Free Inside

Jeff G

Free Inside is a weekly conversation with Jeff Garmire and Allison Powell about endurance sports, adventure, science, coaching, curiosity, and whatever else happened that week. Some episodes dive into ultrarunning, hiking, and training. Others end up about bears, the World Cup, nonprofit work, overthinking, or why Jeff still doesn't know what he's wearing to the wedding. No guests. No script. Just honest conversations, bad jokes, and the things we'd probably be talking about anyway.

Episodes

  1. Aug 26

    Questionable Ham, Bigfoot, and Our First Date

    Jeff Garmire and Allison Powell return for another episode of Free Inside, the spinoff show where outdoor adventures quickly turn into conversations about Bigfoot, ghosts, questionable food, and everything else occupying our brains. We recap our four-day, 72-mile backpacking trip through the Sierra Nevada, including swimming in alpine lakes, hiking part of the John Muir Trail, fighting with bear canisters, missing the store by 15 minutes, and carrying ham that may or may not have been safe to eat. Allison also explains how she beat Jeff approximately 100–0 in gin rummy. Then Weird Allison’s Corner takes us into Bigfoot kidnappings, interdimensional Sasquatches, ghosts, reincarnation, not-deer, haunted limestone, and the disastrous first date where we somehow started discussing aliens. Plus, our Appalachian Trail film Rewritten premieres on YouTube Friday, August 28. This is Free Inside. We are both wearing pants. Support our Sponsors: Janji (code: Freeoutside): https://snp.link/a0bfb726 CS Coffee: CSinstant.coffee Garage Grown Gear: https://snp.link/db1ba8ab Subscribe to Substack: http://freeoutside.substack.com Support this content on patreon: HTTP://patreon.com/freeoutside Buy my book "Free Outside" on Amazon: https://amzn.to/39LpoSF Email me to buy a signed copy of my book, "Free Outside" at jeff@freeoutside.com Watch the movie about setting the record on the Colorado Trail: https://tubitv.com/movies/100019916/free-outside Website: www.Freeoutside.com Instagram: thefreeoutside facebook: www.facebook.com/freeoutside #Trailrunning #Runningnews #Outdoors #Outdooradventure

  2. Aug 19

    Every Book at the Barkley Marathons. It Still Wasn’t Enough.

    For three months, Jeff Garmire and Allison Powell were secretly training for the same nearly impossible Valentine’s Day plan: the Barkley Marathons. Neither of them could explain why they were accumulating enormous amounts of vertical gain through a Montana winter, practicing map-and-compass navigation, waking up for middle-of-the-night training sessions or suddenly planning a trip to Tennessee. Then, on February 14, they both stood at the starting line inside Frozen Head State Park. Recorded during their drive home from Barkley, Jeff and Allison can finally talk openly about the experience. They compare their secret training, the skills they believed they needed, their gear and fueling plans, and the strange challenge of preparing together without being able to tell almost anyone what they were doing. Their races began together in the lead group before eventually becoming two very different Barkley experiences. Allison recounts fighting to stay with the veterans, descending through leaves and briars, searching for hidden books without GPS and joining a group of eight runners who worked together throughout the day. The group collected pages from all 16 books and completed the loop in more than 17 hours, outside the official cutoff, earning the names “Overtime Eight” and “Elite Eight.” Jeff and Allison discuss what worked, what they would change, why accessible calories matter on terrain that never gives you a convenient moment to eat, and how teamwork transformed an intimidating race into an unexpectedly joyful experience. This episode of Free Inside is about the secret Jeff and Allison carried together, the dream they finally shared at Barkley and the two very different experiences that unfolded after the cigarette was lit.

  3. Aug 12

    Athlete? Pilot? Spy?!

    This week on Free Inside, we somehow go from coaching philosophy and running in two left shoes to an ultrarunning history quiz, terrible acting, our biggest pet peeves and figuring out which completely inappropriate companies we should sell out to. But the real discovery of the episode is Marie Marvingt, one of the most absurdly accomplished athletes and adventurers we've ever heard of. She competed in everything from skiing and cycling to swimming and mountaineering, rode the Tour de France course after being denied entry, became an early pilot, pushed the idea of air ambulances and somehow kept adding careers from there. Plus: Cliff Young, Western States history, the Barkley Marathons, why running an ultra is really just "going around your elbow to get to your ass," what makes a good coach, and why Allison apparently has very strong feelings about people saying "Tailwinds." Support our Sponsors: Janji (code: Freeoutside): https://snp.link/a0bfb726 CS Coffee: CSinstant.coffee Garage Grown Gear: https://snp.link/db1ba8ab Subscribe to Substack: http://freeoutside.substack.com Support this content on patreon: HTTP://patreon.com/freeoutside Buy my book "Free Outside" on Amazon: https://amzn.to/39LpoSF Email me to buy a signed copy of my book, "Free Outside" at jeff@freeoutside.com Watch the movie about setting the record on the Colorado Trail: https://tubitv.com/movies/100019916/free-outside Website: www.Freeoutside.com Instagram: thefreeoutside facebook: www.facebook.com/freeoutside #Trailrunning #Runningnews #Outdoors #Outdooradventure

  4. Jul 29

    Would You Swim the English Channel?

    What starts as a conversation about whether we'd ever run Badwater quickly turns into designing some of the most ridiculous endurance events imaginable. This week on Free Inside, we debate extreme ultramarathons, Allison's lifelong dream of swimming the English Channel, why long-distance swimming might be the world's worst spectator sport, and how we would completely redesign track and field if anyone were foolish enough to let us. Along the way we cover: Badwater 135, Arrowhead 135, and other extreme endurance racesOpen-water swimming, the English Channel, and Alcatraz swimsThe Travis Walton "Fire in the Sky" UFO mysteryThe best and worst spectator sportsWhy ultramarathons should include puzzles and escape roomsHow we'd fix track and field with chaos, fire, glow-in-the-dark skeleton suits, and moving walkwaysStrange race ideas we'd actually love to seeWhy endurance sports don't always have to take themselves so seriouslyWhether you're into ultrarunning, trail running, hiking, endurance sports, triathlons, backpacking, outdoor adventure, or just enjoy two people turning normal conversations into increasingly absurd rabbit holes, there's something here for you. If you've ever wondered what happens when two endurance athletes are left alone with microphones for too long, this episode is your answer. Expect laughs, weird stories, questionable race design, and the kind of conversations that somehow start with Badwater and end with aliens, puzzles, and glow-in-the-dark runners.

5
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

Free Inside is a weekly conversation with Jeff Garmire and Allison Powell about endurance sports, adventure, science, coaching, curiosity, and whatever else happened that week. Some episodes dive into ultrarunning, hiking, and training. Others end up about bears, the World Cup, nonprofit work, overthinking, or why Jeff still doesn't know what he's wearing to the wedding. No guests. No script. Just honest conversations, bad jokes, and the things we'd probably be talking about anyway.