, you know, those are three distinct circles. Maybe there's a crop, there's a crossover and all of that require endurance, but what where Camille excels, I don't know that Courtney's going to be during that and, you know, Killian. Point being, she is the best in a certain way. And so it was odd just to see like, so my initial public comment on this was like, it just makes me sad, like, what is Wikipedia, like, why? Well, you know, what's what's going on here? She is fantastic. She is incredible at what she's good at. She's, you know, one of the best. So I just thought my observation was like, I think she doesn't like that you have to get nuanced to say, well, yeah, Courtney probably is the best. I'm rooting someday that it would be Katie Shide, but, you know, Courtney's probably the best. But asterisk, look at what Camille can do at like legit long-term endurance. She's great. Incredible. Yeah, I don't think anyone, even during this whole controversy unfolding as questioned, you know, her, her ultra marathoning skill, right? I mean, she's, she's shown the world that she is one of a kind athlete and she's the best at what she does, right? Yeah, I, yeah, I mean, again, the question is, is, you know, like you said, I mean, they barely cross paths, like, you know, Camille, Killian, Courtney, they, they are all kind of from different backgrounds and the best at what they do. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, I thought it was a very strange. I mean, we're having the conversation yesterday at my office of kind of what Killian or Courtney's reaction would have been to this. I know they haven't been too vocal on social media since it's come out, but I mean, Courtney would be like, I feel like Courtney would be like, oh, what? Oh, that's not chill, you know, like, right. Exactly. And it's just like they hear that and they're like, yeah, what? What is that? What? Yeah, and then, yeah, I don't, I couldn't see Killian being too upset. He's just, you know, such a, such a bigger star and such a global star at this point, so you're right. Yeah. And this is what I want for Camille. That's what I want for everybody. Like, hey, you know, be happy with who you are. Like, not worry about what some people think about Killian. I mean, here, I'm giving her advice. That sounds dumb. But, but in general, like, well, I made me sad. It's because like, oh, you're so great. You're great at what you're great at. Don't. Who cares about this stuff? Totally. What do you think then bigger picture? I mean, because this is your world, you're, you're far more than just this, this article that the role of kind of journalism in running. Right. I mean, so you're coming more from track and field. So much more developed. You, you had the article that I really enjoyed about no allows rejecting a certain contract because he wanted the TV deal or something to be a part of it. So track and field, but in our world of like this ultra trail, you know, the media is developing. So I'm just curious, like, your take, like, what, what is like an investigative journalist or what is a, you know, a media outlet that's paying attention to the ins and outs of the sport. What does that contribute to the sport? What are you contributing to, you know, Canadian running with the way that you're handling journalism? What's the value of that? Yeah, I mean, the thing I've always wanted to do since I've started kind of in running journalism is is kind of bridge the bridge the bridge the path between the casual everyday runners and the elite side of the sport. I mean, I think people, not I'm a single runners, but I think most, you know, they, they, they do their local run clothes, but they just don't, you know, they don't really follow sort of the way it's seen, but I think they've seen so fascinating and everyone, you know, I find all runners are crazy. I am, I mean, we're all so unique and so personal and in different sort of every single way, and I think every elite runner has a story. And it's so, like, even in this situation, I mean, Camille is one of a kind of athlete and being able to. Yeah, or even Courtney or Killian, they all have certain kind of works about their kind of personality or style and. I like kind of telling that story and telling the athlete profile kind of behind and doing more sort of a just like it's easy to report the facts. Yeah, but being able to kind of like tell an athlete's story and bridge that gap for that everyday runner into like, let's say the ultra marathon world or the track of the world where they can follow the sport. Understand that okay, oh, this person's maybe just like me, you know, so I mean, that's kind of in my goal since I've started doing kind of running for Western journalism. Yeah, is to get more people kind of involved in the sport. I mean, it's it's even track and feel it's it's been super underfunded, you know, athletes aren't getting as much as they are in the big four. I mean, it's just that's probably the same thing on ultra trail and I know ultra marathoning. You know, it's it's a very it's a very tough space and athletes, you know, they've always trying ways to increase the funding, I think. So, you know, I think just the purpose of doing that is bringing more eyes. I mean, everyone keeps talking about the running boot, right? Yeah, I mean, you see it in marathons like you marathons sell out, I mean, like a boss in this year, six minutes and 51 seconds. Like, is it been your mind like explode when you see that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I can I can maybe do one mile at that. Yeah, I mean, it's it's a it's a crazy pace. Yeah, but you know, to to to see 36,000 people hit standards. You see, you know, the underfunding of just the sport, it's just like it just doesn't like things don't add up, right? So yeah, being able to bridge the gap in that and just bring more people in. I mean, you know, like I said, they're already running. So why aren't they following the sport, right? So it's yes, it'd be awesome to bring more eyes on that and just keep bringing more funding. And then again, it gets just be able to tell the story and I think that's kind of what motivates me to to do more and end. Yeah, kind of be kind of a trailblazer in that sense of of finding stories and finding interesting things to kind of bring that audience in more and to follow our stuff. Yeah, I think. Have you seen the sprint docu series on Netflix? I have, yeah, very good. My wife and I are watching it right now. We just maybe saw episode three and in that the the British sprinter and blanking on his name. He breaks the British record. He gets third in this particular race, but he breaks the British record and there's some sort of celebration. And he gets a check, a massive check, you know, one of those big life, you know, bigger than life checks that is for $5,000. I'm thinking he's in a stadium with 50,000 people with the biggest sponsors in the world. And he was just handed a check for $5,000. That just to me feels crazy to me when you think about how much money is moving through that stadium. And then they made it, they spent, you know, $200 on the check that's that size and gave him $5,000. To your point of like, you know, journalism, like having the ability to tell story, I don't know what I'm saying, that's the perfect one. But it is an example of like, hey, where is all this money going? Journalists doing exposing stuff like that helps the athletes, helps the brands, helps grow the sport. So I think where I'm ultimately going with this is that the value of journalism that even when it exposes, when it investigates, is that it has the power to elevate and make everything better. Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, again, like even the sprint series, like I want to something I really enjoyed about that. Is it focused on the personality of the athletes, right? I mean, like, I love seeing Zarnel Hughes go from the track to like just at home flying a plane. You know, he's got a wild, yeah, had that in home flight similar as like, man, this guy's so cool. Like, yeah, you know, and then like you said, like a $5,000 check when you're selling it, you know, $40,000 Olympic stadium, you know, in London. So it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's completely bonkers and it's been something that's been going on for the last couple of years that, you know, every, it's been going on for a long time. I shouldn't say the last couple of years, but yeah, if there's any, if there's any way that, you know, we can do it, it's, I think it's too immediate, right? I mean, we live in such a social media area, right now where people are consuming articles and videos and pictures on TikTok and Instagram. Just every second, right? So being able to do that and get stories like this going viral, I think it just definitely brings more eyes to the sport. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm super, again, I don't know how else to say it other than it feels vintage to me for an article to go viral. I don't know has ever been last time an article went viral, you know, like because it goes through other forms of media, not the written word from a, you know, publication doesn't feel like those go viral the same way that they used to. There's a lot of distrust within media and so it changes, you know, the, just the way all that stuff moves. And so this felt like a vintage moment. And I guess also an asterisk here to be clear, I am not celebrating, you know, the, the outcome, you know, like Camille, like, so I'm saying, hey, journalism, this is great. And, you know, on the other end, the outcome of it for Camille and what she's working through and, you know, the, the great sort of American. The tale of like, you know, we want to see our heroes fall, but then we also want to see our heroes come back. I hope the best for her and I hope the best for her future. So I'm not celebrating the outcome, but I'm just saying like the act of the work and the way that it went viral and the way that people have talked about it feels like a throwback. Were you, were you surprised kind of the way that they, they dealt with it? Yeah, yeah. So my background is in PR, like, that's my, that's my college degree and I've used it a ton. Yes, I was like, I thought about doing an episode on, you know, other other things like spring energy. I don't know if you paid attention to what happened with spring energy when they lied about what was in their deal, but like an episode on, here's what I would have done differently if I were spring energy. I would have revolutionized transparency and running nutrition because you made that mistake you messed up, but we're going to change the industry. I was surprised that Camille went completely dark and either deleted or, you know, with Jew her socials somehow. So someone who wants to make a case that they didn't do it or that it wasn't a big deal. And on the other end, it showed me it may, she's not speaking up. So I can only guess it made it came off like this is a big deal to her so big that these socials that are worth if she monetizes properly worth hundreds of thousands of dollars if she keeps them on that she's willing to just like turn them all off. It made me feel that's where the sadness came from, like this means so much to her, whatever that is, I don't even know what it is, but whatever that is, it means so much to her that she would go dark. And I don't know if Spartathlon is this weekend or when it is, that's going to be interesting. It starts tomorrow, I believe. Okay, I mean, I wish I wish her well. I hope the best for her. Yeah, but it feels weird. The biggest thing that surprised me too is is I thought I knew they were going to go dark. I know 100%, but I mean, that's just how most people that are in kind of a controversial scandal or something that are, you know, or if they're getting any sort of online hate, they'll just immediately shut off the socials, which is, you know, that's always the first move, but I was surprised, you know, that her and her and Connor were tweeting sort of immediately throwing it out and then shutting it off. Yeah, it's it's it's kind of contradictory, I think in that point, yeah, I'm not saying again that, you know, that, but it, you know, a lot of that there were a lot of people in the public that were kind of against our article when it when it came out, you know, saying that like, oh, this is, this is too, you know, this is too, like behind the facts, this is like, this is, this is crazy. This is a crazy accusation. So I mean, a lot of people, again, like she has so many fans in the running world that we're just siding with her and staying with her and then they really started to turn around after she came out with the tweed saying someone's after me, people are bullying me, people are asking me. Yeah, and then obviously Conor's apology, I came out sort of on on twos, I think it was too Monday night or Tuesday morning, I forget off the top. Yeah, but yeah, a lot of that, I think really changed the narrative and kind of switched the people that were defending her to kind of being like, oh, my gosh, are you really doing this? I'm not sure how viral the follow up article that you wrote went on Lulu Limon, but do you want to give us the high level on that one? Well, so I reached out to Lulu Limon on Wednesday just to ask like, you know, what their take was on the scenario and if we could add a comment to our previous story. I woke up yesterday morning to an email from Lulu and PR saying that they've cut ties with Camel Heron, which I was like, it was one of those moments where you wake up in the morning, you look at your phone, you see the email and you're like, oh, my gosh. Oh, no, no, you're like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this happened. Yeah, you know, if we send it around to our team and yeah, I mean, if that goes up as well, it gets it gets it's rounds. I mean, the story of on Camel is still very, very, very hot. So yeah, the story went around. I mean, honestly, you know, my, my, my take is it's not surprising. I mean, you know, it's Lulu Limon really mark. I know there's they've been a few scandals in the past. Right. What they're old CEO. Yes. And you know, but the brand really positions itself, as you said, like every that everyone's a runner and you, you, you praise everyone up. I mean, your actions go against that. So it doesn't come as a surprise that they've, you know, not associated themselves with her anymore. Just again, you don't want someone going against your your company's mission. And if that's like, if that's, that's been their, their guilt since the start is to have Camel as the person in the ultra marathon community that, that is that bright light that inspires a lot of people to. Yeah, to try to sport. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, just, just thinking out loud here on, on the other end for Lulu Limon to cut ties, you know, brands not standing with their athletes. I mean, I have a bigger issue with brands sponsoring athletes in general, like financially does it actually produce money if they're brand building. Yes, if they're trying to monetize those. So I still think brands are working that out to some degree within within trail. Camel is different because of the amount of followers she has. But, you know, to, to just walk away from a PR perspective, I get it. You've got to make a decision and you've got to do what's in the best interest of the company. I'm curious. If anybody, if there's going to be any blowback on Lulu Limon to say, hey, why did you? Why didn't you let the emotions come down first? There's so much pressure to say, do the right thing. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. And then so they did something. Was it the right thing? I mean, I don't know. Only they only they know. And, you know, they know they're dealing with that consequence or fall out if there is any, you know, they're dealing with that on there. Yeah, I mean, we saw, we saw a little bit of both sides. I mean, people have been very active on a lot of forums and in our comments sections too on the stories. And some people praise Lulu Limon for doing it. They were like, yes, like I said, it's not a surprise going to come. But they're also like you said there were a lot of people saying, like, you know, how could you do this? I mean, it's such to think of the scandal or the Wikipedia controversy as a whole. I mean, it is like, it is like, it's a little embarrassing. And it's a little why. But yeah, beyond that, like, it's not like, you know, someone was got pop for, you know, PDs or was shooting herself up an EBO. So it's not like it's it's it's not like, you know, they're cheating and any sort of way shape of forms. It was just, you know, yes, the bullying and and again, not sort of representing the company's image that the way that they wanted. So again, ultimately is, I guess, you know, that's that's what contracts are these days, right? It's right. It's it's you'll you'll be paid for, you know, probably half your athletic achievements and then half of it is just your image, right? It's is you are on social media. It is yeah, you interact with fans. I mean, I don't know if you fall a track too much, but Craig angles, you know, he's he's a great runner and you know, nothing against Craig, but the thing that makes Craig so marketable is his interaction with fans and his fallen on social media. I mean, people like the American, the American track and field community loves Craig angles. And that's the reason why, you know, he has such a high and long contract with Nike is because, you know, it's not because he's. He's not making, he's not making teams because he has this has this massive falling and then people love to like, he wants to be see, make he wants to have him in his gear when he's posting videos, right? A brand is giving someone money to represent them. It's not always about their winning like no allow could be the best investment, Adidas ever made and never win because of how he is the main character anytime he walks in the room like and he can represent it still well with integrity, fidelity, because Adidas, I don't know if he's still with Adidas, he was in the sprint documentary. You know, so he the question is does he move the brand forward and does he sell stuff for them? And so on that level with Camille, she's not moving the brand forward, which is, you know, therefore, probably going backward if they kept her so I get that decision. But to your point with the Nike runner like, yeah, you want to have that stuff on to make in the videos because it builds the goodwill and that's an investment and Nike can invest in brand and that brand grows with that. So I see Lou Limon's decision and I think, you know, having not thought about it before, I probably support it. Where do you think, you know, honestly, we talked about them not doing kind of the right thing with the way they've dealt this in terms of, in terms of PR, but, you know, I know obviously she's, she's racing this weekend, but going into next week, I mean, there's going to be a lot of people wanting to talk to her and Conor. Where do you think the, what do you think, if you were them, what do you think the ideal way is to deal with the scenario going to next week? I love that question. I think first, first thing, you know, like you'll see strategically, people will just kind of lay back and let it blow over. Like, let, let, let the podcast do the episodes about it where people talk about it. Do all that sort of stuff, let the initial emotion sort of die down and then emerge. That's looks like what they're doing. If I think spring energy should revolutionize transparency and nutrition to come back from that, I think from her, just like public contrition, you know, an apology, a celebration of, you know, I want to hear from Courtney that Camille reached out to apologize, or, and maybe not even apologize, but just to be like, acknowledge, you know, Kobe acknowledging Michael Jordan, his greatness, like, I would want to hear some stuff that's not being done for the PR value behind the scenes from other people saying, hey, she's out actually. She said, screw her public image. I'm just going to go make it right with some people that I upset. I think that's what I'd want to hear. I'd want to hear other people celebrating her. And then her, anytime we hear her voice, I've just like, yeah, messed up. I don't know how I got cut up in that. That's what I want to hear, I think. Yeah, I mean, they also need to think about this. This is this deal with this from a financial standpoint, too. And, you know, obviously, you lose the little lemon contract. Yes, I imagine that's a majority of your income. So, you know, you know, you got to think about, okay, well, if someone's going to choose to sponsor us in the future, we need to make ourselves marketable again. Right. I mean, this thing is, it's not going to, it's not going to blow over next week. Yeah, it's going to, like you said, it's going to take time. It's going to take all these and it's going to take coming out and being okay. We did, yeah, we're sorry. This won't happen again. So, I mean, you got to make yourself marketable again. And I think the way of doing that, like you said, is the biggest saying out of apologies, hearing other athletes kind of talk about that. Yeah, just a minute, the wrongdoing. And yeah, being able to kind of get back out there on the trails and, you know, not really talking about it, but, you know, her just continuing to be, you know, the bad ass. Yeah, so they were, I hired a few guys on the other podcast talking about, okay, where do you go from here? And I think the thing is, instead of just like, you know, tearing people down, it's someone breaks your record, then like, you know, applaud them. You know, you're like, okay, well, I'm going to go faster or use it as motivation, be like, you know, Stina, you're an incredible athlete, you know, it's, it takes one and a million to do what you just did. Yes, you know, I can't wait to challenge you out there in an event or something like that, you know, to, to build someone up and people love, like you said, people love rivalries, you know, people love seeing the best go at it. I mean, you look at, like the NBA, I mean, the NBA is really good at marketing the rivalries, like people love seeing, you know, the calves and the gold state warriors. Yes, over the past 10 years, kind of go at it when LeBron was there and then Steph Curry and Kevin Durand were kind of on the same team. I mean, that was, I was like, I'm not even a calves or gold state fan, exactly. I don't like them both because my Raptors fan, but I was able to witness greatness and see two teams kind of go at it. And it wasn't like, you know, they were taking it easy, they were playing some of the hardest basketball you've ever seen, right? I feel like having that and having that rivalry is great for the sport and it pushes not only people to go further, but like everyone around in the, it trickles down, I feel. So, yeah. And I think being able to do that and celebrate others is something that I hope that her and Connor would kind of learn from this scenario. And we'll be able to kind of take into kind of their future races and yeah, just the rest of their career. Yeah. I love in race like shit talking. I love it in the race. And then what I loved about like that 90s NBA kind of vibe of, you know, Jordan, everybody was his enemy, you know, to a degree unless they were on his team. Like I love that in the sport, but then also like outside of the context of the sport. I guess Jordan's probably the worst example, but outside of the actual like competition of the sport, their buddies, they celebrate each other, they, you know, all of these sort of things like that. I feel like that's what's missing. And so to your point and maybe to, to Finn's point as well from single track is celebrate, you got it, I mean, you got to, you got to turn that volume. And maybe you got to do some work on yourself to be able to celebrate some other people doing better than you are performing you, but I saw like on that sprint documentary when the guy when he broke the record of the other British sprinter. The other British sprinter celebrated him, you know, like that's what you have to do is you have to be able to celebrate each other. So I think that's probably a really good point. Yeah. I mean, it's there's like, like you said, there's like with with MJ like everyone on like when the moment you stepped on the basketball court, everyone was his enemy doesn't matter like they could be best friends off the court. It doesn't matter, you know, I think there's no friends competition, you know, like, I'm not bad, but I think being able to embrace and celebrate others that go further is, is that there's nothing, nothing, there's nothing, there's no problem. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's just a respect thing. It's, and, and Jell, it's not good to be jealous. You know, I mean, you learn that, I feel like you learn that when you're young and it doesn't get you far. Yeah. You know, it'll only, it'll like, you know, stay you're down the wrong path. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, I just don't see it as it's, it's, it's okay. Like it's, it's not. That's where I really don't get this whole thing is this is like, you know, if, if someone has a faster 5K PR on me, I'm not saying like, oh, they must be, they must be on the EPO, they must be. They must not, they must not be, you know, drinking alcohol. It's like, it's like, it's, it's, it's, it's whatever. It's, it's, you know, I'm, I don't put my training on a, on a massive pedestal. It's, it's, it's, people are just going to be naturally more talented things and some people are going to be like, yeah, so it's, it's just being open and being able to accept criticism and being able to accept that there's going to be people that are just naturally better. It's something, right? It's, it happens in every sport. Yeah. Yeah. Well, do you foresee any, any follow-ups? I mean, I guess you just kind of let those develop as they come, but is there, is there a future to, to, that we look forward to with more articles about this or. Yeah. I mean, we reached out to Connor, kind of this, this week, after obviously he, he really says, apology statement. Yeah. Just asking if like, you know, if you'd love to sit down for an interview. I mean, that'd be kind of like, I think the only thing we, we kind of published from now on in is, is kind of a one on one, kind of tell all piece with, yeah, Connor. Just again, I, I think we want to go a lot more in the details. I mean, as we saw from his apology, it was very, it was very vague. In the sense, I mean, obviously they own up to it, which is the biggest thing, but, yeah, it was very vague and describing the why. And kind of talking about, like, you know, didn't really dive into the corny and, and killian thing either. Much besides like just saying, apologies to all athletes that are affected. Yeah. So I, I think going into the why things happened and, and seeing sort of how long it's been going on for. And kind of where the edits were made or the ideas kind of came from to do this. Yeah. I think, I, yeah, I mean, we talked before, kind of going in a PR thing, but I think now, like, you know, now that they've admitted to it. The story is obviously, yeah, once that they, they obviously did it. I think, you know, no, there's nothing to hide. I mean, you've, you've, you've admitted the biggest thing. So I feel like now, just being able to tell your story and be completely open with it is, is the best sort of therapy and the best way to yourself get yourself back out there and get fans back and earn, yeah, and earn sponsors being like, okay, they've admitted the wrong. They've apologized and now they're, you know, ready to get back on the roads or trails. Yeah. I mean, the, the saying and, and just about all business I've been a part of is sunlight is the best disinfectant like. If they were willing to sit down with you and just kind of say, all right, here it is, you know, open book and I'm sure that'll be filtered. You know, they might hire a publicist or professional to help steer them, which. I, you know, if I were in their position, I'd probably do that too just to make sure that you're, you're preserving the right things, the right way and saying the right, saying the things that, saying the things the right way, because your intention doesn't matter. It's the right words that apply matter, but I think that would be a fascinating read. I hope that they do something like that. And, you know, just even kind of winded down here, just. I want to, I wanted to crush Spartath on this weekend, like as a fan of the sport, I hate dynasties in real time, but I love them in retrospect. And so I want to look back and be like, yeah, Camille, she did. In this one year, she did what she did it further and she's, and she did what she has Spartath on like I wanted to crush it. I want that for her. And then, you know, on the other end of this, let's start seeing it, it cleaned up in any final thoughts, any final words. Now, I really appreciate you having me on Josh. It's been, yeah, it's been a whirlwind of a week, but it's, it's, yeah, it's really cool to done the, the Dove and everything and, yeah, and talk about how things came about. Again, I, as you said, I'm, I'm, there's like, I think Camille is an incredible athlete and I mean, I don't think anyone in this entire process has questioned that. I mean, everyone knows that she is a pillar in this sport and, you know, no one's questioning her as one of the greatest of ultra marathoners of all time. And that's what she is. But I think, yeah, at this point, it's, it's, it is time to, to come out and, and to speed up front and, and tell their side of the story. And, and I have, I have no, I have no question that they'll, they'll, they, they will come up, they will arise from this and that they will be able to earn fans back and she has one of the biggest. It's possible. Yeah, it's doable. There's a path. Yes, but, yeah, she's got one of the biggest followings on, on, on social media, especially in the ultra running community. So, yeah, well, hey, let's do an episode sometime where you teach me about Diamond League, like I'm wanting to move, like to not just talking about trail, but a little bit more about road because I'm running on the road a lot right now, living in Paris, normally live in Salt Lake City. And then also just getting, you know, coming off of the Olympics, just loved it and my friend Brian has, has been talking about Diamond League. So I think, you know, to introduce my audience to what's happening there, just to keep us, keep that moment. I'm going from the Olympics will be fun. Oh, I'd love to. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of it. I can talk Diamond League all day. Love it. Alright, man. Thank you so much. Appreciate you, Marley. I'll see you. [BLANK_AUDIO]