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This is the second conversation in a series focused on my friend, Jon Sutherland, and his preparation for the 2026 Angeles Crest 100 mile trail race. This episode focused on Jon’s attempt at running the entire length of the Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica mountains. The route is about 67 miles with 19,000 feet… Read more

On this episode, I sat down at my kitchen table with local Santa Barbara runner, Paul Cuthbert, to chat about his recent summer mountain adventure. Paul set out on a somewhat spontaneous roadtrip, where he ended up climbing 18 high mountain peaks in 18 days. He travelled through 5 states in his reliable “lifted Prius,”… Read more

On this episode I sat down with my wife, Kerong, in our living room to talk through my experience running the 2026 Merrill’s Mile 48 hour race. I had big goals for myself going into the race and, unfortunately, I did not achieve them due to unexpected complications during the race. I trained a lot… Read more

This is the first conversation of a series that will focus on my friend, Jon Sutherland, and his journey to the finish line of the Angeles Crest 100 mile trail race. The conversations will cover Jon’s training and his background with the race. We likely record at least two more episodes leading up to the… Read more

“Its been a few since weeks since my last blog post.” These are the same words that started my previous blog…. However, I have been active, both in running and creatively. I recorded three interviews and posted them to my website. I guess I’ve started a podcast…or something resembling a very unprofessional series of recorded… Read more

On this episode, I sat down at my kitchen table with Jeremy Banter and Esther Sutherland, a couple local Santa Barbara trailrunners. They both ran Tierra Redonda in November 2025, a fixed time event. Jeremy did the 48 hour and Esther did the 24 hour event. They each had specific distance goals they wanted to… Read more

Hello Listener, thank you for checking out my website. I sat down for another conversation with a fellow Santa Barbara trailrunner, Sophia Ostovany. The topic of the conversation was Sophia’s thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail in the summer of 2025. Sophia had only just turned 22 years old at the time she started her… Read more

Hello listener, this is Drew McKenzie. Thank you for checking out my website, dailyjamrunner.com. Up to now, I have used this website as a place to publish blog-style writings on my running and life. For a couple months now, I have thought about the idea of recording conversations with my fellow runners here in Santa… Read more

It’s been several weeks since my last blog post; it’s just hard to find time to write these days with our newborn, Basil, and working and running and family time. Life has been tough and rewarding at the same time. It’s hard taking care of a newborn, but, man, does it make my life feel… Read more

Writing One of the reasons why I decided to start writing blogs about my running is because I often have thoughts, while running, that I would like to write down. For this blog, I decided to try a different approach to writing. This morning, my goal was to run 20 miles on roads, not stopping… Read more