Russ Thomas, the Kansas City Kid

Ultrarunning attracts a particular kind of second act. Someone arrives in their thirties or forties with no athletic history, finds that the sport is unusually indifferent to where they came from, and stays. Russ Thomas — known around the Midwest scene as the Kansas City Kid — is one of the better-documented examples, because he talked about it openly while it was still happening.

This is the first of two episodes with him. It was recorded in early 2012, and it is mostly the story: substantial weight loss, running as the mechanism rather than the reward, and the point where finishing a marathon stopped being the goal and an ultra started to look reasonable.

Why the sport took to him

The part worth keeping is not the number of pounds. It is his account of what the ultra community did when he showed up — which was, essentially, nothing special, and that turned out to be the point. Nobody at a 50k start line asks what your pace used to be. Aid station volunteers hand cups to whoever is in front of them. For someone who had spent years being visible in the wrong way, being ordinary at a race was the entire attraction.

Goals on record

He sets out some ambitious plans in this conversation — distances, races, a timeline — stated out loud in the enthusiastic phase that follows a big change. Whether any of it survives contact with a racing calendar is left as an open question.

The other reason people remember it

It also contains one of the more widely quoted stories in the show’s early run, involving a eucalyptus grove and a moment of poor planning that every ultrarunner recognises immediately. The sport does not have much dignity in it. That is most of the appeal.

Context

Early 2012 was near the start of the podcast’s run, when episodes were shorter and the guest list came from the Northern California and Midwest club scenes rather than from sponsored rosters. It is a fair snapshot of what the sport sounded like before it professionalised.