John Medinger, widely recognized and known as Tropical John, is an amazing person of the ultra scene, that has a great story to tell. One can recognize him as a seasoned ultra runner, race founder, race director, Ultrarunning magazine publisher and contributor, and definitely the voice at the finish line of Western States Endurance Run 100 in Auburn.

We had the pleasure to spend a little under 2 hours in a fruitful discussion with John Medinger. We went through his story, which has a mass of content for the listeners. We started off with the John Medinger runner story, to depict, how he got in touch with the running disciplines. Anyhow, just the check his Ultra Signup profile to see, there is a track record of its own as well!

Through the debate, we covered the story of Western States Endurance Run 100 from various angles. From the lottery, via some remarkable runner stories at WSER such as Ann Trason, Scott Jurek and/or Jim Walmsley. We also touched Lake Sonoma 50, which was founder by John. Sure, we also covered some of his journey with the Ultrarunning magazine, where John Medinger acted as a publisher and still is active as a contributor.

As fresh as the talk was, there is one point we need to mention. Whichever topic we went through, we always got overwhelmed how modest and humble John was. It really took us some time to process the depth of the thoughts after we ended the session. We hope that you, dear listeners, will enjoy the talk as much as we did with Marian.

A side remark for the Slovak audience, there will also be a translated voiceover version out soon :-).

Useful reference links to check out:
Western States Endurance Run 100
Lake Sonoma 50
Gunhild Swanson WSER 100, 2015

Title image credit: Bob MacGillivray