BRANDON
1. Introduce yourself (Name, hometown, anything interesting) Brandon Dutra (B.A.D.), Paso Robles, CA which is the Central Coast of California in the middle of SF and LA known for its red wine. Grew up an only child with parents who let me navigate on my own while building me up that I could accomplish anything which led to trying a variety of everything and no siblings to check my choices and make fun of my thoughts. I believe this led to confidence and leadership with a deep longing for friendship and connection.
2. What does running mean to you? Running is amazing due to the fact of the individuality and relationship one can have with the term running. I have skateboarded for 27+ years now and I found a similar freedom/escape/community in running which drew me in. Running is exploration physically and mentally with the byproducts of fitness and community.
3. When did you start running properly, and taking an interest in it? I started running in September 2019 as a colleague strongly encouraged me to sign up for a “Tough Mudder” that our company was sponsoring a few teams for as I could get FaceTime with executives. He stated that I seemed in ok shape so I should sign up for the 10 miler as the fattys do the 5 miler. I signed up for the 10 miler and while it was a team based event, I thought what if my team is former XC athletes and did not want to let them down so I started running 3-4 times a week at just a mile or so and built up to 6ish miles in 3 months for the race. Come race day on my team of 10, only myself and 1 other were “runners” and we could not complete a challenge without our full team. I told her I’ve worked my ass off to run this thing and so her and I ran hard inbetween every obstacle and then just waited for our team of walkers to arrive. Once this goal was accomplished, I was confronted with what do I do now that I have no races to train for, do I waste the last 3 months and stop or continue, but why, what’s the carrot? I had a realization during a mountain run overlooking Los Angeles that I would run until I die as a form of health and longevity to be present and capable for my wife, kids and one day grandkids. What brought me to this realization is when I compared my Dad and his brother and sister, my Dad was a marine then highway patrolman who 6-7 days a week for 30+ years would run 5 miles a day and workout at the gym and took supplements and ate clean daily. His brother and sister did not run, workout, take supplements and ate the typical American diet. My Dad now 71 is in peak physical condition still riding a bike 50 miles a week, working out daily and up for any adventure I throw at him while my Aunt and Uncle have had diabetes, heart failure, cancer, and stroke to name a few. This clarity of what future do I want was ideal early on and now races I sign up for are just icing on the cake to test my fitness and feed my curiosity.
4. What's the coolest running story that you have? I have 1 FKT and I think this effort was so informative, scary, beautiful and worth mentioning here. Close to my current house is a trail called Goodwater Loop which is a full dragon like oval around Lake Georgetown. This loop is 27 miles with no shortcuts across unless you swim haha! Of these miles, there is about 7 miles of flat fire road trail and 20 miles of technical as shit single track which consists of “devil spike” carved out limestone rock along with cactus on the edges and other typical roots, loose rock, etc. To add context, Courtney Duawalter my savior ran it with Nick Bare and on his podcast said “that trail was so technical”, so there, I’m not exaggerating! Ok so the FKT was for a single loop around unsupported with only 3 water hose spigots along the 27 mile route which I thought nobody has tried a double loop (54 miles) unsupported so why not etch my name into this niche site that few recognize. The first loop was great as I had completed this several times in the past, but the critical point was already tired and beat to shit, I filled up my water flasks with disgusting warm hose water (only support you can get on unsupported FKT’s) and headed out for lap 2 past my truck knowing I had about 7 more hours of solitude and fight left to achieve this solo mission. I felt so proud to continue on as nobody (solo unsupported) had done before by foot! So going through fatigue and pain and around mile 44 I was hiking up this steep hill and came about 2’ from stepping on a fat fuckin rattlesnake disguised in the loose rocks on the trail. I obviously took a photo for proof and with all the hair on my arms standing up, the “cool” factor of this run took place, I then scared shitless and only focused on dying via snake bite ran mile 45 at a 7:42 pace, mile 46 at a 8:56 and remember I’m drained, this trail is technical as shit but that boost of adrenaline got me high stepping my way to the finish line. To give reference, the 5ish miles before the snake were in the 12’s and 13’s. To finish such an effort, set a new FKT and have nobody at the finish was great, eye opening on what’s important and who I need in this life to succeed, nobody!
5. Growing up, who were your role models and inspirations? Not sure why but I always liked the underdogs and couldn’t stand the most popular athletes/teams. That being said, from sports I loved Rickey Henderson, Shawn Kemp and Deion Sanders. From skateboarding I loved the teams Zero, Baker, and Deathwish. Music I loved 2pac, Biggie, Converge, Suffokate, and Sigur Ros. I think I was driven to individuality, work ethic and struggle for accomplishment rather than natural talent. When you say role model I laugh and think of a Charles Barkley commercial in the 90’s where he’s dunking on people being intimidating and says “I’m not a role model”, I love that as I love being influenced but not idolizing anyone.
6. If you could go for a run with anyone in the world, from any era, who would it be and why? I’m not much of a history buff so I’d probably say Matthew McConaughey as his words put me in a trance of deep thought which I love reflecting during runs and thinking of my life as chapters finding excitement for future chapters and writing my own story. I guess to not be lame I could say similar things for Marcus Aurelius so maybe him!
7. What was the Prophecy Runners about? I saw that the final Prophecy happened a while back, can you elaborate on that? Prophecy Racers was a race company I started with my best friend from back home. I was the running and operations side and he was the digital creative side. Once I saw how much money Aravaipa and Destination Trail make on a few races a year, I thought let me give it a stab as a side hustle with hopes to grow into something big and bring 200 milers to Texas where I currently live. Austin, TX has little to no ultra trail races similar to Houston or Dallas so as I reached out to the parks and rec departments to discuss my ideas they shut down every idea and only supported massive road races. This caused me to get my skater brain working and thought how can I still hold a race series without disclosing a location for the lame city officials to shut us down an remembered Thrasher skate events where they would barge a stair/rail/ledge until it got shut down as my inspiration. So I decided what do runners need to know and not to pull this off. I would disclose date, start time, range of distance (to not give away obvious trail location like 8-13 miles) and finally how many miles potentially the race would be from downtown Austin for example within 20 miles of Austin or 40 miles of Austin. I would let runners know I will email start line address 24 hours prior to race start and then give route details 15 min before the race started. This drew a very curious, easy going and social crowd of runners. What started out of necessity began a very niche group of people that were desperate for a new format of races that was not fixated on chip timing, winning, and solitude competition. I also added in challenges at each aid station which some included flip a coin (double sided hehehehe) and if you get heads, run 2 repeats back up the hill you just came down from or pick a face card out of this deck of cards (they were all face cards hehehehe) and eat a raw egg or while doing jumping jacks, give us your overrated and underrated musical artists or bands or throw a rock and hit the target to not run a bonus hill repeat holding a sledgehammer. The satisfaction I got from seeing runners adapt to any weird course, challenge or thing I threw at them was amazing and I met so many likeminded people to myself. The downfall is I could not simply say you liked this race, well it’s the same shit every year to build up a healthy following and grow naturally which caused me to have to market every race completely new which was time consuming and hard. Before putting out a bad product, I decided to end the company with 14 races in 2 years and learned/loved so much about the process.
8. How tough is the race director game, is it as glamorous as it looks in magazines and video? I found it very stressful the week of the race and during the race but only because I come from hospitality and care so much about everyone’s experience being the best race ever and not like all the shitty ones. I think if you find a team of people that enjoy their niche contribution it would be great, but an operations person trying to market or a communications expert trying to flag the course it just doesn’t work and causes unnecessary pain points. People only can do a passion project for so long until you need money coming in or fresh eager beavers to take over. But my passion of getting runners to new trails and courses led me to love it so much and hearing the runners stories during my races and triumphs, like people PR’d distances at my races, cried tears of accomplishment, laughed uncontrollably at the unique awards or challenges and the social media engagement showed I really had a 1 of a kind race format.
9. You're pretty covered in tattoos, what was the first tattoo you ever got, where is it, and why did you get it? My first tattoo was “Life to skate, skate or die” which is 1 of the many Thrasher skate mottos with a skull in the middle of the circular text on my right bicep. I got this because skateboarding was my life and all the skaters and musicians I looked up to were covered plus I had a high pain tolerance. When I was 20 I moved to San Diego, CA and talking to a artist there, I told him I wanted a ton, so he gave me a deal of $50/hour if I booked 5 hours sessions every 2 weeks so I did that for about a year and then my good buddy from back home started tattooing so I would get free or homie discount tattoos for years from him.
10. If you had to only listen to a podcast or music when running for the rest of your days, which would you choose and what would you listen to? Ugh impossible question! I probably listen to podcasts 60% of the time, 20% music and 20% audiobooks. Podcast I’d probably choose Theo Von. Musician I’d probably choose Zach Bryan for his storytelling and audiobooks you know I got Goggins for life!!
11. What's the gnarliest running story you have? At time I will take some THC edibles and go trail running to soak in nature and let loose a little bit. One time in the Angeles Crest Forest north of LA, I was running some of my favorite trails getting lost a little too much and exploring a ton into new areas jumping a few fences and what not when I realized shit it’s close to dusk and I have no headlamp or prepared to be out here this long. Sidenote a viral mountain lion video just happened that week with it fake charging and hissing at a guy on a fire road in Utah. When I realized dusk is upon me, my brain was firing that 100% there is a mountain lion on the ridges above me tracking me and tonight is the night I die, remember I’m high as shit during this. I finally get to the final descent of the trail to some road/neighborhood section and I got a PR in the 1 and 2 mile during the duck descent with mega mountain lions just waiting for me to trip and tear my jugular out like I deserved. I believe my mile was 6:10 and 2 mile was 12:50, remember at this point my typical zone 3 pace was around 9:15. This run went from blissful connection to the universe through all my senses to sure death upon me and back to reality once I got home and chilled out a bit haha.
12. What events have you got on the horizon? I am doing the Bandera 100k in January, Austin road marathon in February, also in February I’m on a waitlist for the inaugural 96 mile point to point race of the Lonestar Hiking Trail, April I have a fun hilly 50k called TNT 50 in Waco and then Cocodona 250 in May! In 2027 I plan to go back to Creede 100 in Colorado (the poor man’s Hardrock) and avenge my DNF!
13. Any final words of wisdom? Having kids has made me simplify my life to family, baseball, running, work in that order. I try to not force myself into hobbies or situations that I don’t value and I act on what my brain naturally thinks of. While I’d like to be a chef after watching the Bear, I stop thinking of that within a week. But I continue to watch baseball in fielding highlights on YouTube month after month year after year. I stick with what I want my top 10 people in my life to remember me as an say no to stupid shit as I am living my Larry David life by protecting my sanity and investing energy selfishly which leads me to writing these answers out as my fingers go numb, I must really like you, ya cunt!