In episode three, season three of HOKA One One Top Trails, we visit Spokane WA. We join the Fleet Feet Spokane “Explore Trails” running group for a run from the Military Cemetery trailhead, which lies less than five miles northwest of downtown Spokane, into Riverside state Park. Casey Travis (Manager, Fleet Feet Spokane) tells us about the trail running group while Wade Pannell (Co-Owner, Fleet Feet Spokane) gives us a rundown on the numerous trails at every corner of town.  

Later, host Matt Barnhart sits down at Maple Street Bistro with Tracy Walters, the legendary coach of Spokane running greats Gerry Lindgren and Don Kardong. Barnhart and Walters discuss the beginnings of what became a culture of powerhouse teams and individuals coming out of the Spokane area.

Then, Pat Tyson (Director, XC/TF, Gonzaga University) discusses his twenty year tenure coaching at Mead High School, where his teams qualified for the state meet 18 years in a row, and won twelve of those. Tyson also discusses some of the history and reasons why so many great runners have come from such a small area.  

We then talk to Bryant McKinley, an eighty year-old blind runner, who runs the Bloomsday 12k every year about how he got into running and why the Bloomsday race is so important to him. Bryant’s running guide, Roger Nelson also describes how the two of them met, before the two of them hit the Centennial Trail, a paved “Rail-to-Trail” which runs about forty miles from Nile Mile Falls all the way into Idaho.

Finally Julie Pannell (Co-Owner, Fleet Feet Spokane) recounts the story of surviving an unexpected heart attack at the age of 37, shortly after completing her first Marathon. Wade Pannell discusses how this near tragedy influenced their family’s decision to open the Fleet Feet running store.