Zach Friedley is a professional athlete who is changing the sport of trail running. Zach was born without most of his right leg, and is often the only adaptive athlete at the starting line of some of the world’s hardest races. There aren’t a lot of running events with categories specifically for adaptive athletes, but Zach is on a mission to change that.
Zach Friedley is a professional athlete who is changing the sport of trail running. Zach was born without most of his right leg, and is often the only adaptive athlete at the starting line of some of the world’s hardest races. There aren’t a lot of running events with categories specifically for adaptive athletes, but Zach is on a mission to change that.
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Zachary Friedley:
I am racing some of the toughest races out there. And I think just the drive of like I might be the first person showing up to these events with a blade and just opening the door and starting this conversation. Because I know there's other people out there like me that are just waiting for an opportunity like this and nobody's inviting them to these things. And I think I'm working on creating those invites. And I think once I show up to these events, hammer out these hard courses, then they can't avoid me.
Shelby Stanger:
Zach Friedley is a professional athlete who is changing the sport of trail running. Zach was born without most of his right leg and is often the only adaptive athlete at the starting line of some of the world's hardest races. There aren't a lot of running events with categories specifically for adaptive athletes, but Zach is on a mission to change that. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studios production brought to you by Capital One.
When Zach runs, he wears a prosthetic called a running blade. If you haven't seen one, a blade is lightweight and springy. It almost looks like a ski bent into the shape of an upside down question mark. Zach tried a blade for the first time when he was in his twenties. He was at his prosthetist office, and as soon as he put it on, he started running down the hallway. That moment was a turning point and Zach immediately set his sights on making the National Adaptive Running Team.
Zach Friedley, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. You've had a lot of wild ideas, so I'm really excited to speak with you.
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm super excited to share some stories and just maybe do a little deep dive.
Shelby Stanger:
So let's just talk about running. After you got your blade at like 23, 24, did you immediately start running competitively?
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. So back then, December of 2007 is when I got this, and six months later was the Beijing Paralympics. So my eyes and my goals were set to that. And even though it was a short window, there were still maybe a chance that I could make it. So I went to the trials. Didn't make it, but was hooked. This was my path. I was going to train for the next one. And I wanted to make a Paralympic team. And that was my new identity in this world.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow. Okay. So what did that look like, training for the Paralympics?
Zachary Friedley:
It looked a lot like a guy who didn't know what he was doing, had too much of an ego to even get a coach, thought he could just do it on his own. Knowing what I know now, I'm like, "What was this guy even thinking?" I mean, 20-year-old Zach was just trying to prove himself worthy of being an athlete or maybe even just being a human being. It was all subconscious. And we have our different coping mechanisms, and mine was just this mean angry guy. And I wasn't mean or angry to anybody, I was mean and angry to myself. It was all internal. And it was just a lot of pressure and a lot of tension and just grinding and grinding and grinding and a lot of injuries. And I didn't know. I mean, I thought I was, no pain, no gain, just keep doing this thing and it'll eventually work out, which it never did. I never reached that goal of being a Paralympian.
Shelby Stanger:
Well, I appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing this with me because I relate pretty deeply to your story in the sense that, back then, if you grew up in the '80s, in the '90s, early 2000s, that was the mantra we were told. Like, no pay, no gain.
Zachary Friedley:
Totally.
Shelby Stanger:
You got to push it. You got to go hard. I mean, when I was a 20-year-old, I was crazy. I worked absurd hours. I ran absurd amounts until I broke myself. I didn't stop. But that was the message of society at the time, and it didn't work for a lot of us. A lot of us had to choose a different path. I found adventure and chilled out. It sounds like you found nature as well in the form of trail running.
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah, 10 years later. I mean, it didn't happen right away. And after I crashed and burned, I gave up running and was not a runner.
Shelby Stanger:
That's really crushing. You had this big wild idea to make the Paralympic team, and you went for it and you gave up four years of your life or probably more to make this happen.
Zachary Friedley:
Eight years. Two times.
Shelby Stanger:
Eight years. That's a huge chunk of life to go after a goal and not get it.
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. I mean, I felt like a failure, honestly. And then that's what catapulted me into this next piece of my life, and I was leaving Kansas City and going on this vision quest to figure out who I was.
Shelby Stanger:
What did that look like?
Zachary Friedley:
Well, when it started to happen, I didn't sit down and say, "Zach, we're going on a vision quest," but that's what it ended up being. I was depressed for many months. And I did wake up one day, literally woke up out of bed and was like, "If I continue to do this, I don't even know if I'm going to be alive anymore. Something's got to change. I don't know how to change here." So the only thing I could think about was just vacating, just going somewhere. And the opportunity that presented itself was a really close family friend had just lost his wife and he had two daughters that were a seventh grade and freshmen, they had just moved to Philadelphia, and he was a big executive and travels all the time and didn't have anybody to take care of the girls. And at the funeral, I basically, "I'll do. It's me." And I said that on a Thursday or a Friday and flew to Philadelphia on a Monday.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. This is a really interesting vision quest. And I appreciate that it's not like I took Ayahuasca in the jungle. And that's fine if that's what your vision quest is. But it sounds like you had this divine thing happen in your life where you knew you needed to make a change and someone offered you a chance to go be of service to someone and help mentor these young women, which is really cool.
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. It gave me purpose for a year. And it was very challenging. They just lost their mom and they were grieving and I was lost in my life. But they depended on me every day to take them to school, cook them food, go to parent-teacher conferences, problem solve. They were starting to date guys, and I was like, this is all crazy. It was a lot.
Shelby Stanger:
Teenage girls. That's a lot. Yeah.
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, every day, I was on all the time. There was not really a day off. I couldn't be like, "Well, I don't feel like it today. Figure it out on your own." So it was just every day getting up, helping them with homework, cooking food, taking them to lacrosse practice. Or they would always sweet talk. They'd be like, "Zach, we really want to go to Pinkberry. Please take us to get..." They would be like, "Please, please, please." And then I'd be like, "All right. Let's go." So we'd get in the car and then we'd go get frozen yogurt or something. So it was just a lot of that all the time.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So you're living in Pennsylvania. Then how did trail running come into all this? You'd given up running?
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. Well, trail running didn't happen even then. I basically moved from Philly, because I didn't really like the East Coast too much. The girls were done with school, and I didn't really want to stay in Philly by myself. So I had this opportunity to come to this place called Humboldt County, California to work on a farm. And I didn't have a lot of details except for it's remote, it's hard work, but you can make a lot of money. And I said, "Yeah, let me do it." So I drove all the way across the country and got to San Francisco. And I thought it was maybe going to be an hour away, but it's like, where I was working was like six hours away from civilization, up in these mountains in Humboldt with nothing. And it was a shock.
I lived in the back of my truck for six months working on this farm, doing the hardest work I've ever done in my life. And that's where the blade came back out again because I needed some sort of equipment to move around these mountains. I was pumping water, I was watering things, I was moving. So I improvised my blade and stuck a shoe on the bottom of it and duct taped it and was moving around the hill. So that was what was the first drop of, oh, this is pretty cool, moving around, using your body in the outdoors, in the mountains. And then a couple years later, I moved to Mendocino where I live now. Started working with the shaman. And we did a lot of body work, transformational body work.
And in that process, I processed a lot of trauma that I didn't even know I had. I had a new relationship with my body. And I had this blade that had a shoe duct taped to the bottom of it. And I found myself after a lot of these sessions going to this beach and just running around and doing crazy stuff in the middle of the night, just moving my body, not trying to win anything, not trying to prove anything, just, "Hey, I got a human body and I got this piece of equipment. Let's go move." And so I did that for a while. And then I ended up at this event called Born to Run in 2019. And that's where my life changed.
Shelby Stanger:
Born to Run is a well-known book written by Chris McDougall, who happens to be a dear friend and mentor of mine and Zach's. When the book came out, it sparked a running movement around the world. It was also the inspiration for an event of the same name. Since 2010, the Born to Run festival has taken place in southern California. It's been described as a combination between a race and a party. The event was created by the famous ultra runner, Luis Escobar, who ended up being a pretty important person in Zach's life. In 2019, Zach attended Born to Run for the first time as a volunteer. But at the event, he was inspired to sign up for a 10-mile trail run on the spot, something he'd never done before.
Crossing that finish line changed Zach's life. Until then, he'd only run on tracks, paved sidewalks and roads. He never realized that he could run on dirt trails in forests. Your first time trail running, I just would love for you to dive in and tell me what that felt like for you.
Zachary Friedley:
It felt like freedom. It felt like liberation. It felt like a kid in a candy store turned loose, except it was a 33 or 34-year-old man turned loose into the outdoors. And I remember crossing the finish line and thinking about all the national parks I'd ever been to in my vehicle, just driving through and being like, "Oh, what a cool mountain." Or, "Oh, Yosemite, awesome waterfall." And now I'm like, now I'm going back to these places and parking the car and I'm going to go run through these things. I'm going to go just be like a primal dude running through nature.
And that's pretty much what I did. The next month, I went to Yosemite, tried to run to the top of El Capitan. Had no water. I didn't know anything. Got halfway, and one of the rangers was like, "Bro, what are you doing?" And I'm like, "I'm running to the top, man." He's like, "Where's your water and stuff?" And I'm like, "I don't have any." And he's like, "I really love this energy that you got, man, but it's a hundred degrees. You need water. Maybe you try this a different time." And he turned me around. And they gave me a lifetime pass to all the national parks. But that was just how eager and hungry I was. It's like turning a kid into a candy store.
Shelby Stanger:
I love your story. I love how you describe what happened. And I can imagine exactly you going up to El Capitan and the ranger being like, "What the heck is this guy doing?" Okay. So you went to Yosemite. And then at what point do you decide like, "I'm going to compete." Was it at one of Luis's events?
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. I think after doing one of Luis events. It was this 25K somewhere up in northern California, Quincy, California. And I just felt this big pull to come back to one of his events and we reconnected. I hadn't seen him in two or three years. And Luis and I didn't really talk a lot the first time I was there. We acknowledged each other, but it wasn't really like a friendship yet. And then when I saw him again at his other event, he said, "Dude, I got to have you on my podcast. I got to know what the hell's going on. Who are you? You keep coming to my events. I just want to know who you are."
Shelby Stanger:
But the story of that is that he saw you basically crawl across the finish line.
Zachary Friedley:
Well, yeah. I had to crawl up this big hill. Luis is known. He's got this reputation in the trail running race director world where he puts some crazy things on a course. And people, he's always like, "If you're coming to PR you're 50K, probably not doing it in my event." And at this particular race, he had this thing that he called the bunny hill. And it was not a bunny hill, it was off trail. And I had to crawl. I had to crawl a mile up this trail. And somebody was hidden in the trees taking photos for the event. And they saw me crawling up this thing and sent the picture to Luis.
And then Luis came out on his motorcycle an hour or two later as I was running through this other section, and he was like, "Dude, I feel kind of like an asshole for having that there. But you did this thing and you're running and you're smiling. And I want to know more about you." So that was what started our friendship. And it was pretty much the connection that I needed to make in trail running. Luis opened up so many doors for me, which therefore created opportunities for other people. And he's just been like my guardian angel in trail running. He was the first.
Shelby Stanger:
So what was your first race like? Did you win?
Zachary Friedley:
I mean, I raced against people with two legs. So winning to me was finishing. Finishing with no injuries, finishing and being able to do it again the next day. That was what winning was. And that's where it's been for a while. But we're hopefully moving the needle in the right direction in trail running to one day you'll have athletes with disabilities racing each other.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm really curious, what does it feel like racing for you, and how then did you decide that that was going to be your purpose?
Zachary Friedley:
I think I just kept on following whispers from the universe. You know what I mean?
Shelby Stanger:
I call those trail signs. Yeah.
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. And they led me to these really interesting places. And I'm open to these experiences and I'm open to meeting the people. And now, when I pick out races, I'm racing some of the toughest ones out there. And I think just the drive of like, first off, I might be the first person showing up to these events with a blade and just opening the door and starting this conversation. Because I know there's other people out there like me that are just waiting for an opportunity like this and nobody's inviting them to these things. And I'm working on creating those invites. Because right now in trail running, if you're a man or a woman, you're being invited. Well, they're not doing that for the disabled community yet. And I think once I show up to these events, hammer out these hard courses, then they can't avoid me.
Shelby Stanger:
And your wild idea of actually going and doing it allows other people to see like, "Hey, that guy kind of looks like me. I can go do this too."
Zachary Friedley:
Totally.
Shelby Stanger:
And visibility is really important.
Zachary Friedley:
100%. I get messages a lot from people that are like, %I didn't know. Didn't know. Nobody told me. I saw your post. This is amazing. Do you have any tips or suggestions?% And then my brain started moving more, and these conversations started happening with Luis. And Luis is like, "Well, why don't you be the guy that does it? Why don't you start an event?" Luis actually named it Born To Adapt. Luis texted me one day and said, "What do you think of Born To Adapt?" And I'm like, "Oh my God, I love it." And things are really moving. We got some races later this year in the US that are actually catering to adaptive athletes, and we're going to have adaptive athletes on mountain courses.
Shelby Stanger:
Born To Adapt is a nonprofit that creates trail races and training clinics for adaptive athletes. When Zach isn't planning events and working with race coordinators to make ultra marathons more accessible, he's out on the trail running. He's done several ultras. A 50K in Zion, a 50 miler in Sonoma, and he has more planned for this year. When we come back, Zach talks about his experience running the Ultra Tour du Mont Blanc and how his mental game has changed over the course of his running career.
Zach Friedley is an adaptive runner who has found joy and freedom on the trails. In 2022, he launched a nonprofit called Born to Adapt. And he's worked with several high profile races to make it easier for adaptive athletes to compete. Zach's goal is to open up the sport to anyone who wants to participate no matter their ability. As an athlete, Zach really leads by example. He's competed in ultra marathons all over the world. In fact, in 2022, he competed in his first Ultra Tour du Mont Blanc, also known as the UTMB. It is perhaps the most famous ultra marathon out there. UTMB was one of your first races that was really, really big that you did, which is huge. When did you do the UTMB? And for those who don't know, can you just tell people what it is?
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. So UTMB is what most trail runners would call the Super Bowl of trail running. It's one week in Chamonix, France. They have events from a youth 10K, all the way up to 176K, which is like 106 miles, around Mount Blanc, through Switzerland, France, and Italy. The distance that I did was a 42K, and they called it a fun run 42K through the Alps. But I'll tell you, this fun run...
Shelby Stanger:
Which does not sound fun.
Zachary Friedley:
The fun run had cutoffs, the fun run had world champions racing in it. It mean it was serious. It's a hard race. I did it first in 2022. Didn't make the first cutoff. The cutoff is two hours. And you got to go about 8 to 9K with maybe 1500 to 2000 feet of climbing, maybe closer to three. And I missed a cutoff the first time I was there by about half an hour. And they cut my bib and kicked me out of the race. That's just part of the rules. The rules are made for people with two legs. It just is what it is. And the next day, after I was sitting there for a minute, I decided I'm going to do UTMB MCC 2023, and I'm going to train every day and we're going to make this happen.
Shelby Stanger:
After Zach's first attempt at UTMB, he started working with well-known running coach Eric Orton at dedicating a lot of his time to training. Zach is sponsored by On Running, and the brand has helped him customize his running blade so that it works better on rocky terrain. He even moved to Chamonix, France for the eight weeks before the race so he could train on the course and be as ready as possible. I want to talk about your training because you improved your time so much in just a year. What sort of things did you do to train that changed the game for you?
Zachary Friedley:
We started working on my running gate and my running cadence. So we just started to dissect all that and to improve these little metrics, and that translates to being a better runner and covering more ground and being more efficient, your body lasting longer. So we just kept on working at this every single day, every single day. And I improved. And I'm still improving, and it's fun.
Shelby Stanger:
It is really fun. What else did you change that you think really impacted you that other runners, if they're listening, could maybe take with them to use in their own running?
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. I mean, as a trail runner, we're on trails, we're in mountains, and that's pretty much primarily all my races. But I do a lot of training on track. So I'm increasing my speed. I'm doing a lot of speed work. I'm doing a lot of things that translate well to trail running. And it's six, seven days a week. And it's a lot of recovery too. Checking in with my body, seeing how I feel, making sure I'm eating right, sleeping right, utilizing nutrition on runs, and just fine-tuning it over and over and over and over and over again. It's a lot of just trial and error.
Shelby Stanger:
And you also have this partnership with On Running. And I'm just curious how they've technically helped you with your blade, because you're only wearing one shoe.
Zachary Friedley:
So they got this thing in Zurich called the On Labs, and you can produce something real time. And I basically brought in the shoes I was wearing and the problems I was having out there, and we just pieced together certain items. I'd go test them. I made videos on each tread, like, "Here's what I liked about this one. This one didn't work because of this." So a lot of feedback is coming. And then we built this one for UTMB that's a prototype, and it changed the game. If it wasn't for that piece of tread, I think the mud would've probably ended my day. It would've been over.
Shelby Stanger:
So wait. It was tread on the shoe?
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. So it's basically like a shoe that slides over the blade, and there's different applications that you can put on this tread. So I have a walking around airport one. It's the same blade. So I'm a little bit unique. I wear my running blade 24/7, and that is my personal preference. It's because I run so much and I run on terrain that's unforgiving. So I need my gait to be locked into my brain and my mind. I can't go back and forth between a walking leg and a running leg. On helps with the bottom pieces, the tread. So I got a couple of different options. Most of my options are for, as you can see, huge lugs on the end of this for running in the mud. They're four millimeters. And I go through a tread on a normal training cycle once a month minimum. These things get put to the test. And without it, I don't know if it'd work.
Shelby Stanger:
A year later, you tried UTMB again. How did your second attempt go?
Zachary Friedley:
I couldn't think past that day. The race was on a Monday. Nothing else. It was just pure dedication to that day. And I ended up finishing this time. I knew it was going to be a good day after I got to the first checkpoint and I was an hour under the time.
Shelby Stanger:
Because the first time, you were 30 minutes over.
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. And it was the craziest weather ever. It was raining and snowing and 40 degrees in the summer. So I ended up running in rain and snow and mud and still had a better performance than I did the first time I did it.
Shelby Stanger:
Zach's dedication to training paid off. His second UTMB attempt was a massive success. Since then, Zach has worked with the race organizers to implement better accommodations for adaptive runners. For example, this time, Zach had a pacer, which is someone who ran with him to help set the pace. That allowed Zach to focus more on his mindset and technique rather than just his speed. It sounds like your mental game has changed a lot over the years. Also, no pain. Like you have more fun.
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah, I have a lot more fun. I enjoy it instead of grinding. I mean, there is a grind. It is tough. But I feel like I'm being pulled rather than a combustion engine that's burning something. I got so much to do at all times. My list is endless. I accomplish three things on the list and five more appear. So the list is never complete ever. And that's all right. So I build it into my schedule of like, this day, this time, phone is off, Zach is Zach. Nothing's immediately going to collapse today. I'm taking this time for myself, and I'm off the radar for four to eight hours, maybe a whole day. And those days, I come back the next day ready to go again.
So it's like pushing for four or five days, taking a day. Pushing for four or five days, taking a day. That way, I don't burn out and I'm able to keep this energy flowing.
Shelby Stanger:
What I love is that even if you fail, you're not afraid to go back and try again.
Zachary Friedley:
Yeah. So I used to think failure was bad, right? Like if you fail, you suck or you're a loser or something. But I think now, failure is just you're getting more information on something you're trying to do, and then you can change your approach and do it again differently, and then a little bit differently and a little bit differently. So failure isn't failure. I think the real failure is not showing up. So if you show up and something doesn't go to plan, that's all right. Take that information and change what you're doing and then try it again. I just know that if I don't show up, how am I going to feel? That feeling, I don't want that feeling. And I curate my life based around how I want to feel or how I want to make other people feel. So I have to show up. There's no other option.
Shelby Stanger:
Over the course of his life, Zach has faced plenty of failure. But with perseverance, he's been able to become a better runner and open doors for so many others. Of course, his work isn't done. If you want to see what Zach is doing next, follow him on Instagram @trailblader. That's T-R-A-I-L-B-L-A-D-E-R. And you can find out more about Born To Adapt at borntoadapt.org. If you liked this episode, check out our interview with Nicole Ver Kuilen. Her organization Forrest Stump is working to increase access to medical equipment for people with disabilities so that they can be physically active. You can find the link to that episode in our show notes.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hanna Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow a show. Take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.