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- [00:02]
A
Welcome to the Some Work All Play podcast. We are so happy you're here with us today. We have lots of exciting things going on. The biggest one of all is the new Some Work All Play playlist that Megan took the lead on. You're pretty pumped about it, right?
- [00:17]
B
I'm pretty jazzed about it. It's been fun. Well, it's funny because I took the lead on it and then you came in and we had a hot debate about some songs. Some of my songs did not make it on there and then you added some. But it was fun because I got to go out for the run not knowing what was coming, and I had a joy listening to the Swap Pillows. So thank you for tag teaming on that. It was a fun experience.
- [00:35]
A
What is fun to think about are different tastes. Like you have a much more sophisticated taste and, like, eclectic taste. And I come in with, like, the 90s, early 2000s hip hop and then, like, pop punk from my youth and stuff. And you're, like, coming in with deep cuts that no one's ever heard.
- [00:51]
B
Are you telling me that Nelly's not sophisticated?
- [00:54]
A
Oh, yeah. I mean, Nelly does come. I mean, yeah, he's bringing the sophistication from St. Louis, so.
- [00:58]
B
Oh, for sure.
- [00:59]
A
Yeah. But, yeah, no, actually, I was hearing it for the first time on our bike ride where I was wearing these bone conduction headphones so I could hear all the cars and there was a huge shoulder. And when I was listening to it, Megan commented after, were you, like, bobbing your head up and down? So I think I was doing bike dancing, listening to this playlist.
- [01:18]
B
Well, I was confused as this was going on. I kind of thought you may have had an issue in your bike, fit your head. It was like one of those bobblehead dolls. But it happened. It was happening so sporadically that I figured you were just screwing out to me.
- [01:28]
A
Oh, my God. Yeah. That brings up the first song that I wanted to talk about. So we' to talk about two songs that are meaningful to us in different ways on the playlist. So I'm going to start with Walk it out by Unk, which is the ultimate in, like, 00 hip hop. You got to listen to it. It's the best. It basically just talks, says walk it out like 8,000 times. And it speaks to me so much, like, on my soul level, because every time I'm, like, hiking or going on a walk with Addie, I'm just like, this song is to me. Granted, I imagine it probably has some deeper meaning that is like, way beyond Anything I'll ever experience.
- [02:06]
B
I was just about to ask about that. But we need to walk it out for everything in life. Like, let's playlist it out, let's podcast it out, let's write it out, let's jam it out. I'll write it out. Oh, I could use that for sure.
- [02:17]
A
Oh, my God, that would be so good. Or spin it out for the bike. That would be amazing.
- [02:19]
B
Bike it out.
- [02:20]
A
Awesome.
- [02:21]
B
Send it out.
- [02:21]
A
Should I do my second song?
- [02:23]
B
Go for it.
- [02:23]
A
Okay. Second song is a little more serious. And this was actually brought to our attention initially by Alice Borsak, who just set the Wonderland Unsupported fkt. So it's ultimate in being topical.
- [02:35]
B
She is my adventure inspiration. As a side note, I am just, like, thoroughly impressed with everything that she takes on in life and the enthusiasm and candor in which she does it. So kudos to Alice.
- [02:44]
A
Well, side story. So she was doing The Wonderland unsupported FKT. This is like a 24 hour all day thing. She's carrying everything on her back in the last 10 miles. All of a sudden, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a mountain lion or a cougar. I think they're the same thing, right? I assume they're same thing. And the cougar was just following her and it like followed her along the.
- [03:03]
B
Trail it was listening to. Stalk it out. Yeah.
- [03:06]
A
Oh, my God. Exactly. Stalk it out. That definitely needs to be the remix. And then eventually it didn't cross the road and she, you know, this was at the end. She's delirious and she almost stopped and turned around. And what's. What's craziest of all is this cougar has done this before. I think it happened to Tim Olson or Elisa Cougar in the same spot. So it gets to like, you can do everything right, get right near the end of whatever your goal is and then have a big old cougar show up. So hopefully keep going and don't get eaten. Yeah. So second song that was brought up by Alex is Colorful by Jukebox the Ghost. So the lyrics to start it out are, hey, yeah, we're just getting started. Take your fears and let them go for the lovers and the brokenhearted Take a breath, take a deep breath. Make the world a little colorful.
- [03:53]
B
You're not going to sing that?
- [03:55]
A
I couldn't even speak it, so I don't know if singing is the next step.
- [03:58]
B
That's true.
- [03:59]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Granted. So this song is meaningful to me in a lot of ways. One, I think the message of, like, adding color to the world is so much of, like, what we hope to do and what we hope to bring. But also last year I did a 22 mile run, like my last long run before a race. And I listened to it on repeat the entire run. And so I think it just kind of embedded into my soul in like, a really deep way. So I always think of, you know, my life and how much Megan has changed my life in the context of that song. It's like there's also something in there. It's hide and seek. We don't have ever have to grow up. And that's my goal, is to get older, but to never grow up with you.
- [04:36]
B
When I think about your soul, I'm just gonna, like, think about it emanating from like, Jukebox, the Ghost, a little.
- [04:42]
A
Bit of that, little bit of Walk it Out, a lot of Nelly.
- [04:45]
B
That's. That's a good tale.
- [04:46]
A
Okay, so you tell me your two songs. What are your two songs?
- [04:48]
B
My two songs have a theme. So the first one is because we're very sophisticated over here, it's Nelly's Shake youe Tail Feather. It's fantastic, I think. I mean, it's a great song. We all know that. But it came on. I did not know you added that to the playlist. And I was running downhill and I just was, like, feeling good and heard that song and started laughing out loud. So thank you for that.
- [05:08]
A
Well, you know, they say, like, if you can only have one song on a deserted island or something like that, one piece of media, mine might be Shake your Tail Feather because I've probably listened to it a thousand times, and every single time it makes me kind of like, laugh, but also get, like, kind of serious and like, grooving. So, yeah, everyone at home, if you're ever feeling a little down, start to shake your tail feather and everything gets better.
- [05:30]
B
The other song I was thinking of is Playing off the Shake vibes, so this one's a little slightly more serious, but it's Shake it out by Florence and the Machine. And I. Well, to start, I think the song's beautiful. It's great. It's a great cadence for Running, but I just love the themes of that song of, like, forgiveness of self, forgiveness of others. And I think it's something that I personally really struggle with. And whenever I listen to that song, I just, like, feel empowered and it's beautiful.
- [05:56]
A
It's such a beautiful song. I've definitely had times running downhill with airplane arms to that Song. So you have a Shake theme. We probably should have added Shake it off by Taylor Swift to that playlist. How was it not on there?
- [06:06]
B
It's gonna be on our next playlist. We have to have a lineup coming up for. I think we'll probably release a playlist in, like, three weeks or so. Another one. So we'll keep.
- [06:14]
A
I've already thought that I really want one to be swagtastic boss mode so that I can put Bossy by Keyless on there because that song has gotten me out the door so many times in runs when I don't want to. And I'm like. And Keyleth comes in and she's just like. Because I'm a boss.
- [06:27]
B
I'm a boss.
- [06:28]
A
Yeah. So some work. All play playlist on Spotify.
- [06:31]
B
And thank you all, too, for sending in questions. We've got three great questions for this week, and you all are great. So I wish that. I mean, it's been easy doing these outlines for the podcast because the questions have been so great. I wish I could recruit this audience to write my papers. My paper outlines questions to somework allplaymail.com and we've really appreciated it.
- [06:50]
A
Yeah. And, like, the questions actually bring up the. How we spent our drive. We had a long drive and we. Another recommendation we have for you are the 36 questions. What was the name of it? Do you remember?
- [07:03]
B
It's from Modern Love on the New York times. So it's 36 questions that are guaranteed for you and your partner to fall in love once you answer, which I was like, this is a lot of pressure. Like, what happens if you don't fall in love?
- [07:14]
A
Oh, we really did, though. Like, I learned so much about Megan that I've never learned. So just go through the 36 questions with your partner and you learn so much. We talked about, like, old relationships and things, but one of the questions on there was about, do you ever. Do you prepare for phone calls? And it brought up a story from when I was in middle school. And like, back when I was in middle school, you saw landlines, and, you know, you're supposed to talk to, like, whoever your crush was who had a crush on you. And I would get. I was so socially inept that I would write full outlines of these, like, seventh grader calls.
- [07:46]
B
I'm picturing, like, legal scholar outlines, like, citations, annotations.
- [07:50]
A
You better believe it because there's, like, decision trees. Like, if this happens, then go this way. And I remember deciding that I was officially done with playing the social game. When I looked at one of my note cards and one of my note cards just said, can you describe to me the rules of softball?
- [08:06]
B
Did you ever learn the rules of softball?
- [08:07]
A
I probably didn't, because I think I gave up at that point and decided I wasn't going to have any girlfriends.
- [08:11]
B
You didn't hit that part in the decision tree?
- [08:12]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. More girlfriends for me after that.
- [08:16]
B
But it was fun. I mean, so we actually. The interesting thing is we only made it 12 questions in four hours. So we. I feel like we took the questions and just, like, spun all these different, like, decision tree questions off of each question. But we spent. I think we spent one hour just recounting memories. So there's a question. I actually forget what the question was, but it was something about, like, what's your. What's your most memorable moment?
- [08:37]
A
Yeah.
- [08:38]
B
And we just kept ripping. It was like, you would say one, and then I would build off it, and you would say one, and then I would build off it. And then we had, like, all these subgroups, so we would have, like, memories for food, memories for runs, memories for bikes, and it was like. It was a really fun way to spend the drive.
- [08:50]
A
So many of them involved food.
- [08:51]
B
Yeah. It was a scary number.
- [08:52]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it really brought home to me that the most important things in an athletic life and a life in general are carb loading, protein loading, and fat loading. And we've done our fair share through the years. Oh, yeah. And it's your first day of school, right?
- [09:08]
B
It is my first day of school, yeah.
- [09:09]
A
So we're capping off our first day of school with the podcast.
- [09:12]
B
We are in the Collegiate Peaks right now, and that's like, my remote campus for this very odd time in education. And I'll have to say it was a little weird. So I did zoom calls last quarter for school, but today I struggled with the Internet. And so during my first class, I got kicked out of class and like, rejoined 10 different times, including once when I got cold. Called on, and I just got, like. My answer just got cut off because my zoom left. And I was like, they probably think I just, like, bailed.
- [09:39]
A
Yeah, I was in the same room, and it was giving me anxiety nightmares, like, in the moment.
- [09:44]
B
So I don't know if I ever don't know the answer, I'd say be like, well, yeah, yeah.
- [09:48]
A
Oh, my God.
- [09:48]
B
That's what you need to do.
- [09:50]
A
It's like during March Madness, and they have the button in the corner that's like, your boss is coming and you just click it. You need to have like, I don't know, the answer button.
- [09:57]
B
It's like done. Yeah, yeah. But I think it brought home the point that I'm just empathetic right now to teachers who are trying to make this education system work. Students, like young students. I can't imagine, like I am 30 right now and on Zoom and I got like 18 different screens going at the same time in class. And I just can't imagine what it's like, you know, to be a younger student experiencing this. And so I just like, it's given me a lot of empathy for the education system.
- [10:19]
A
That's so good. Yeah. And I think probably most a number of our listeners are dealing with something similar right now. And I would just say cut yourself infinite amounts of slack, like your, your brain, your learning processes. None of it has been optimized for this. You might be a rock star at it. You might be a kila style boss, but if you're not, just like, have swag anyway, because this, no one is going to judge you based on how you perform in a Zoom classroom or zoom, whatever it is, because that's just not the way the world has ever worked.
- [10:46]
B
And I think the great, the great thing about this at least is there's so much understanding. Like everyone at has had a Zoom call where they've gotten kicked out or they've appeared in a clothing item that they didn't mean to appear to you. I've definitely hit the video instead of the mute button before.
- [10:59]
A
Oh my gosh.
- [10:59]
B
Yeah, it's been bad. So I feel like everyone gets that these times are weird and there's going to be kids crawling into Zoom calls or dogs hopping and barking in the background. So I think there's just a lot of empathy out there.
- [11:08]
A
I'm just glad it's not smell o vision. Want to get to topic one?
- [11:13]
B
Let's do it.
- [11:13]
A
Heck yeah. So topic one is on heart rate training. Uh, and the question is from listener SC when do you start teaching your athletes to use heart rate over perceived exertion for runs? Is one preferred over the other? There are also power meters to runners that focus on measuring watts and then in parentheses, not the cable kind over heart rate. Thoughts on heart rate training generally? Um, and then it gets into a few more details. Um, so the first thing we're going to start with is a general overview of some of the thresholds or zones that you need to think about when it comes to heart rate training. Because we think that heart does have some benefit for everyone, even if it's not an extensive benefit all the time.
- [11:48]
B
Let's start with aerobic threshold. So, aerobic threshold is generally the intensity range at which the body switches from primarily relying on fat oxidation for fuel to primarily relying on carbohydrates. Below aerobic threshold, the body often has enough oxygen to function without producing significant amounts of lactate and also other byproducts that build up with traditionally harder exercise. And then above aerobic threshold, you may notice that breathing rate increases, lactate levels begin to build up, and often that's associated with a little bit more muscle damage.
- [12:16]
A
Yeah. So aerobic threshold is. Is just the general easy running to moderate running threshold. Um, you know, we talked about MAF training last week when. When the equation 1 80, minus your age is essentially trying to estimate your aerobic threshold.
- [12:30]
B
A very rough estimate.
- [12:31]
A
Yeah, very super rough. But the thing about a robotic threshold is it's not like a specific number that just stays flat all the time. It varies. It's a range, and it's all kind of murky and messy. It's more of just a general feel for what easy running is. And as we all know, easy running has these massive benefits. Angiogenesis. So the buildup of blood vessels around working muscles, lipid metabolism. As Megan mentioned, there's mitochondrial benefits, aerobic enzyme benefits, weakly understood. But these enzyme pathways that, once they get going, keep going. And then health, stress. Health and stress. Like, you run easy a lot, you stay healthy, you limit your stress, and.
- [13:07]
B
You adapt over time, especially when combined with. Shake your tail feather.
- [13:10]
A
Oh, my God. Yeah, but shake your tail feather, you go up to VO2 max without even knowing what you're doing. Right?
- [13:15]
B
Yeah, I guess there's a risk of that.
- [13:16]
A
Yeah. Um, and so I think both of us have stories of, like, where we didn't touch. We just stayed above aerobic threshold all the time when we were younger. Like, I remember specifically me in college when I started running, I would do tempo runs, like, every single day. Essentially, now that I'm thinking back with my knowledge, I have now, I had no idea it was the wrong way to do it because I was coming from no background in this stuff. And I think what really changed my. My expert expression of my, like, running background was I got to a race after having done all these tempo runs thinking, I'm really in good shape. I had a solid race in this 10K in Washington, D.C. and I ended up in the hospital after with the most severe stomach pains. And I'm not sure why that happened. I think it was probably severe ischemia caused by who knows? But what my theory ended up being at the time was that I was probably going so hard all the time that my aerobic system just got terrible and had no idea how to handle these harder efforts. So, yeah, I mean, that's the basic thing with aerobic threshold.
- [14:12]
B
I had a similar story to coming into running. So I walked onto the Duke track team after playing field hockey in college. And my basic training philosophy. And I remember describing this to the Duke coach, like word for word. He's like, you know, what do you do for your training? I was like, well, my training kind of looks like this. I go out the door, I run really hard to a point, and then I try to run back faster every day. And he looked at me like I was crazy. But I was like convinced. I called the Megan runs. I was like, I just run hard every day. And it worked great for a period of time until like you, I hit up against those aerobic limitations. And it also just became miserable. Like doing that to yourself every day requires a lot of energy.
- [14:48]
A
It became miserable for your running partner too. I remember being like, wow, this is so amazing. It was such a sight to behold. And then after a while being like, this is a little bit less amazing for me. I am having trouble with this. So, yeah, there's low hanging fruit that you can grab with like training a little bit harder. But most of your running, no matter who you are, needs to be below aerobic threshold.
- [15:06]
B
Should we go into lactate threshold? Let's do, let's do it. So lactate threshold is approximately the effort range where the body begins to produce more lactate than then can be cleared while staying at the same effort level. So this corresponds approximately with hydrogen ion production, which occurs during glycolysis. And that causes that typical sensation that you feel. And often athletes refer to that as like, oh my gosh, I'm feeling this like lactic acid burn. But it's truly that hydrogen ion production.
- [15:31]
A
Yeah. So the like lactate threshold corresponds with like one hour effort. In general, though there's some variance. It has huge benefits. Mitochondrial benefits again, oxygen processing. And here's where you start to really get into power. Musculoskeletal benefits. So like how your body actually processes power output and improves that over time. You know, we both have stories here. It gets back to not racing your tempo runs like, this is where heart rate might come in handy. You can go out on your four mile run or whatever and run as fast as you possibly can and finish it in whatever, 20 to 30 minutes. But if you're not, if you're going too hard on that, you can actually cause too much damage. Way fewer adaptations and slow down your growth process. So, yeah, that's the key with that. And then VO2 max is the last one. Super simple. That's just the maximum amount of oxygen a person can use. It's less trainable, it's highly genetic.
- [16:27]
B
And it's also a pain in the butt to measure in the laboratory because it usually involves immense amount of hurt.
- [16:32]
A
Yeah. And that's one interesting thing about all this stuff is when you look at the history of the science behind it, a lot of the things we're measuring, we measure because they are inflection points. They are easier to measure in a lab, but they might not have the same direct application to the real world. The body is working on spectrums. It's working all of these systems at once, not a specific system at this one time. And then you go 10 beats higher and you're working another system. It's much more. You're integrating under this big curve. And the body's changing over a long period of time.
- [17:00]
B
Yeah. And that time scale, I think, is important.
- [17:02]
A
Yeah. So how do we use heart rate? I think actually the first thing is how you even dial in any of these numbers. The easiest would be a lab test that Megan could talk about. But beyond this, you could go to a lab to do that. We talked about MAF180 minus your H to get an approximation of your threshold. Also really maybe a weak proxy. What we really prefer is the frill test, F, R, I, E, L. And you can look that up. Essentially what it amounts to is a 30 minute time trial. You take the average of the last 20 minutes of that for your lactate threshold, heart rate, and from that, like anywhere from 85% plus or minus a few percentage points, depending on training status, can determine your aerobic threshold. And that really dials in those numbers.
- [17:43]
B
And then once you have that, I think the big question and this, this listener actually addressed that in the question itself is when do you use it and why do you use it? And I often tell athletes that, you know, you can, you can kind of get a gauge for this by feel. Like, you know, you can approximate this by how you're feeling out there. But athletes like me, like, I'm notoriously terrible with rpe, like, I will rank most runs as a perceived exertion of A3, which is pretty low just because I'm out there, like looking to shake your tail feather having a good time and like not really processing pain. And so if you're like me and you're kind of like zoning out and that's when it can be really helpful to have these metrics as just as a guideline for how things are doing and to make sure that you're having enough time to recover, especially if you're training at higher mileage.
- [18:22]
A
Yeah, I love that. And that's how we use it for athletes, is we want them to have an understanding of what these things feel like and then to disconnect from the numbers as much as they can in their normal training. So we need to know what a robotic feels like. If Megan is out there at 165 heart rate with an aerobic threshold of like 158, and she thinks the 165 is super easy, 3 perceived exertion scale while shaking her butt, to shake your tail feather, like, that's going to really lead to overtraining over time. And she styled that in now to where you, you know, I've seen you can guess within a beat or two, usually at those paces.
- [18:54]
B
I'm usually pretty close. I think it brings up another interesting point though, of like, how do you actually look at the data when you're running? And what I encourage athletes to do is not to have that heart rate monitor screen constantly flashing as you're running, just because I think it's like, it's one of those things that can take you out of the moment, but you can go and analyze it after the fact. And that's when it can become really helpful to associate those feelings with a specific heart rate. And I think it just makes it generally more fun. The one caveat I would add though, is that wrist based sensor, as I said before on the podcast, is terrible. It's notoriously inaccurate for most people, at least for running. At least for running. Yeah, for biking, it's probably what happens with running is that it probably picks up more cadence in addition to heart rate, whereas biking, you don't have that issue. But the other thing I would say too is, is that like, if the data looks wonky, like, don't. I mean, make sure that you troubleshoot at first. Like, I've seen athletes who come to me and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm over trained. I'm having an existential crisis. And truly their heart rate monitor just needs a battery. So like, oftentimes when heart rate monitors are low battery, they spit out funny numbers.
- [19:51]
A
I often feel like I need a battery. Trying to keep up with you on the bike. But yeah. So our general feel is, you know, do the field test something similar to that. Get a sense for your actual aerobic threshold. It can be plus or minus a few beats, it doesn't need to be exact. And dial in your spot checks with your easy running in particular to make sure your easy stays easy. Have a feel for lactate threshold, but we don't really use it on intervals too much because when you get out there, there's so much more noise than there is signal. When you're looking at heart rate, it's so dependent on heat, altitude, what you eat that day, whether you had coffee, all these different things. So as long as you're generally putting in the work and keeping easy runs easy, like then heart rate's gonna, you're gonna find the best path.
- [20:30]
B
And I think the last point on this topic too is, is that this is less important if you're doing lower mileage training. So I think like this is. It really becomes relevant when you're doing higher mileage training and you just wanna make sure that you're not overtraining and that you're spending enough time building that aerobic base.
- [20:43]
A
I love that. Wanna get into topics too?
- [20:45]
B
Let's go for it.
- [20:45]
A
Awesome. Who wants to read it?
- [20:46]
B
I'll read it.
- [20:47]
A
Perfect.
- [20:48]
B
So this top. This topic is related to enthusiasm and support. The question is, I'm a PhD student and former collegiate rowing coach. I'm also a current ultra running, which is how I found your podcast. I've been thinking a lot about how I should be translating my coaching philosophy into mentoring and teaching undergraduate students and my role as a graduate student. I feel like as a coach I was focused on building people up, positive feedback and developing community. In academia, it is rare to get any formal training on mentorship. And I just realized I could use my skillset from coaching and apply it to mentoring in academia. Megan, I wanted to ask you if you ever thought about this and how you've translated your enthusiasm coaching philosophy from coaching ultra runners to the academic setting. And that's from an.
- [21:22]
A
Great. I love that question so much. And she directed it at you. So do you think you want to start or should I jump in?
- [21:28]
B
Let's. I'll start. So to start, I think this is an excellent question. Like I think enthusiasm in academia is underrated and I think there's often just like a baseline personality of people that go into academia that like that's not their first go to and I think like bringing the energy like this Question comes with so much energy and bringing that into academia, I think is going to be a problem.
- [21:49]
A
There were exclamation points to ask questions. And I think it's not just that with academia, it's also that there's this culture where you withhold affection. You are very serious about what you're doing and yourself in the process. And it creates this thing where, okay, I was abused as a graduate student in terms of, like, emotionally it wasn't valued. So I need to not then, you know, give that to the next generation. And I. So this question gets to like, it's immediately putting a roadblock in that process. And it's beautiful. Like you're, you're so on the right track. And this isn't just academia. This is business. This is anything.
- [22:20]
B
Yeah, yeah, I think related to that. I think that's an interesting point about like giving affirmations. I think you called it affection, but I think I'll, I'll go with affirmations that I think one of the big struggles in academia or even just like in the workplace in general, is what happens if that's not reciprocated. And I think what I've seen, like, I don't know, I try to bring that in academia and I feel like sometimes it just takes like a little bit of a longer term process to be reciprocated, like be in it for the marathon training in the long haul. Because I think like, like over time that does become infectious for the right person and some people may never accept that and that's okay too. But I think like, if that's not initially something that's valued, like don't, don't shy away from that or change your actions.
- [22:58]
A
So are you using like exclamation points and things in emails or just like telling people they're great, like, you know, do you do that in the context of your very serious research work?
- [23:06]
B
Yeah, I do to some extent. I mean, I'm not ridiculous with it. I think though, for the longest time I've been in a junior position or a subordinate position for a long time. And I think my initial thought processes with that is to defer to formality just because it feels like that's what a junior person should be. And I've realized over time that when I'm not that way, when I'm just more authentic and enthusiastic, that it actually just creates a deeper level of conversation early on.
- [23:34]
A
I love that so much and it reminds me a lot of when I was in law school. So I was the editor of A law journal. And that was like the prototypical, you're supposed to be very serious and take it very seriously type of thing. And I was like, guys, this is just a law student journal. I mean, they're a big deal, but they're not at the same time. And I think we crushed it that year. And I think people really found value in that, not because of anything I did, but because I let them understand that they're enough as they are because of the enthusiasm. It wasn't like, edits approved. It was, your edits are freaking awesome. And, you know, once you start doing that, it gives people confidence to embrace themselves. And in themselves, they'll find their true talents. And I mean, so, you know, seeing you go through that process in a much, I would say, even more formal setting has been so inspirational for me and how I think about, like, my own life.
- [24:21]
B
I love that. I think the other thing I thought about on this topic too, is the idea of combining that with just being really upfront with communication and expectations. So I think for me, like, my natural selection state is not to, like, communicate everything super clearly. Like, I'm naturally just more reserved or I don't want to impose on people by communicating. But I think I've learned in academia, like, just setting those expectations up front makes it a lot easier to embrace the challenging moments if they do come, because, like, you've already had a communication set in place about that, about, like, something that could happen. And I think for me, I see this most most with paper authorship. So it's like establishing upfront or even just like asking who is going to be the first author on this paper. That way it's not this, like, scramble at the end or people aren't getting left off. And I think it's just like an important conversation to build trust and to get back to an appreciation of that enthusiasm.
- [25:09]
A
So you're saying, like, openness essentially. And I think that actually probably gets back to formality in general. Formality is putting up barriers to openness. Right? Like, you're not comfortable in that process. And so as soon as you start to take those barriers down and create this atmosphere where people can be open and you're open in a sense of like, there isn't this conditional support, affection, affirmation, whatever you want to call, lets them embrace all the things that make them talented or unique or interesting or to find those things and to grow into them. And like, so when we think about mentorship in particular, as you're talking about the graduate students, or you think about Coaches nowadays, like Siri Lindley and Triathlon or Sean McVay in football, all these people that are just the ultimate cheerleader for the people that they're with. That doesn't mean they don't criticize. Like, criticize when you need to, but criticize from a place of love, because if it comes from a place of love, then anything is possible. Like, love conquers all.
- [26:00]
B
And I think it's so obvious when it comes from that place of unconditional support. And, like, I've had mentors like that, and it truly means the world.
- [26:06]
A
And, you know, Megan's been my coach in life. And with that, and it's. It's made like, I am so excited for the future in my own future because of you, Megan. And so it means a lot to me.
- [26:15]
B
Thank you.
- [26:16]
A
Awesome. You want to go to question three?
- [26:17]
B
Let's do it.
- [26:17]
A
Few minutes.
- [26:18]
B
So this question is on training for all levels. The question is from K. What is your perspective on training for the truly slow runner or jogger, depending on your term preference? I have been keeping things really simple for the last 18 months and just going out and putting in miles three to four days a week with gym workouts two to five days a week. But it seems like it isn't resulting in improvement. The more I talk to others like me, the more common I am finding this to be. No one seems to want to coach slow runners or speak to us directly about anything more specific than keep working. Are intervals or strides appropriate? How much variety should a slow runner have? We obviously have slog days as humans, but should we still have those runs? Should you give up and make those walks? When your pace is that slow, you can only slow down so much. I'm feeling so lost with training structure and feel like no one wants to address training structure for the overweight and slow person with tons of passion.
- [26:59]
A
I'm going to jump in right now and get right to the terms because she said jogger or runner, it's like neither. You are a freaking elite athlete boss. And embrace that elite athlete identity as the first step. You are doing things that very few people on earth ever do or could do and just like, embrace that you're the keyless. I'm a boss. And once you start there, then we can get into some of the training principles. And Megan, like, you know, you were talking before in a way that, like, actually opened my eyes to a lot of things about things people should just think about.
- [27:30]
B
Yeah. So I think for me, what I think about is just applying the same principles like you are an elite athlete. And so we can tweak some of these principles a little bit to make them a little bit more sustainable or to allow the body to adapt a little bit better. But it's the same thing. So often we give athletes short hills and speed work. So 4 by 20 second strides, 4 by 30 second strides. It's okay too when you're doing these strides, like to, if running, you know, if you're doing run, walk intervals like, and you're working in speed work, it's okay to take standing rest breaks. So take five to 10 seconds, allow your body to reset and then do your walk jog recovery before going into that, into that effort, whether it's a 20 second stride or a one minute interval or whatever it may be. Yeah.
- [28:09]
A
And so like embracing your athlete is key because these hills Megan's talking about or the faster intervals, like, it has to come from a place of being like, I am going to improve. I am going to keep getting faster and faster and faster. And the question isn't about where that, like the raw fast means what that means to you. The point is just to get there, to go for it and do the work and so, you know, train just like anyone else. You know, do your easy runs, do your fast workouts, do your hills, do your recovery and from there you're going to find your potential.
- [28:41]
B
And what I, what I love about this question to you is just the inherent passion that I found within the question itself. And what I want to say is, is find a team that supports that passion. Like you are an elite athlete and you're deserving of a strength coach, a nutrition coach, a running coach, whatever it may be. And if you don't have those resources, there's lots of great resources online related to this topic. And the last point too is what I tell athletes too is sometimes if running is feeling stagnated or you're just feeling like things aren't improving, do the due diligence of getting blood work, checking those metrics and really having a full evaluation from a doctor as well. Just to check that box. Yeah.
- [29:16]
A
And just don't talk yourself down because that's what that's product. You're just like, well, I'm not going to go check these things because that's something that pro athletes do. It's like, no, you're a boss. You know, once you start from that place, you're going to start doing the workouts. You're going to start, you know, doing all the things with nutrition and sleep and everything. Else to make yourself embrace that, like.
- [29:33]
B
Boss mentality and owning the passion, too, because caring is an amazing thing, and sometimes I think we shy away from that. And it's pretty cool.
- [29:40]
A
Yeah. So be your own biggest fan. And that doesn't just go for this question. It goes for everything else. Like this. This is the boss episode. Live with Swag. Run with swag. Train with Swag.
- [29:49]
B
Bye, everyone.
- [29:50]
A
You guys are awesome. We love you.