Home / The 20-Year Reunion
Twenty years after the race, the crew got back together.
Host Luis Escobar brings back the people who went to the Copper Canyons in 2006: Christopher McDougall, Eric Orton, Barefoot Ted, Billy Barnett and Jenn Shelton. They talk about how the trip came together, how the cover photo was chosen, Caballo Blanco, a near fist fight at Badwater, and where life has taken them since.
- Luis EscobarHost
- Christopher McDougallAuthor
- Eric OrtonCoach
- Barefoot TedRunner · LUNA
- Billy BarnettRunner
- Jenn SheltonRunner
“That’s how running still feels fresh to me 20 years later, because I try to live by those sort of, those ideals of just adventure, freedom, passion.”
Billy Barnett ·
“What I love about that was that felt like the beginning of the adventure. You had this dude at the top of the mountain looking around like, okay, what am I going to do next?”
Christopher McDougall · · on the cover photo
“One of the real pleasures for me is I feel that Born to Run has stood up over time.”
Christopher McDougall ·
“I don’t want to be alone … in a little cabin by myself. I want to embrace, embrace people, embrace life a little bit more. So I’ve learned from him in that way.”
Billy Barnett · · on Caballo Blanco
“It wasn’t so much what I experienced there, but it’s that feeling that we had down there that catapulted everything after.”
Eric Orton ·
“I wouldn’t say life changing, it was life accelerating and life amplifying in a very, very rapid way.”
Eric Orton ·
“I figured I could put a piece of leather through a piece of rubber, and that’s basically the story of a company that I created called LUNA Sandals.”
Barefoot Ted ·
“I think meeting you all formed a perspective that has stayed with me ever since, which is you people are what I think athletes should be.”
Christopher McDougall ·
“… meeting Barefoot Ted on that trip was the thing that affected my life the most. I was like, this man knows how to travel.”
Jenn Shelton ·
“Micah really did tell me that the best, … the greatest gift that we have to share with others is a gift of opportunity. Give somebody a chance, … create opportunities for the people around you.”
Luis Escobar ·
“I think the reason why the book has enduring popularity is because of all of you.”
Christopher McDougall ·
“… you don’t necessarily need a lot of technology to do it. You might already have what it takes.”
Barefoot Ted ·
How these quotes were made: there was no published transcript, so we transcribed the official episode audio with the open-source Whisper speech-recognition model. We then checked every quoted passage against a second, larger Whisper model, and quote only wording the two runs agree on. “…” marks words left out, such as filler words. Speakers are identified from the conversation (introductions, names and context). Timestamps are approximate, to within a few seconds. Please listen to the episode for the full context.