Compete Like You Mean It, Laugh Like You Love It
- colin7931
- Apr 15
- 44 min read
Today Doug opens the container with Billy Demong.
Doug opens todays show by talking about participating in competitive sports as a kid and the transformation of embracing outdoor pursuits that were free of competitive pressures. Along the way he realized that it's ok to do competitive events in the outdoors and also have fun while doing them.
Doug is then joined by Billy Demong, an esteemed Olympian and gold medal winner in Nordic combined, who talks about the balance between competition and enjoyment in outdoor sports. Doug and Billy also delve into the significance of mentorship and the encouragement of youth in sporting activities, emphasizing the importance of personal growth over mere accolades.
Their conversation underscores the connection between nature, sport, and community, illustrating how these elements can combine to enrich our lives.
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Episode Transcript:
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:00:00.160 - 00:08:21.520
Today's episode of Open Container is presented by Oboz.
Many of you already know Oboz, that plucky little brand from Bozeman that stood up in 2007 in a crowded footwear space and said, there's room for me too. An upstart outlier with a weird name, roomy toe box and well built offerings for committed hikers.
It's a combination that has attracted a loyal following for 20 years and we're excited to partner with Oboz because they are committed to shining a light on the core activity to all our outdoor pursuits. Hiking. You know, hiking. The thing we all do but no one is talking about. We are unified by hiking.
Oboz loves hiking and that's something I can get down with. Over the coming months, we'll be opening the Container and getting on the trail with our friends from Bozeman. Oboz love hiking.
Welcome to Open Container. I'm Doug Schnitzelpahn. I'm a journalist, writer and overall lover of the outdoors.
I fought wildfires, reported on national politics, published magazines, and even gone chasing waterfalls barefoot.
On this podcast we're going to have an open conversation about culture, conservation policy, business issues that matter the most to the outdoor community. Let's get some I competed hard in high school. I ran track, indoor track, cross country.
I played soccer from a young age and when I was a freshman I found out I was a strong runner and that I could run varsity cross country rather than play freshman soccer. I'm extremely competitive, so I love the idea of being able to run against and beat seniors.
I wanted to win, relish the thrill of pitting myself against myself the way you do in an individual competition. But it was hard, draining. When you compete constantly, it possesses you.
All you can think about is winning and you keep wanting to push yourself harder and harder.
My race was the 800 meters, which is two laps around the outdoor track, and my philosophy on it was to run the first lap as hard as I could and the second lap faster.
It worked quite often, but I remember being in an indoor track meet which was five laps around a small track in a crowded gym, and being beat in the final a hundred meters by a kid who I had just watched puke in a garbage can moments before the race. That was what you had to do to succeed at that level. I competed in county and state meets where I found out that I wasn't really all that good.
There was always someone better than you, always some freak who was faster. As I kept competing through high school, I started to miss the Team sports I loved so much. I missed having fun.
I love baseball and wanted to be out there in the spring catching flies. I played football in the side yard almost every afternoon with friends. Growing up, I was a good soccer player and I loved playing basketball.
Still do. There's nothing like meeting a bunch of people on a pickup court and all of a sudden becoming friends and playing together like a team.
When I first started to embrace outdoor sports, one of the things I loved about them was that lack of competition. It was more about fun. You would challenge and push yourself, sure, but.
But it wasn't in a way that was being judged or timed or having any organization behind it. No one had to tell you who is better or best. It's just about being with your friends, maybe pushing boundaries together.
First of all, having a good time.
In the early 1990s I was working in a music venue in Somerville, Massachusetts called Johnny D's and a bunch of us who work there started to get into the emerging sport of mountain biking. We had horrible bikes, steel framed giant iguanas and we took them out to a place called the Middlesex Fells right on the edge of Boston.
The trails were rocky and filled with broken glass. We probably busted a derailleur every time we went out. But none of that mattered. It was fun. It's fun to be out there.
It's fun to try hard stuff on bad bikes. It's fun to be together. I enjoyed that vibe when I came out west and started backcountry skiing.
And I enjoyed it when I lived in Seattle and headed out with my friend Isaac to find obscure, often unintentionally epic mountain bike rides off on the east side of the Cascades. The same time a lot of my friends started to get into competitive sides of the sport. Competitive mountain biking, ski, mountaineering races.
I just never wanted to do it. Partly because I did so much intense competition when I was young. Partly because I didn't want to race anything. I wasn't going to win. That's sad.
I'm changing my tune on that idea because of course you can compete and have fun in the outdoors. I know this because I have so many friends and I've published so many stories in magazines that deal with races and competitions.
I've just been stuck in my own mind. And I did have a great experience competing for the fun of it.
A few years back, Gordon Wright of Outside PR invited me to join in on a leg of the multi stage Run the Rockies race. It was going to be about 27 miles from Red Cliff to Vail.
I thought it'd be a great opportunity to compete again and spend the summer running since it was going to take place in August. Well, unfortunately, I didn't spend the summer running. I did maybe a five mile training run in the Saw watch range and that was it.
I did mountain bike a lot, though. I went on a lot of big mountain bike rides that summer, so I was in cardio shape.
About a week before I was supposed to be in the run, I called Gordon and I told him, man, I don't think I can do this. I haven't been running at all. And he said, relax, relax, you can do it.
The weekend before the race, I spent re roofing my house up in the sun on hot August days. And finally the night before the race, it hit me. I hadn't trained at all and this was going to be a bad idea.
I called Gordon again and he said, no, it's fine, you can do it. So I showed up in Redcliffe with an incredibly enthused group of people who had been on the other legs of this run together.
I got a partner who had been running with his son who got injured and could no longer do the race. And the two of us did it together. It was beautiful. Somehow I was in cardio shape to run for that long at a steady pace.
But what really energized me was the joy of the people. We were all in it together. This wasn't like high school where the kid was puking in the garbage can next to me. This really was competing for fun.
It did hurt in the end. Running down from the top of Mongolia bowl to the bottom lavale. It felt like my quads had been hit with a baseball bat.
But it was an incredible feeling to go over that finish line.
And it was a good reminder to me that fun comes to you in the outdoors, however you find it, whether that's just being a bunch of dirty dirtbags out with your friends, or whether that's really spending a whole year training to compete in a race, all that matters is what you bring into it. I say all this because I am highly inspired both by the competitive level and fun level of my guest today, Billy Demong.
Billy Demong grew up in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, a cross country skier. As soon as he could walk, he added the ski jumping skills to his resume when he was 8 and fell in love with the sport of Nordic Combined.
When he was 17, Billy relocated to Steamboat Springs to join a team of inspired young athletes. Together they spent nearly 20 years breaking down barriers. And in 2010, Billy became America's first Olympic champion in Nordic skiing.
After a World cup career spend spanning five Olympic Games, Billy went on to build a leadership organization, USA Nordic Sport, to support the national ski jumping and Nordic combined teams.
Billy currently resides in Park City, Utah with his two sons and partner Katie, building houses, trail running, mountain biking, and of course, skiing.
He has also been testing and working in product development for DPS's Phantom Glide, a treatment that replaces the need for typical Nordic ski prep and multiple layers of glide wax. Now let's open the container with Billy Demong. Okay. Well, I am excited to be here with an absolute legend, Billy Demong.
It's great to have you on the show.
Billy Demong
00:08:21.640 - 00:08:23.536
Yeah, Doug, thanks a lot for having me.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:08:23.688 - 00:08:40.292
And I'm excited to talk to you on a wide range of topics here, and I think we're going to get right into it. And I'd like to know from you, as someone who's done some incredibly difficult things in the world, what is the hardest thing you have ever done?
Billy Demong
00:08:40.476 - 00:09:11.898
All right.
Well, the hardest thing I've ever done is probably I skied the Mount Rainier on the fourth of July a couple years ago during COVID It was like the first time, you know, any of us had done anything around another person who wasn't, you know, part of your household.
And three of us hopped in a truck, drove to Washington from Utah or to Oregon from Utah, and got up at 2 in the morning and went all the way to the summit and skied what's known as like, one of the hardest lines, which is the fur finger, the fear.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:09:11.914 - 00:09:13.630
I've always wanted to do it. Yeah.
Billy Demong
00:09:14.130 - 00:09:34.440
Yep. So we skied the fur finger on the fourth of July, which I don't highly recommend. There's a lot of open things to fall into.
And then, you know, after you survive that, there's like, you know, like Home Depot bucket, 5 gallon pale sized sun cups the rest of the way. So it was a hard up and a hard down.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:09:34.820 - 00:09:42.360
Yeah. Whenever I've asked anyone about it, the response is always. I'm like, how is it? Is it hard? And I was like, well, it could be deadly.
It could be great.
Billy Demong
00:09:42.900 - 00:10:18.510
I think that's a very true answer. Yeah, no, it was. I mean, it was a really awesome adventure.
And especially like, you know, during COVID finally get to be with a couple friends and, you know, we sort of like eventually took the masks off somewhere around Boise. But, you know, it was such a cool adventure.
And, like, we got there and it was Raining and we did a little like crevasse rescue refresher, you know, just kind of of our own accord and then got in the truck and slept. And then, and we woke up and it was like full moon, clouds clearing.
See the peak 10,000ft above you and you're like, all right, it's going to be a heck of a morning.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:10:18.890 - 00:10:24.498
Yeah, there's few places like Rainier for that kind of big adventure as well.
Billy Demong
00:10:24.554 - 00:10:25.270
Yeah.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:10:26.090 - 00:10:43.970
So, you know, you obviously, one of the best competitors in the world, won a gold medal, the first gold medal for the US in Nordic events. Do you miss competing or are you happy now just doing things like Green year and just having smaller scale adventures than the big stage?
Billy Demong
00:10:44.710 - 00:13:08.732
You know, it's funny, I'm a decade out, honestly, it's like literally 10 years to the month of my last race. So I competed in the world championships in falun, Sweden in 2015.
And for those first few years, you know, it's like when you've been in an elite athlete, I think a lot of us feel kind of selfish about it. I mean, you have to be to some degree.
But there's a little bit of a guilt complex that builds up, I think about all the time you spent, you know, training and taking care of yourself and not really working per se.
And so, you know, for the first five years after I retired, I was definitely like just head down, you know, I was a marketing director for a cycling company for Reynolds Cycling for a year and then moved right into the USA Nordic role where I was really trying to like build an organization to, to kind of run the sports for ski jumping in order to combine in the United States. And it was a really hard pull at the oars and, and I felt great.
You know, I was like, I can just the more planes, trains, automobiles, late nights on the computer, I'm in, let's do it.
And it wasn't until, you know, you kind of like the baseline fitness is really down and, and you start to like, you know, you hit your 40s, I think is a big one and you start to realize what a, what a big piece of your, your physical and mental health exercise is. And so I sort of like started getting back into it and that's obviously not the most fun, easy thing to do.
But I have to say, like, now I, I try to like sign up and you know, pay to sign up for at least a race on the horizon all the time because it just, it sort of builds that level of accountability. And of late I've been able to get Back in shape enough in the last couple of years to wear.
This winter I actually dropped into a couple of open college miles. So, like, you know, the Pocatello has a wooden track in the Simplot Stadium, a fairly famous old school banked wooden track.
And my buddy's been like, you should come do it. You should come do it. So finally this year, you know, I lined up. It was like driving to West Yellowstone, Montana for a ski race with the kids.
I had 19 minutes from the time we pulled up to the door. He had shoes waiting for me inside. I ran in, I ran around the track a couple times, stretched for a second, and then hopped in and ran a 455.
And I was like, just on fire, you know, like almost last in my heat and just felt awesome, you know, just to be able to like, go that hard. So I definitely still have the racer in me.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:13:08.836 - 00:13:14.598
And is it, is it okay to come in last, you know, to not be at the very top?
Billy Demong
00:13:14.654 - 00:14:45.890
Does that hurt you in any way? Absolutely. In fact, you know, I coach the U12 and U14 Nordic athletes here in Park City for the club. And, and I like that age group a lot.
You know, like, there's not a lot of emotional engagement, you know, like some but like, it's not like teenagers. And so, you know, I can really come to practice. I can bring my, you know, best knowledge. The kids listen.
And one of the things that I find the most interesting is, you know, a lot of kids coming into the sport are afraid to race. They're nervous about it, you know, they have anxiety about it, or they, you know, they are afraid of the pain.
And it's a big thing for me is like, I'm like, we're not looking for you to be the fastest. We're looking for you to, to learn about yourself by putting a bib on.
And, and you know, every year I get a number of kids who didn't think they'd ever really enjoy it or do it or in parents who didn't think their kids were going to want to race or enjoy it, that all of a sudden by the end of the season, they're like, this is, this is the greatest thing ever. And to me, like, that's the win, you know, like, doesn't matter. First, fifteenth, thirtieth, doesn't matter.
You know, like being able to put a bib on, have the courage to go out and especially, you know, if you have anxiety or if you have some of the, you know, like, like the, the fear of competition, like, it's a it's a good thing for you to be doing then, right? Because, like, we're going to end up in job interviews, we're going to end up in uncomfortable situations throughout our lives.
And, you know, the more you get to work on it in a forum like skiing, you know, the better you're going to be at it later.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:14:46.270 - 00:14:54.774
Do you feel like those ski, those skills followed through for you, you know, when you're out of competition and marketing and working in the professional world, then?
Billy Demong
00:14:54.862 - 00:16:50.086
Oh, absolutely, yeah.
You know, I feel like, you know, especially since I skied basically into my third, my mid-30s, like, I don't often get anxious or nervous, and when I do, I usually have quite a bag of tricks or tool chest, if you will, to dive into, to be like, all right, get it together. This too shall pass. Just go do our best, etc. And so it wasn't like I was the best kid as a young athlete. I was not winning most of the time.
You know, I think I was pretty above average cross country skier, pretty below average ski jumper.
One of my coaches famously said to me one day when I was like 13 or 14, you know, and I'm, you know, I've been jumping pretty, pretty awful and, you know, but, you know, you feel so much, you're like, oh, hey, was that better? And he's like, you're the reason I smoke.
So, you know, it's like, I think from the get go, it's like, I believe that people are highly trainable individuals.
I try to bestow that on the athletes that I coach and get them to focus more on their personal journey than winning or losing, being afraid to lose, afraid to fail. So, yeah, for me, it's been. Sports has been my big passion, my big focus for most of my life.
And I really believe that there's so many parallels back to business. And in fact, I still enjoy, you know, I don't.
I'm not an executive coach on a professional level, but I, you know, have quite a network that I, you know, I'm around and work with and do some corporate speaking for.
And it's really fun to kind of, kind of try to tie back some of the really cool experiences from skiing and the, not just the training and the goal setting, but the innovation and efficiency that the different stages of our growth as a team that allowed us to be successful in a sport that Americans had never been good at before.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:16:50.158 - 00:16:50.438
Right?
Billy Demong
00:16:50.494 - 00:16:50.774
Yeah.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:16:50.822 - 00:17:07.746
Yeah. That's amazing.
I mean, you're making me feel like I think I've stayed away from races because, you know, it's really competitive as a, as a teenager in my younger years. And you're making me feel less afraid to lose at that point. Like it's a good thing to just be in the race.
Billy Demong
00:17:07.938 - 00:17:59.790
Yeah. You know, it's like again, I mean, I think the last time I lined up at the mile, I did too.
I was 72nd out of 80 and it was so, you know, like obviously pretty close to last.
And it felt like a huge win to me, you know, to be out there in my 40s, brave enough to line up with the college kids and good enough to, you know, like run a 45350 or whatever it was, you know, like, and, and you know, like 10 years ago that would have been like, I probably would have had an issue like putting myself out there like that. But you know, I line up at the local races.
You know, sometimes I get beat by some college kid in town or, you know, sometimes I've had bad wax and I'm like getting passed by like 15 year old kids on the downhills.
I'm like, I mean, I don't know, I'm out here, you know, the only thing that matters is I'm getting my heart rate over 170 for 20 minutes and I know I'm going to have a good, good week after this.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:18:00.330 - 00:18:13.810
I love that. Are there some moments in your competitive career that really stand out for you? I mean, obviously winning the gold medal.
Right, but are there, what are, what are the moments that have really stayed with you now 10 years out, you.
Billy Demong
00:18:13.850 - 00:21:47.628
Know, it's really, it goes back to the journey and really the team. You know, I was lucky enough to be part of a fairly consistent group of athletes. Johnny Splain, Todd Lodwick, the brothers.
For well over a decade, obviously most of us went to four or five games together. And to be able to like just work at the problem and not, it was not always the same problem. Right.
Like we came in as sort of like the underdogs and we're trying to build up our ability to compete at the highest level. But along the way, in order to get there, we had to like make it our own. Like stop doing what the Norwegians did.
You know, get up, go for jumping and then have some brown cheese on toast with jam or whatever and then go for a run. You know, like we, you know, we, we sort of like as a team.
And we hired back Dave Jarrett, who was one of our teammates and you know, he was one of the few who actually went and got a degree in exercise Physiology and kind of came back to the sport because he felt like there was a better way. And we, like, sort of reinvented the wheel training wise.
And then, you know, once we had, like, a really good training platform that we were working from, we started to tweak. Like, how are we going to tune this engine that we're building? You know, we.
We noticed that we're living high, we're training high, and we do our intensity low.
But a lot of times that's, you know, like, we're flying to Europe for a jumping camp, and we're spending a lot of time doing intervals, or we're flying to San Diego just to do intervals, you know, and that's when we started experimenting with supplemental oxygen. And at first it was indoors on a giant roller ski treadmill. And then that, you know, was working great.
And then we're like, well, the treadmill's kind of boring, so can we take it outside? So then we, like, got carbon fiber D cylinder oxygen tanks and put them in camelbacks.
And, you know, we're like, skiing around town in the summertime looking like a bunch of spacemen in the Lycra. And, you know, and so we went. And then, you know, not just on the cardiovascular side, but also on the jumping side.
You know, there was a lot of, like, hiring coaches from other countries, you know, for their knowledge base and. And then just kind of like starting to, like, build from what they could give us and then tying it back to our own American system.
But, you know, during my tenure, like, it went from, like, you called the suit maker, you ordered a suit, you paid your money, and that was it to, like. As it became increasingly custom, you know, we started like everybody else, sewing our own suits. And it eventually became like, okay, well, now.
Now I have some questions. Right? Like, as you start to put a suit together, you're like, well, how could I?
So now you're working with textile experts and, you know, sourcing fabrics and flying it in wind tunnels and trying to figure out, like, well, what if we put this panel on the bottom and this panel on the top? Does that make me a better foil? You know, and so, like, it was a really fascinating career.
And when, you know, when I won the Olympics, I was rooming with Johnny. So Johnny won a silver the first day we won the team event silver. And then he and I were gold and silver in the last race.
And we were, like, in our room, you know, our fourth Olympic Games together, just, like, staring at this pile of medals on the bed and kind of like, having the old, like, holy shit, that was a good journey kind of moment. And it really was. It was all about the journey, you know, like, the medals were. They're cool. Like, whatever. It felt great to finally get it done.
But it was like looking back at all the things we did wrong and all the things we did right and the fact that we had the wherewithal and the stick to it ness to, like, be there, you know, 12 years after our first Olympic start was pretty incredible.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:21:47.804 - 00:22:08.138
Yeah, I know. I mean, I think for so many sports in the Olympics, too.
I mean, you're competing all year long, and then every four years, there's this one time when there's this incredible, you know, pressure to win and be the first to win. Right. And where people are watching your sport who don't watch it any other time. Right. Or get out there.
Billy Demong
00:22:08.194 - 00:23:33.590
Yeah. No, you know what it was.
It was wild, too, because when I got on the team in, like, 97, 98 season, and I made the Olympic team the first time, we had a coach, Tom Stites, who had, like, kind of come in the side door and identified that Nordic Combined was an opportunity if he could get everybody in the US to bite off on coming together to live in a, like, a residency situation, you know, because he's looking at this, like, tiny sport in a big country. And he's like. But the best guy from the east is still living at home with his parents, training there alone.
The best guy from Colorado is living in Steamboat, training alone or with one other guy. There's, you know, the kid from Park City. He's over there. The kid from the Midwest.
And then they come together once or twice a year to, like, see who's the best. And then they go to World cup and expect to, you know, to do well. And it's like. But they're not.
They're not in any sort of consistent program together where they could actually step off each other's shoulders. And I think his thesis was right on. And so he made everybody move to Steamboat. This predated me.
So when I made the team in 97, it was like, all right, congratulations. You've been nominated. But if you want to be on it, you better show up at the pool building at 9am next Tuesday and find a place to live. And.
And, you know, with that sort of, like, all of us coming together. He was also kind of media savvy. He had a lot of people with high expectations, both for Nagano and especially for Salt Lake City.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:23:33.710 - 00:23:34.086
Right.
Billy Demong
00:23:34.158 - 00:26:00.560
So, you know, we're here we were this young team trying to make it happen, still trying to believe, you know, and he's, like, telling us every day at team meetings, like, you guys, next winner. In, like, 874 days. We got this coming at us, and you are going to medal.
And we're like, really sure, you know, he's like, well, if you're not sure that you can leave right now. We're all like, okay, we're pretty sure. And so we. We got.
I don't want to say used to, but we kind of got beat up by some pretty high pressure and high expectations early on. And it wasn't really till after Salt Lake that we. We said, okay, we were close. You know, we got fourth in the team event.
A couple of us jumped into the top 10 in the individual event. And we're like, all right, now we're starting to really believe. Now we got to figure out what's it going to take.
And that was actually that inflection point. You know, we were like, young twenties.
Had we meddled in Salt Lake, we probably all would have quit and, like, gone on and disappeared and done something else, or at least that's what my plan was. And then it was like, oh, shit, we didn't get it done. Now we really need to think about this.
And so instead of trying to sprint to the finish like a teenager, we kind of, like, got steady in our adult lives. And we're like, all right, let's bring in the right experts. Let's start tweaking our training. Let's start adjusting our equipment.
Let's do all the things that we can think of to make sure that we can be the best we can be. We're not learning to compete anymore. We're. We're competing to win. And so it was. It was really cool to do that.
Last eight years in the run into Vancouver, you know, fairly well resourced with a really motivated group of coaches and athletes and support staff. And so, like, to bring it all home was, you know, it's just like. It's actually.
If you watch the video from Vancouver, I finally saw it, like, six years after, like, I was, like, in an office, and one of the guys I was working with, like, pulled it up. You know, a couple people gather around. He's like.
And it was just the stadium audio so that, you know, you can hear the ski sounds, you can hear the people, and there's no announcing. You can kind of hear the venue announcer in the background.
And I come into the finish, and Johnny comes in, like, five seconds behind Me or two seconds behind me, and I cross the finish line, and we're hugging, and I'm like, that's cool. I remember that. And then I turn and look at the, like, little, you know, reaction camera on the ground right next to me.
I don't remember doing it, but I look at the camera and I go, that was pretty good. And just walk away.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:26:01.580 - 00:26:02.692
Now. That's the way to play it.
Billy Demong
00:26:02.716 - 00:26:03.012
Cool.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:26:03.076 - 00:26:03.876
That's awesome.
Billy Demong
00:26:03.988 - 00:26:08.644
And I'm like. I'm like, that's pretty much how I felt. Yep, that. That's it right there.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:26:08.732 - 00:26:24.732
Well, it sounds like. And I think this transfers into business or anything anyone does. Right.
Sounds like it really was an institutional and communal victory when it came to it. I mean, you were the. The athlete who spurred it on, but obviously there was a lot behind you and so much time and so many people.
Billy Demong
00:26:24.836 - 00:26:54.596
Yeah, it's a bigger team event than just the athletes, you know, like, the team of athletes are just a piece, you know, of the. Of the whole puzzle. It takes. It takes a lot of leadership from the ski team to the individual disciplines and then all the support staff.
You know, whether it's pts or we had soup makers and wax techs and, you know, like, all sorts. We had sports psychologists, like, all the people. And, you know, and that's why I think, too, it felt so good. You know, it's like this. We. We.
We earned this.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:26:54.668 - 00:26:55.428
You know what I mean?
Billy Demong
00:26:55.484 - 00:27:10.240
Like, it wasn't like being 21 and being, like, hoping, wishing, wanting to sneak it, and then, I don't know, like, I don't even know what it would have felt like. I think I would have been, you know, so shy about it. I would have been like, all right, you know, I. I snuck that one time to move on.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:27:10.620 - 00:27:18.220
And it's this crazy sport, too. Nor to combine. It's like, if you were to, like, run a mile and then have to, like, jump on a skateboard ramp or something like that.
Billy Demong
00:27:18.260 - 00:27:18.412
Right?
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:27:18.436 - 00:27:19.676
It's a weird combination.
Billy Demong
00:27:19.868 - 00:27:52.374
Yeah, it is. And it's. It's funny to, like, analyze. Like, why? Like, you know, obviously, like, why is the sport the way it is?
Well, it's the original extreme sport, you know, like, in the 17, 1800s, people, you know, were skiing around, and they obviously decided, like, well, who's the fastest?
And then, you know, as early as, like, the 1850s, they had, like, sanctioned jumping competitions for the adrenaline junkies of the time, you know, like, well, what else can we do with these things? Oh, so you can jump the furthest. Oh, well, who's the best. Oh, whoever can jump the furthest. Is he the fastest?
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:27:52.422 - 00:27:53.718
Love it, Love it. Yeah.
Billy Demong
00:27:53.814 - 00:29:19.888
And then you sort of fast forward that for a century and a half and you end up with like this modern day exciting format with like one jump and a 10k pursuit race. And for me it was like, people always ask like, well, which one were you better at?
Well, I was a little bit better at cross country, I guess, statistically. But, you know, I really enjoyed jumping, like, even when it was not going well.
It's a really frustrating sport, but I still, like, I wanted the challenge of the, like, the technical aspect, the like, weight restricted access, the equipment dialing in of ski jumping. You know, it's like, you know, and it was fun to like wear both hats in a day.
You know, you wake up and you're like, I'm light as a feather, I'm flexible, I'm, you know, I need to fly.
And also be somewhat of like an adrenaline junkie because you have like one quarter of a second to make it all happen when you're going 60 miles an hour at a cliff and then you fly away or you don't.
And then no matter what happens, you know, as soon as you land that jump, no matter how you're feeling about the jump, you have to switch gears and you gotta like go hammer a big sandwich and make yourself feel big and strong and you're gonna go kill people in the cross country race, you know? Like, it is funny because when you look at the specialists of cross country and ski jumping, they're physically like diametrically opposed. Right.
And the Nordic combined guys are like trying to drive, trying to find that line. So take two of the hardest things you can do and then try to do both.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:29:19.944 - 00:29:33.712
Well, it's interesting. I think we're probably, we're sort of missing that in, in sports with kids today. Right.
They're really making kids specialize a lot more in a lot of sports, be it, you know, football or running or whatever, you know.
Billy Demong
00:29:33.816 - 00:30:34.036
Yeah. And I think we're, I think we're almost. Well, so. Yes, you're absolutely right. You know, you see it in football now.
I think we're almost over that hurdle a little bit with like early sports specialization and talent identification. You know, it's like one of those things that was like great when it was first mentioned, but got taken too far too fast.
And, you know, now we're seeing a lot of people going back toward like, you know, multi sport approach and, you know, like keeping kids in more disciplines longer.
And you see it even like in the NFL and the mlb, you know, you have like, you know, head coaches at the major league baseball level that are like, look, I am not looking for the kid coming out of high school who's like the best. The one who's had six hitting coaches who's already had 50 pounds put on him. There's nothing more I can do for him.
I want the kid who played, you know, basketball and another sport in high school who like, is good enough at baseball to be in the room right now and hasn't really thought about it yet.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:30:34.108 - 00:30:34.532
Right.
Billy Demong
00:30:34.636 - 00:31:21.740
You know, because, you know, it's like.
And you know, I definitely, I being part of the club here in Park City, you know, I'm a huge proponent of like we have a shredders program where kids do, you know, a couple of Wednesdays for a few weeks in freestyle and then they come to ski jumping and then they come do cross country and then they do alpine over the course of the season and, and really try to like, lead by example with my own kids. Like, you know, people are like, well what, you know, what are you doing after school? I'm like, I don't know, man.
Like he's in the game lodge or whatever. You know, it's off season and in the winter, like I don't coach him, you know, like I coach the group.
And the only reason he's, I coach him at all is he's in the group. But you know, as often as not, when we split 40 or 50 kids up six or eight ways, he's not in my group.
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Doug Schnitzspahn
00:33:17.600 - 00:33:36.766
So, I mean, you did, though. I mean, it's great that you paved the way, you know, for your sport, for, for Nordic Skiing, for Nordic Combined.
Have you noticed a difference since you guys won the medals? You know, have you been happy to see the results? More kids wanting to do this, wanting to jump off things?
Billy Demong
00:33:36.838 - 00:35:31.320
There was a really good, there was a really good uptick for about 10 years. And, and I would say the sport of ski jumping as a whole in the United States especially, like, really came back up at the club level.
There was a lot more kids competing, and I was part of that.
Internationally, Nordic Combined has gone through some pretty tough times, and it's not necessarily that much has changed, but, you know, with the U.S. so the U.S.
the IOC's Agenda 2020 and limiting the number of the athletes at the Games, there's been a lot of pull from big sports quota to, like, make room for some of the newer disciplines. So Alpine and cross country biathlon have had to give up some of their quota spots.
And realistically, Nordic Combined was sort of like the weak one on the, on the political totem pole.
And so, you know, like, right now, even though the viewership at World cup level is still strong, the metrics from the last couple Games, especially being in Asia, not being on at convenient times for the American viewing audience, it's, you know, it's not in a pretty position at the Olympic level. So that's really disappointing.
It's something that, you know, I'd love to try to figure out how to, to sustain it and grow it at the Olympic level again.
And obviously with my role as the director for the USA Nordic sport, I was doing that, and now I'm, you know, basically trying to think of ways to help increase the popularity again.
You know, we, we definitely, I think we transitioned pretty well from my, my era to the next, and those athletes have had podiums and they've had some good results. But, you know, I think we're a little bit at a inflection point right now with the Olympic movement in general.
Like, are we, are we moving toward X Games because we think it can make more money, or are we actually truly going to try to do the best with the most historic disciplines that we have? And I think right now, Nordic Combined is right in the tipping point.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:35:31.780 - 00:35:34.396
Are we ever going to win a medal in biathlon?
Billy Demong
00:35:34.508 - 00:35:59.988
Oh, I mean, so Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey, obviously contemporaries of mine, we all grew up in the Saranac Lake, Lake Placid area, medaled at the world championships. Lowell became the first American world champion and they're both working for US Biathlon.
And there was a surprise medalist this year and it's embarrassing, I can't remember his name off top of my head. Wes, is that right?
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:36:00.044 - 00:36:01.040
I'm not sure.
Billy Demong
00:36:01.820 - 00:36:22.566
This is like literally a Google worthy search. We can Google it. Had a biathlon world championship medalist this year. So, you know, I do think we will or we should, but you know, it's.
There's so few opportunities. Campbell Wright, silver medal in the 10k and the 12.5k pursuit this year.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:36:22.718 - 00:36:25.478
So we're getting there. We're going to get an Olympic one eventually.
Billy Demong
00:36:25.654 - 00:36:43.490
Well, there's no guarantees and that's why it's sport. Right, Right. But I think, you know, U.S. biathlon is in really good hands right now.
They've got great leadership with two athletes who have been personally successful and yeah, obviously they've got talent in the pipeline. If they're already meddling at worlds again.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:36:43.940 - 00:36:55.948
That'S great news because it's kind of a funny thing. I feel like I'd like to see us actually, it's always fun to see us win medals like when you guys won.
To see us win medals in sports where we historically have not or don't do well.
Billy Demong
00:36:56.004 - 00:37:02.188
I think biathlon is the last discipline the US has never won an Olympic medal in. Wow.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:37:02.364 - 00:37:03.468
So that'll be a big deal.
Billy Demong
00:37:03.524 - 00:37:30.084
Yeah, it will be. And ski jumping might as well be because the only medal that's ever been won in ski jumping was in the first Olympic Games. Anders Haugen got third.
However, they didn't, they scored him as fourth. And it wasn't until he was passed away in the 1950s that somebody spotted the calculation error.
So he was awarded a Bronze medal posthumously, 30 years after the event.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:37:30.172 - 00:37:33.188
That's insane. And that's the only one we've ever won in ski jumping.
Billy Demong
00:37:33.364 - 00:37:34.148
Only one ever.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:37:34.204 - 00:37:36.084
I did not know that. That's great, huh?
Billy Demong
00:37:36.132 - 00:37:36.840
Yep.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:37:37.970 - 00:38:06.134
So, you know a little more I want to talk about what you're doing now, but I guess the one last thing, you know, while we're on what you have done with the Olympics is, you know, there's obviously a lot of political division in the country right now.
But it does seem that the Olympics and the success of American athletes still seems to unify us how do you think that athletes and competition can really continue to, to do that, to kind of transcend, send politics and get people to come together in a way they're not otherwise?
Billy Demong
00:38:06.282 - 00:43:03.060
Well, it's a great question.
I mean, I think, you know, sports in general, obviously, as I shared, my belief is that we can build better humans through lessons in sport, you know, and, and that they can take that on to their personal life, their professional life, whether it's the, the work ethic and the, the perseverance of learning to train or you know, when you're training to compete, you're really like teaching those lessons of like how to deal with anxiety and how to get to your best and those type of routine building exercises, things like that.
But you look across not only the life lessons you can gain from sport, but also touching back on what I was saying, I'm 40 years old and I'm trying to feel good. Exercise is real.
And I think not only is just getting out and going for a walk or a run or going to the weight room for a half hour a good thing, the accountability of competition. You know, we want to be our best, we want to do the best we can.
So, you know, putting ourselves out there as we get older, I think also is important, you know, because it's not only the day of the competition, but it's. If it's in the back of your mind, you know, it's going to drive you to do things you might not normally do.
Eat a little better, sleep a little longer, you know, drink a little less, train a little more. All the things that we need to function at a high level. So I think it's really good for our personal physical being and our mental health.
But then I think coming together around watching sports and whether it's watching your kids game or your friends kids or the local professional team or whatever, there's just a lot of camaraderie that breaks down. Like you said, the political barriers. And there's one thing I want to kind of steer the question a little bit.
So one of the offshoots of the sort of fallout of the whole safe sport era, the Larry Nassar scandal, is that there was an Olympic reform commission that Congress asked to be seated a couple years ago and that commission sat amongst their findings. I think there's an overwhelming theme of under resourced.
And I think when we look at the US Olympic movement in this country, it's a huge job that's being done by a nonprofit that's federally mandated to monetize the value of the Olympic rings in this country.
And I think when that was envisioned to take college level athletes, college age athletes to the games back in the 70s, when Prefontaine basically fought for the Amateur Sports act, that was a good thing. And I think it's still a great organization.
But I think the amount of resources they can generate out of that monopoly of the Olympic rings is just, it's starting to slide further and further away from relevant. You know, we have so many sports that aren't in the college sphere anymore.
There's a lot of athletes and a lot of pipelines that need a lot of funding to pursue their event to like physical maturity and competitive maturity.
And one of the things that the commission found was, you know, there are other avenues that the US Government could consider to further resource sport in America.
So whether it's something like an industry tax, like, you know, the Robertson Pittman act is actually a tax on firearms and ammunition, for instance, and it goes into wildlife preservation, ensuring the future of the industry, right through taxing the industry today.
And so, you know, there's been talk about taxing online sports betting and distributing it state by state to make available funds for infrastructure investments or youth scholarships, et cetera, reduce the barriers to entry to sport.
And you know, there's programs like the World Class Athlete program under the US Military that could be expanded to, you know, several thousand athletes instead of like several dozen athletes, and give career opportunities to both athletes and coaches sort of under the US Military umbrella.
And I think that that would also going back to sort of the peacekeeping side of sport, you know, having more armed men and armed servicemen and women.
You know, basically they're, they're, we already sort of put them in the bucket of, they're, they're competing for the United States of America, you're right. And yet they're paying their own way to do it. And so I think that that seems pretty unsustainable to me.
You know, like, I feel like I was the last generation of athletes who sort of were funded at the national level to the Games rather than funding your way to the Games and then hoping it all works out.
And so, I mean, I do think politically speaking, we're in a really prime time with that, that commission having released its findings, Congress asked for the findings.
And now it would be really cool to see some legislative activity and some bipartisan legislative activity to really improve the future for American athletes from top to bottom. And especially with two US games on the horizon in 28 and 32, I think we could reshape our entire country's future in sport.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:43:03.560 - 00:43:09.056
That's fantastic. And are you actively working towards that now? Is that something in what you're doing now?
Billy Demong
00:43:09.128 - 00:45:14.710
I think I put a lot of time and effort into that and I would love to be part of it. I think having spent a lot of time lobbying both at the commission.
You know, I never asked to be on the commission, but I did meet with the director and some of the commissioners. I was actually part of the team that suggested that we add the commission to the amateur sports, or what is it called?
It's like the Olympic Athlete Reform act or something like that. Basically like a retune, a bit of the Amateur Sports act, the Empowering Olympians act or something like that.
But any case, you know, I was part of lobbying to get the commission in.
And so, you know, I think, and having seen like, you know, where not only do we have some bigger issues that we need to solve, we have some longer term, deeper issues that we need to address at the same point, if we're going to stay relevant and competitive at the Olympic level, and we need to support our athletes better, quite frankly. So I guess the long winded answer to your question is I will always love to play a role.
I think I need to take a break from doing it as a profession and quite so hard. But I bring it up on this podcast just because I always want to make people aware that this isn't as pretty as it looks on TV sometimes.
And I love Paris. It was the first games that I've like, really watched en masse in a long time.
And I think it really showed that not only is this movement still current, it's really, it's got a bright future, especially with the way media can deliver it now and the breadth of opportunities that NBC and all of its partners are able to share it back to us here in the US and so I would just love to see a. I'd love to see a future where, you know, I don't see 100 go fund me's going on every year for all the athletes in my network. You know what I mean?
Like, I really feel like there's a better future. We're better than this. And I would love for as many people in America to know that we can change it if we want to.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:45:15.250 - 00:45:27.422
It was great in those Paris Games to see. What was it, Flavor Flav stepped up for the women's water polo team. Right.
But, but it'd be great if people, if individuals didn't have to contribute to them. As you were saying, as if the, you know, if we were getting.
Billy Demong
00:45:27.606 - 00:46:43.896
And I think it's cool, it raises awareness a little bit.
But at the same point, like, we gotta ask ourselves, like, okay, you know, Flavor Flav solved one little piece of a giant puzzle, but extrapolate that across all these teams. Most of them are not. Most of these athletes are not having that problem solved. So they're out fundraising, they're working a lot of jobs.
You know what I mean? This has gone beyond, like, unfair. Like, we now, our talent pools are being divided by parents, balance sheets and networks at an early age.
We're not going to have the best athletes be able to pursue these for any length of time. And on top of that, you know, the more time, the more you let private money in into the program like that, you do risk having them get steered. Right.
I'm not saying Flavor Flav would do it, but, you know, I see it.
There's a lot of really generous, philanthropic, wealthy individuals that fund a lot of the NGBs and the USOPC, and that's great, but what if they really have favorites? I liken it to U.S. ski and Snowboard.
Great organization, but I think it's very Alpine centric because that's where a lot of their donor base's main focus is, is around Alpine. And so then freestyle and Nordic and snowboard are like, sort of like second fiddle always.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:46:44.048 - 00:47:06.724
Well, that's great to know, and I think it's something that a lot of people don't know. So it's really important to get that out there. But let's move on from it.
Let's talk about what you are doing now for a little bit, which kind of how we. How we were able to get you on the podcast. I know you've been working for DPS and you've been working with Phantom Glide Wax. So what. What are you.
What are you doing there? What's. What's that for you?
Billy Demong
00:47:06.892 - 00:48:54.496
So it's been a really fun journey. I've got a video on my phone from eight years ago when what is now known as Phantom Wax was first deployed on a pair of Nordic skis to be tested.
And it was the marketing director at dps, they discovered this great new alternative to. To waxing.
And it's basically, it's a monomer, so very small molecule that's designed to basically penetrate through a ski base and bond to the polyethylene in the base material and give it a, like a permanent hydrophobic coating. And so, you know, I was all in at that point. I was like, in Charge of the national teams for ski jumping in order to combine.
So we put it on a couple of pairs of test skis and sent it off. And, you know, the texts were like, yeah, this stuff's. Stuff's good.
You know, it's not as good as some of the best waxes we can find on the day, but it's good. And so with that, kind of armed with that over the last eight years, I've always had it on my skis.
And it wasn't until a couple of years ago when I was catching up with some of the people at dps, I was like, well, you know, how's it. How's it going with Phantom odds?
It's pretty good, but, you know, like, we're having a hard time, you know, figuring out, you know, like, it's really for, like, recreational skiers that don't want to wax. And I'm like, really? Why? And they were like, well, you know, because it's not great all the time. It's just really good most of the time.
And I'm like, well, that's still better than most wax. And I was like, for what it's worth, personally, I'm like, I don't wax as much, but I do wax for condition specific glide, especially on race day.
But, you know, like, I've never felt any penalty for waxing over it either. So I think, you know, I look at it more as like a foundational base layer.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:48:54.528 - 00:48:55.472
Oh, interesting, huh?
Billy Demong
00:48:55.536 - 00:51:06.600
And they were like, oh, that's really interesting.
So that's when they asked me to kind of come in and start helping them test the new Nordic formula and just kind of like, helping understand better, like, how to. How to think like a. Like a Nordic skier who's usually a wax geek. And.
And to be honest, like, you know, because I got really serious about it with them. I got, like, six pairs of matched Atomic Race skis, you know, from the factory, all identical.
I had three traditionally base prepped, which is a pretty intensive process where you, you know, you put wax on the ski, you put it in a hot box that keeps the ski molten and penetrating for like an hour.
And then you pull it out and you scrape it, and then you put a slightly colder version of wax on the ski and you put it back in the sauna, you pull it back out, and you scrape it in your brush, and you do it again with another wet layer. And then I actually just did three like that and three with just phantom and Phantom. You know, it's.
It actually, the chemical itself reacts with Ultraviolet light.
So you can either do it in like the special Phantom box that a lot of the shops have, or if it's above 70 degrees, you can literally just go outside, wipe it on your skis and leave them in the sun for an hour and you're good to go. And so, you know, basically you can watch it penetrate and dry off and then you just clean the little bit of residue off with a.
They include like a fiber text polishing pad. And in this year, so I was, I was doing a lot of testing that would resonate with Nordic crowd.
You know, like just glide out, testing, feel testing, velocity testing. And I was testing both a traditionally prepped ski versus the Phantom skis to start.
But then I started testing waxing over the Phantom against skis that had Phantom but had never been waxed, and just testing like durability and glide and speed.
And it was really interesting because, like, by the midpoint in the season, I knew a lot more of how broad the range of temperatures that this stuff really runs in was.
And also because I was waxing for races for the kids that I coach in a lot of conditions, I was also testing it against Phantom all the time on match skis. And it was odd how many times Phantom actually beat the race wax.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:51:07.820 - 00:51:27.094
That's great.
So I think another thing I think you're really involved right now in, we touched on it a little bit, but I think that, you know, mentoring kids and bringing kids up and bringing them to the sport, getting them to race, as you were telling me, getting them to compete. What are you doing along those lines right now? What are you working on?
Billy Demong
00:51:27.182 - 00:53:07.066
Yeah, I mean, so like, since I retired from, you know, my professional role as a sports administrator, I've actually been building houses. But my, my sort of goal since then was I always want to be able to afford to coach.
And what, I mean, that is like, obviously coaching doesn't pay and it's a fairly time intensive deal. You know, like I, I coach like four days a week, two hours a day after school.
So I have to be done with whatever I'm doing and ready to rock to coach. Not just weekday practices, but also the weekends, you know, where we host races or we travel to Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, whatever to race.
And, and so, you know, I, I really enjoy not just, you know, being on snow and coaching, but also, you know, almost a little bit. I challenge, you know, they're 12 to, you know, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. It's a pretty broad range.
But, you know, kids at that age are sponges and they're really developing their ability to comprehend and understand. And so I love, like, you know, being able to help them, you know, think through, like, what is a warmup?
What is it really, you know, like, why are we doing, you know, what we're doing? And. And then giving them, you know, not only the. The wherewithal to do a good warmup, but then to think about it from a. Like, well, what. What did.
What do you think you need more of? Or what could you have done less of?
You know, like, and not just warm ups, but talking about nutrition and travel and all the other aspects of becoming an elite athlete. And so for me, it's fun. You know, we've got a big group of kids. They're all super hungry to make it to. Actually. Do you remember Liz Stevens?
She's a cross country skier from Vermont who at one point she was the fastest in the tour to ski hill climb.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:53:07.098 - 00:53:07.850
Oh, yeah.
Billy Demong
00:53:08.010 - 00:53:21.470
You know, basically the fastest woman in the world uphill on skis. And she's the head coach for the older kids.
And so it's fun, you know, because I'm kind of like trying to learn to train, train to compete so that they're ready to go to her, you know.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:53:22.570 - 00:53:44.558
And now, I mean, talking about kids, I know you have kids of your own, and I read that, you know, your dad was a environmental biologist and was a big influence on you, obviously, just getting you out in the woods beyond competition, you know, what kind of time do you spend with kids or even with yourself like that, just out in. In nature, enjoying things beyond sport.
Billy Demong
00:53:44.654 - 00:55:41.270
It's kind of funny because, you know, I just, in the last day, I was actually in Placid last week just to tie this all together. The US Ski and Snowboard hall of Fame induction was in Lake Placid. So I was like, you know, got inducted before Justin Koski runs.
It asked me to come back and, you know, help kind of put the event on a little bit. And I was like, absolutely, I'll go home. You know, it was my birthday, too, and I could see my parents.
So last weekend I went and I caught up with my dad, who's right in the middle of making maple syrup and all the good outdoor stuff.
And I yanked a pair of wooden skis with three pin bindings out of the garage and went for some 20 kilometer backcountry tour around Paul Smith and then flew back out here. And I haven't skied since I got back, and it's been good. We've had a couple of big powder days But I'm back into home building.
I'm trying to catch up from coaching. And, you know, five people in the last day or two have been like, oh, you know, you've been skiing? I'm like, no.
And the funny thing, and you asked about, what do I do? It's like, I coach all winter. My kids are in ski programs. You know, one of my sons is on the figure skating program as well.
It's busy, and I don't have a lot of time for resort skiing. And the limited bit of time I have on skis in the winter is backcountry.
But, man, from this point on till we run out of snow, which could be June or July, it's all about backcountry skiing.
And then both my kids, not only do they like to backcountry ski, we've, you know, the older son and I have done some pretty big peaks around here, like Deseret Peak.
And, like, you know, Baldy, like, I think the first thing he ever skied when he was, like, 10 on a big day was like, baldy, Main street, you know, after season or something. Yeah, yeah, we get into that.
And then the other thing we're really getting, getting into is the desert, you know, so we've been doing some canyoneering and some camping, and everybody. I think everybody gets a lot out of turning devices off and being at a service and, you know, having to poop in a bag or whatever.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:55:41.930 - 00:55:44.098
Always a good learning experience. Yeah.
Billy Demong
00:55:44.274 - 00:55:46.210
Carry your own water, you know, all that.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:55:46.250 - 00:56:06.490
Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. Well, Billy, it's been so good to talk to you.
I don't feel like we covered half of the things we were saying we were going to cover in this conversation, but I love what we did talk about. And to wind down, I will ask you the question we ask everyone at the end of this podcast, which is simply, what gives you hope?
Billy Demong
00:56:06.790 - 00:56:32.042
I mean, not to tie this all together again, but, like, kids in sport give me hope, you know, like, watching people develop and, like, go from, like, I'm never going to do that, to like, oh, my God, I did it.
And, you know, and then seeing those same people sort of mature into adulthood and have, like, their own visions of where to go, you know, gives me a lot of hope for good leader in the good leadership into the future.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:56:32.146 - 00:56:46.362
So that's great. Well, it's been such a pleasure to have you on and talk to you, and as I said, you inspired me.
I'm like, hey, I got to go enter some kind of race and not care how I do now. And that's a great thing absolutely happened. In this short conversation, sign up for.
Billy Demong
00:56:46.386 - 00:57:03.990
Something weird, you know, like, you know, some long something with some buddies that, you know, you'll all call each other and text each other every time you go and actually get a workout done. Or if the other guy texts and says, oh, yeah, I went out and ran, or I did my thing, you'd be like, no, I gotta go. You know, it's great.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:57:04.450 - 00:57:12.042
Great. Well, Billy, thank you. Absolute legend and inspiration and it was so glad to have you on the show. Hope we'll see you again soon. Time.
Billy Demong
00:57:12.146 - 00:57:14.070
Thanks a lot, Doug. It's been great to be here.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:57:16.210 - 00:57:44.810
Thanks for imbibing Open Container, a production of Rock Fight llc.
Please take a second to follow our show on on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on and send your emails and feedback to myrockfightmail.com follow Billy Demong on Instagram at BillyDemong and learn about Phantom Glide at dpsskis.com our producers today were David Karstad and Colin True Art Production provided by Sarah Genshard. I'm Doug Schnitzbahn. Get some. Thanks for listening.
