292. The Countdown! Our 10 Most Important Training Studies of the Year

Summary

Some Work, All Play – Episode 292

The Countdown! Our 10 Most Important Training Studies of the Year
Air Date: January 6, 2026
Hosts: Megan Roche, M.D. & David Roche

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Episode Overview

This special episode is a fast-paced, laughter-filled deep dive into the ten most influential endurance training studies of the past year (2025). Drawing inspiration from MTV’s classic TRL-style countdowns, Megan and David combine science, coaching experience, personal anecdotes, and plenty of on-brand banter to analyze each study’s implications for runners, coaches, and curious listeners. The episode covers physical, physiological, and technological frontiers in endurance sports, consistently weaving hope, empathy, and humor throughout the discussion.

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Main Themes

• Integrating Science and Practice: Real-world coaching and athlete experience meet the latest in endurance research.
• Navigating Uncertainties and Bias: Both hosts openly discuss scientific skepticism, confirmation bias, and the necessity for open-mindedness.
• Physical & Mental Health: Emphasizing recovery, fueling, psychological resilience, and long-term wellbeing.
• Future Innovations: The role of machine learning, AI, and evolving tech (from footwear to training tools) in shaping performance and research.

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Key Discussion Points and Timestamps

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1. Personal Updates & Setting the Scene

[00:11 – 05:41]

• David shares injury saga & “stages of grief” for sidelined athletes — from denial (running through injury), bargaining (crazy cross-training), to acceptance (lasagna pan ice baths).
• Megan emphasizes the importance of listening to one's body and prioritizing long-term health.
• Joyful housekeeping: how they balance training, coaching, and "smelly hormonal status."
• Quote [03:16, David]: “My mental health can really be evaluated through my armpits… if you can smell them from six feet away, that’s how you know my hormonal status is really good.”

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2. Training Approach and Adaptation

[05:42 – 07:16]

• Megan’s shift to a “chill” aerobic approach—how less intensity has yielded lower heart rates, steadier progress, and more enjoyment.
• Quote [06:37, Megan]: “I think I’ve just been a chill bitch… Each year [my effort level] chipped down a notch… Now, for the most part, it’s pretty easy, and I think it’s helping everything.”

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3. Roadmap: The Top 10 Countdown

[07:41 – 10:49]

• Inspired by MTV's TRL, the studies are ranked based on “biggest takeaways that actually change the way we think about training theory”—not just by scientific novelty.
• Playful anticipation of fierce debate and bias confirmation.

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The 10 Most Important Training Studies of 2025

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#10: Temporary Myelin Reduction in the Brain After Hard Efforts

[12:11 – 16:14]

• Study: “Reversible Reduction in Brain Myelin Content upon Marathon Running”
• Takeaway: Hard endurance efforts can cause temporary reductions in brain myelin (26–28%), possibly affecting cognition and fatigue.
• Implications for stacking hard training/races and long-term under-fueling.
• Ketones may help support brain fuel needs post-exercise.
• Quote [13:12, Megan]: “The brain is almost stuck in .6 speed… it’s really hard to have those higher-level conversations and focus.”
• Implication: Reiterates importance of fueling during/after hard events, and raises interest in cognitive effects of long ultrarunning.

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#9: Colon Health—Elevated Risk in Endurance Runners?

[16:32 – 20:48]

• Study: “Risk of Precancerous Advanced Adenomas of the Colon in Long Distance Runners” (Conference abstract)
• Finding: 15% of runners studied had advanced adenomas vs 1–2% in general population (no control group).
• Emphasis on screening for athletes, especially with GI irregularities or family history.
• Concern over fear mongering versus real risk.
• Quote [17:55, David]: “If you’re just a person going through your life, and had some of the bowel movements runners have, you’d be like, Holy crap—this is a problem. In fact, unholy crap.”
• Playful debate about YouTube colonoscopy content – “Wahoo” as colonoscopy catchphrase.

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#8: Recovery—Elevated Metabolic Demands Post-Ultra

[21:37 – 24:02]

• Study: “Total Energy Expenditure and Intake During a 161km Mountain Ultra” (Wasatch 100 case study)
• Finding: Metabolic rate remains 2x baseline even seven days after a 100-mile ultra.
• Lesson: Fuel for recovery like you’re still long-running for days.
• Cautions about bone metabolism and injury risk post-ultra.
• Quote [23:16, David]: “You need to feel like it’s long run day for a week after.”

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#7/#6: The Carbohydrate Wars

Low-Carb vs. High-Carb Fueling in Endurance
[24:59 – 34:44]

• #7 Study: “Carbohydrate Ingestion Eliminates Hypoglycemia… in… Very Low and Very High Carbohydrate Diets”

  • Found 10g carbs/hr improved performance 22%—but criticized for not testing higher carb loads.
  • Quote [28:35, David]: “The hard part about low-carb studies is... almost always from the same group of researchers that are low-carb proponents already.”
  • Emphasis on researcher confirmation bias & critical evaluation.

• #6 Study: “Carbon-13 Labeled Glucose-Fructose Show Greater Oxidation and Lower O2 Cost … at 120 v. 60 v. 90 g/hr in Elite Marathoners”

  • 2.6% running economy gain at highest carb intake (120g/hr) in fast marathoners.
  • Debate over real-world applicability; warning not to let single studies override accumulated practice and outlier variability.
  • Quote [32:43, Megan]: “I think we’re gonna have huge outliers on either side... What does a smaller female athlete—how are they going to respond to 120+ grams/hour?”

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#5: Long Run Distance as Main Injury Predictor

[37:53 – 44:30]

• Study: “How Much Running is Too Much? Identifying High-Risk Running Sessions in a 5,200-Person Cohort Study”
• Findings: Exceeding your longest run in previous month by 10% increases injury risk; weekly mileage increases are less risky.
• Emphasis on “acute vs chronic load,” risk of big jumps in long run, especially in ultra training.
• Quote [38:19, David]: “If your long run was 16 miles when you hadn’t done eight miles in the previous 30 days, injury risk skyrocketed.”
• Practical application: Encourage gradual long run progression; fuel to mitigate acute stress.

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#4: Protein—Rest Day Needs Higher Than Expected

[44:36 – 48:06]

• Study: “Protein Nutrition for Endurance Athletes: A Metabolic Focus on Promoting Recovery and Training Adaptation”
• Takeaway: New method estimates athletes may need >1.8g/kg protein—rest days especially see increased requirements.
• Encourage athletes to up protein when not training to promote recovery and reduce fatigue.
• Banter about protein shakes vs. “business meals,” and the evolution of protein influencer trends.

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#3: Big Data—Easy Volume Predicts Marathon Success

[48:19 – 52:42]

• Study: “Training Intensity Distribution of Marathon Runners Across Performance Levels” (120,000 marathon runners via Strava)
• Result: Only easy (Z1–2) volume scaled with performance; hard effort volume (Z3–5) stayed constant.
• Lighthearted promise to post all David’s training to Strava if he recovers—so he can “DNF at 30 miles and everyone can see why.”
• Quote [49:17, David]: “Faster marathons were solely explained by increases in easy volume.”
• Caution about data biases, the “saturation” point of easy volume, and the need for top-end output.
• Mention of “knowledge is Watt” Instagram for visualization.

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#2: Passive Heat Training—A (Potential) Breakthrough

[52:47 – 58:46]

• Study: “Long-Term Passive Heat Acclimation Enhances Maximal Oxygen Consumption…”
• Result: Five weeks of 5x50min hot tub sessions increased hemoglobin mass by nearly 4%, similar to “heat suit” exercise training but with lower training stress.
• Cautions: Protocol feasibility, gender applicability, interaction of passive vs. active heat, interaction with altitude.
• Reflection on overdoing “heat suit” protocols, and the interplay of “practice vs. science.”
• Quote [53:21, Megan]: “How have we not already seen this?... I feel like my brain had assumed we had already found this with passive heat training, but indeed, we had not.”

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#1: Machine Learning Revolutionizes Shoe Design, Running Economy

[59:13 – 64:13]

• Study: “Data-Driven Shoe Design Improves Running Economy Beyond State-of-the-Art Advanced Footwear Technology Running Shoes”
• Finding: Puma, using computer-aided design and optimization algorithms, produced a super shoe with a documented 3% running economy improvement over existing top super shoes.
• All tested athletes responded positively; potential for even further gains foreseen.
• Discussion of lack of injury consideration in optimization models; anticipation that similar advances will come to trail shoes and beyond.
• Quote [61:04, Megan]: “3% could be the difference between making an Olympic team and not.”
• Extrapolation to future AI roles in science, equipment, and training analysis (“data gathering is here…the processing can come from other places—extremely exciting”).

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Notable Quotes and Laugh-Out-Loud Moments

• On Hope & Endurance:
  • [03:37, David] “If you don’t have almost irrational hope at various times, why would you keep showing up day after day?”
• On Confirmation Bias:
  • [28:35, David] “If you want to believe, and a study comes out that justifies your belief system, that’s scary.”
• On Rigorous Science:
  • [37:53, Megan] “Megan’s button gets tickled by large cohort studies.”
• On Sandwiches and Gender Roles (satirically):
  • [54:26, David & Megan] “Who cares [about female athlete data]? ... Make me a sandwich.” “You actually do make sandwiches. You really have good sandwiches.”
• On Trail News & Community Forgiveness:
  • [75:14, Megan] “We are all carrying something that if we got exposed for this reason would be, ‘What is happening?’ ... Forgiveness needs to be at the forefront.”
• On Machine Learning in Trail Shoes:
  • [63:41, David] “I’d like to take any trail shoe and present it to the researchers that designed Puma and watch them laugh.”

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Additional Segments

Product & Sponsor Chat (The Feed, John G, Race Day Bicarb Bar)

• Banter on experimenting with 45g Victus gels and groundbreaking ketone IQ (none sold locally—“zero in six months”).
• New bicarb bar with 6g sodium discussed—David wonders if he’ll need to “boa constrictor” it down (“wrap your whole body around it, really, really tight, and then swallow it all at once”).
• John G fleece tights and running bras get raves.

Trail Community News

[73:03 – 81:00]

• Shelby Houlihan’s re-entrance into trail racing—celebrated for her technical prowess, discussed vis-à-vis her doping ban and internet outrage.
  • [75:13, Megan]: “We are all carrying something; we all fail purity tests.”
• Ann Trason: At age 65, completed 100 miles with a walker, cross-country style, despite rheumatoid arthritis—a model for “doing hard things for the sake of doing hard things.”

Listener Corner

• A runner in bear country plays SWAP podcasts on speaker to scare wildlife; banter about expert use of noise for both bear safety and baby calming.

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Conclusion & Looking to the Future

[69:47 – 72:32]

• Excitement for where science, technology, and the SWAP community are headed in 2026 and beyond, with inklings of more YouTube content, new plans, and increased sharing of both scientific and personal stories.
• Quote [68:24, David]: “With science, I think it’s about trying to maintain a constant one-year head start. One year advantage.”
• Closing [71:48, David & Megan]: Anticipation for more laughter, science, and love in the next year—“It’s gonna be so fun.”

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Episode Highlights & Essential Takeaways

• Fueling, recovery, and injury prevention trump all else:

  • Fuel both muscles AND the brain.
  • Recovery takes longer and is more demanding post-ultra than most athletes realize.
  • Avoid big long run jumps; keep easy volume steady and progressive.

• Embrace and question the science:

  • Be wary of confirmation bias and oversimplification from all sides (“I want to believe” is not enough).
  • Remember the value of big data, but don’t ignore outliers and practicality.

• The future is data-driven and AI-enhanced:

  • Machine learning is already making athletes faster—first in shoes, soon in training and everything else.

• Love, hope, and forgiveness—on and off the trails:

  • Community is about supporting each other through the mishaps (“We all fail purity tests”).
  • Bring curiosity, leave judgment, and always keep humor close at hand.

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For runners, coaches, and science nerds alike: this episode encapsulates why SWAP remains a must-listen in the endurance world—offering equal measures wisdom, warmth, skepticism, and enthusiasm for whatever’s coming next.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Some Work All Play podcast. We are so happy to be with you today.

[B]

Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday and I'm washing all our lasagna pans on this Tuesday.

[A]

Washing our lasagna pans. Yeah, I know this one.

[B]

You know where this is coming from?

[A]

My foot also knows this one. Okay. So we were up in the mountains this weekend and my foot has not been great since we last recorded. It went downhill. I tried to do the return to run and I had the walk of shame back.

[B]

In fact, you're going through, I feel like, all the stages of grief related to your foot at this moment. What are they?

[A]

I wouldn't say grief. I wouldn't say gr. Say the stages of processing, that this is going to be a longer term thing than I was hoping.

[B]

I would argue that spending an hour on the bike in a heat suit is some stage of grief.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I don't know. I don't know where to put it, but I feel like it's a stage of grief.

[A]

I should have written down the exact stages because I thought this out. Stage one involves running on it until you can't really walk. Stage two involves cross training really hard, um, saying you're gonna get back right away.

[B]

You've progressed through both of those?

[A]

Yes, yes. Stage three is that you go out for another run and then you have to walk back. I went through that one last week.

[B]

Hot girl walk of shame. You that on Friday. Yeah.

[A]

Stage four is heat suit biking, because if you're in a heat suit, you can't really put out any power, so you can't hurt anything. And then stage five, the worst stage of all is pool running. And I haven't gotten there yet.

[B]

I don't think we should ever get there.

[A]

No.

[B]

I think we should always reserve that last stage for just like the. Oh, shit. Oh, no. Oh, no. What is happening in life?

[A]

I can't do pools. I'm not really a water guy, but yeah. So the lasagna pan is because I needed somewhere to put my foot to ice it. Because, you know when I start to ice things that it's DEFCON 1. This is serious. Or DEFCON 3, I believe, is the most serious. And so we were up in the mountains and they didn't have any cheap bowls or anything at the grocery store because everything there costs like $30. And so I got one of the big, deep lasagna pans and, oh, I went ankle deep.

[B]

It was like one of those tin, like, trashable ones. And I think it was still $14. It wasn't worth the $14 ice bucket.

[A]

I'm feeling good now. I'm hopeful I'm not only gonna come back tomorrow. I'm gonna do a workout on Wednesday, and then I'm going to win the Black Canyon 100K. I feel like I can say that right now because it's not gonna happen. Um, you know, we always say we're not talking about our races too much, but that was why I was taking these risks. Right. Is that there was a potential race. And now if it's not going to be on the table, I'm fine taking a reset. Because the honest reflection I've had is that since my bike crash in April 2024, I have not taken the foot off the gas pedal at all as much as you've told me to. At different times, I've trained like I'm running out of time because I felt like I was, you know, when I got a second chance after the accident, you know, it seemed in my head like I had to use every single second I had. And that's paid off a lot. Maybe when I had this heel pain at mile 50 of Javelina, it should have been the sign of. All right, dial back now. Do a full reset. So maybe it's a blessing in disguise.

[B]

And how are you feeling since dialing back? So it's been since the hot girl walk on Friday. So on Friday, you went out and tried to run, like, eight miles. You got three and a half away from house and away from house and walked all the way back.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How has it been since? Because we're sitting here right now and you are smelling your smelly business. But I actually associate that as being, like, a good thing. Yeah.

[A]

I feel fantastic.

[B]

Your hormones are raging. Your testosterone is strong. Your body odor is rocket.

[A]

Yeah. My mental health can really be evaluated through my armpits.

[B]

How much you smell.

[A]

If you can smell them from six feet away, that's how, you know, my hormonal status is. Is really good. So it is interesting. You know, just taking a few days off basically has really supercharged my body, and I'm hopeful that things will be better. But, you know, I think hope is the ultimate uniting factor of almost all athletes. And I think it's an essential part of the process, because if you don't have it almost irrational hope at various times, why would you keep showing up day after day? So I lean into it, and we'll see. I'm going to come back, and it's going to be great.

[B]

Do you think you're going to get answers.

[A]

Answers.

[B]

I've been pushing you to get an MRI for the last, like, six weeks. I'm like, let's get an image, baby. Let's understand what's going on. How close do you think you are to getting an mri?

[A]

Not close at all. You do not want to put my left foot and ankle into an imaging machine because it's just going to turn back like with one of those emojis with X's for eyes. It is not a productive thing for.

[B]

Anybody to see, but if we understand that, we can take it with a grain of salt. I feel like trail and ultra running is becoming a lot more professionalized. And I think the hard part is we're still treating our bodies like we're these, like, old F150 race cars that, like, aren't even, like, you know, showing up to race at the track. And like, if this were LeBron James, he would show up and stick his size 14 ass foot into the MRI machine and be like, tell me what's up.

[A]

If this were LeBron James, he wouldn't be paying for all of his shoes.

[B]

He wouldn't be paying for lasagna pants either. Actually. This probably wouldn't fit in lasagna tins anyways.

[A]

So this lasagna tin would fit any foot. Okay, we have the best episode for you today. A quick roadmap. This one is going to be so fun because we are doing a countdown of the most important endurance science studies of 20, 25. Ten of the biggest takeaways that we found from each study. So we're not just focusing on the scientific abstract ones, but the ones that actually change the way we think about training theory.

[B]

And I feel like in some ways this is an ode to mtv, which actually just shut down and their TRL countdowns. And we actually did some battle over this countdown as to where we should place things. And it got a bit heated at times.

[A]

Yeah. I'm curious to see where we disagree on these topics, because there's places I'm very passionate in places you are very passionate. And then they're going to come together with some smelly armpits and it's going to be a vibe.

[B]

I feel like I'm very passionate about some of the methodology and you're very passionate about the outcomes. And then we meet in the middle kind of and have a heated battle.

[A]

I'm very passionate about studies that confirm my biases. Then we're going to have questions on downhills, stereo mill, heart rate variation, doubles and more. So, um, we talked about my foot. And I'm hopeful, but where we're really hopeful is your heart and where things have evolved to. So, Megan, you're crushing the aerobic game. The big thing I wanted to ask is why do you think your heart rate's so much lower than it used to be and you're able to absorb volume so much better.

[B]

Yeah, it's been feeling good. It's been five and a half weeks almost since quad dipsy. Haven't done a single workout. Actually, haven't gotten my heart rate above 1:60 since the race. And in the race, I averaged 1:62 for four and a half hours. For context.

[A]

It's just how crazy racing is.

[B]

Yeah. So I've been aerobically chilling and actually feeling good. Like, I feel like there's something about just chilling out. And I've seen my heart rate come down quite a bit, like Z1, Z2 paces. And it's been kind of fun to see that progression.

[A]

That's the most wild thing, is you do these runs in the mountains, uphills and things, and your heart rate is so much more stable than it used to be, especially your zone 2 heart rate. And that's basically the holy grail of training adaptations. So what do you chalk that up to? Because, you know, we've known the theory forever, but something has fundamentally changed in your body over the last year since you gave birth to Ollie. What's that been?

[B]

I think I've just been a chill bitch. I just. I enjoy going out the door and starting easy and often, like, most days, keeping it easy. And I think before I just used to have so much stoke. Like, we talked about my Megan runs in college, where, you know, transitioning from field hockey to playing track, I would just go out the door and run hard every day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I feel like each year that's, like, chipped down a notch to the point that, like, you know, even two or three years ago, I would run out the door, go out the door and, like, run kind of hard. Ish. And now, for the most part, it's, like, pretty easy. And I think it's helping, like, everything, including, like, you know, running economy and efficiency and, you know, heart rate zones and everything. And so it's kind of fun to see that.

[A]

It's probably more fun, too.

[B]

It is more fun. I enjoy it. It's so much less daunting to get out the door.

[A]

Yeah. It's amazing to see it all come together and with cross training, too. So we might start workouts this week, Might not.

[B]

I Think I'm ready?

[A]

You think you're ready?

[B]

I think I'm ready.

[A]

Well, we, I think we need to build the base a little more.

[B]

It's been five and a half weeks.

[A]

You see how we coach Megan's like, david, chill out on your fucking foot.

[B]

Yeah. And you're like, girl, another aerobic week.

[A]

And this has been the story of the last 15 years.

[B]

A push and pull.

[A]

Okay, let's get on to the big countdown. But before we do that, a quick promo for the feed. Go to the feed.com swap swap. Just putting in your email there. If you're a first time customer, you get 40% off your first order. So do the biggest order you can. If you're a return customer, you get $10 off for every $100 spent. So the best deal on the market, literally 10% off is the least you're ever going to get. And they have the best products at the best prices.

[B]

I've been having a lot of fun experimenting with products recently. I think because now I'm an athlete with a feed, we have a little bit more credit to spend. And I'm like, let's try some things. Let's try different gels.

[A]

Oh, I love it. You're now my sugar mama. I used to run through the credits so fast because I want to experiment with everything and now you just sent me a code and unfortunately I've used your whole code already.

[B]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I just sent you a code as soon as I became sponsored. You're like, hey, what's your code? Truth.

[A]

Hey dirty baby, I got your code. Don't you worry baby.

[B]

I got my wife's money.

[A]

It's true actually. But it has been fun to experiment. And the big thing that you came back with that I tried to were Victus gels and it's amazing because they are on sale right now for I think 25% off. But they're 45 grams of carbs per gel, which is basically a sweet spot. You can do two of these per hour and they taste good, they go down easy. What did you think of them?

[B]

I had the lemon flavor, I thought it was great. But there's something about the 45 grams, like the extra 5 grams compared to the typical beta fuel gels that I.

[A]

Do or 15 grams over a 30 gram gel and God forbid, something like a goo.

[B]

Oh, I don't waste my time on 30 gram gels. I'm like, if it's going down, if I'm slurping it, it's gotta be 40 grams. But the extra 5 grams made me like irrationally happy.

[A]

It makes a huge difference. It adds up when you think about, you know, pushing that over a longer distance event really makes a difference. So Victus gels. We'll provide a link to those in the show notes. Go for it. And then the other thing I wanted to highlight is Ketone iq. If you're willing to experiment with post exercise ketones, now's a great time to do it. Ketone Q is what I use personally after almost every training session nowadays. Makes a huge difference, I think for me, and the reason I wanted to mention it is these ketone IQ shots are at the checkout counter to this, you know, bumfuck grocery store in the middle of the mountains we go to. And so at checkout I like to make conversation, as you can imagine. And I asked, how many of these have you sold? And they said literally we have sold zero over six months.

[B]

Didn't they follow up? And then we're like, is it caffeine? What is it?

[A]

They thought it was electrolytes. And then I told them a big scientific discussion of post exercise ketones hacking evolutionary processes and maybe even improving recovery outcomes. They didn't seem that interested in that, but maybe they'll be able to sell some more.

[B]

We should bring a scientific poster to the grocery store and just hang it up right there at the cashier and do an experiment and see who's willing to buy it.

[A]

Now should I also do that over the Fritos? This fueled David Sledville 100 performance. Just a picture of us kissing in the Frito aisle.

[B]

Actually, the grocery store has a 2.9 star review on like Google and Yelp, which is wild. That is so low. Maybe it would help.

[A]

Maybe it would help actually make it worse. Bring in some haters. So go to the feed.com swap swap put it your email now. The best deals on the market. So Megan, do you want to get to the top 10 countdown?

[B]

Let's do battle.

[A]

Are you Carson Daly in this? The host of Total Request Live on mtv.

[B]

Do you know what? This is really embarrassing, but I'm trying to figure out who the other host is. It's Carson Daly. Who else? Who was the other one?

[A]

They had a lot of VJs. They called them video jocks. I forget exactly what I'm referring to. But there was, it was a whole like subculture that will never exist. All of our Gen Z listeners have no idea what we're talking about. But back in the day, this was everything. You would come home from School and I lived in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing really to do. And you would turn on TRL and see like 10 second clips of the top 10 videos of the week. And it was always this weird mix back then. So like nowadays pop music is, is, you know, has its idiosyncrasies, but back then it was like Britney Spears into Lit Bizkit into corn. Like a very strange, like heavy metal focused thing at times. And that's kind of what this study countdown is, you know?

[B]

I like it though. We need to bring back that ethos of pop music in rap and R and B. It's like I feel like I'm constantly craving things of like the 90s and 2000s.

[A]

Megan, we can't be those old people.

[B]

I know. I am those old people.

[A]

Just like what was cool when we were young and think all the young kids now don't get it. I actually try to stay up on Gen Z trends and I do you really? I do, yeah.

[B]

Yeah. What are some.

[A]

I mean.

[B]

You don't educate me.

[A]

You don't think I embody Gen Z.

[B]

Vibes kind of do.

[A]

No, not at all. Okay, so let's start at number 10 and here is how we're going to do it. I'm going to list the takeaway from the study and then we're going to talk about the study title and then just do a quick discussion of each. The takeaway for number 10. There may be temporary myelin reductions from harder efforts in the brain. Fueling is about the brain as much as it's about the body. And this comes from a study called Reversible Reduction in Brain Myelin Content upon Marathon Running.

[B]

Well, I don't know if TRL put as many. They caged it and couched it as much as we're about to do where we're like may should have. They're like, this is the best song the 1990s and 2000s. But yeah, I feel like we're couching a lot of these already.

[A]

Lots of conditional language. But this one was really cool because it looked at brain content, like the structure of the brain itself, and found that after doing a marathon in this instance, there was 26 to 28% reductions in myelin. So some lining in the brain immediately after. And that could provide some evidence for how not just races, but also especially long term under fueling could affect cognitive function.

[B]

And it's kind of wild to think about that. And I feel like I've personally seen that and you've seen that where like, you know, Recording podcast episodes even so soon after longer races. And for me, even after quad dipsy, which wasn't, you know, four and a half hour effort, sometimes it's like it takes us warming up and having a bunch of edits because it's like the brain is almost like stuck in 0.6 speed and it's really hard to actually have those like higher level conversations and focus.

[A]

I haven't gotten my heart rate above like 120 in five days.

[B]

You're like, I feel good.

[A]

I can't touch my myelin. I got myelin overflowing.

[B]

Your myelin's got testosterone, testosterone attached to it. What happened? Testosterone has found its way to the brain.

[A]

So what do you think the conclusions are from this? I mean, it's cool mechanistically, because this might provide ways of looking at the brain to understand things like fatigue resistance. Um, but is it as simple as just trying to fuel and prevent some of that reduction in myelin as much as you can to protect the brain?

[B]

Well, I feel like in some sense racing is a proxy for stacking hard training. And this makes me think about athletes that are stacking hard training, perhaps with not fueling properly. And what are like the long term impacts of that on the brain? What are even the long term impacts of, of chronic under fueling on the brain? Like thinking about athletes with disordered eating or eating disorders. And, you know, it also makes me think about like stacking races, like races after races, and how challenging that can be on the body, but the brain too.

[A]

As we look back at my season.

[B]

Last year, you're like, what happened to my myelin? Gotta stick the myelin in some lasagna pants.

[A]

Yeah. So just the lesson is fuel. And when we're thinking about advanced scientific principles here, fatigue resistance is one. How in longer events you can kind of prevent this to improve cognitive function. I think that's one thing. The other might be ketones. So ketones do cross the blood brain barrier at times, can provide another substrate for the brain for fueling. So that could be a mechanism in longer events for ketone use to be productive. I've never done it in very long events yet, only afterward. But maybe that's why afterward it's productive as well, is that it helps the brain in addition to helping the body. So lots more to come from this one. I think it might unlock a key to future research. And that's why it's at number 10. I don't know if there's any specific takeaways now.

[B]

I was thinking about that Key too, because this is looking at marathon running like we haven't even looked at a hundred mile races, multi day stage races. And to some extent, like maybe, yes, they're lower effort, you know, they're done in slightly different contexts. But I would love to compare the myelin reduction there compared to marathon racing.

[A]

Or just myelin reduction with high carb fueling versus not. This might be why high carb fueling really works. Because some of the low carb proponents are arguing that, well, in these studies you're not actually taking in that much of it into the muscles, so we don't need it. In reality, the brain might be the key in that. High carb fueling protects the brain, which is then the governor of performance as you go farther and farther. And so, yeah, the brain body interface is the next frontier, I think of endurance training.

[B]

Yeah, I want some victus in my brain. Yeah, 45 grams.

[A]

That's what the gel company should advertise, right? Like get your brain going. All right. Do you agree with that placement? And number 10?

[B]

I actually agree with that placement. I feel like there needs to be more science, but it is interesting, it's sexy. And I feel like we don't talk enough about the brain and racing.

[A]

It was also a brief communication, not a full study. So I don't think we can put a brief communication anywhere higher than 10. This is more about the future. Next up, number nine, the takeaway runners may need to consider earlier colon health screenings. And this is called risk of precancerous advanced adenomas of the colon in long distance runners.

[B]

And this was a conference abstract.

[A]

I was just hating on a brief communication conference abstract. Not quite at the same level. What it found, just to summarize, is that 15% of the runners in their sample had advanced adenomas compared to 1 to 2% expected in the general population. No control study there. No understanding of whether it's just sampling methodology or things like that. But this caused quite a stir and it also caused a stir in me. I'm planning on scheduling a colonoscopy as soon as I understand that I'm not.

[B]

Racing in February, which I'm pleased about that. I feel like we also need a study that looks at feet and looks at what happens when you get an MRI of something that's been hurting for six weeks and looks at the long term outcomes and how that might help improve things.

[A]

Is the principal investigator here, Quentin Tarantino.

[B]

Quentin Tarantino, if you ever watch his.

[A]

Movies, there's a close up of feet in it.

[B]

Maybe it's the free trail podcast. Did you see Max Duluth on solicited memes has just a bunch of memes of Dylan Bowman on the couch with a feet up. So maybe that's where it's coming from.

[A]

Are Dylan Bowman's feet a thing?

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I would love that. It should be.

[B]

And Debo collaboration. This study, too, also poses a lot of challenges. I have a question about how the participants were recruited. It was a small group, and I feel like there might have been bias in recruitment. And just in general, like, I feel like the methodology, I'm like, give me a Jama paper that recruits like 2000 runners and now let's stop talking.

[A]

Yeah, but what's the downside of getting some screening a little bit earlier? I think that's the lesson here, is because basically a lot of runners end up having blood in their stool at times, and it's easy to play off. Whereas if you're just a person going through your life, if you had some of the bowel movements runners have, you'd be like, holy crap, this is a problem. In fact, unholy crap. This is extremely, like, evil in some way. And I think it can lead to a lack of diagnosis when there might be opportunities there. And we've had listeners, after we highlighted this study on the podcast, go get colon screenings. Most of them come back good, but many have not. And I think it does point out there might be some mechanistic cause here or at least contribution that's good to understand earlier. And so all it really means is, if you're in your 30s, consider getting these screenings now, because it's not that much skin off your back. Right. It's not that difficult. I think, that being said, I haven't done it yet. And my question to you, can we make this our first YouTube video in the next YouTube series?

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. The fuck not. Why? I actually. Okay, I support you. And I do think this is an important message of if you have blood in your stool, absolutely. Consider a colonoscopy. If you have a family history, you know, absolutely, consider a colonoscopy. Work with a doctor on this. But as you were like, this should be our first YouTube video. I was like, what is wahoo. The treadmill company going to think about this? They're going to love it. They're going to love it. The feed. The feed would probably love it.

[A]

You know what I should say as the probe goes in?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wahoo.

[B]

Look how smooth it is. And then when it comes out, John Gianji. John G feels appropriate for on the way out? No, but I just feel like our sponsor just be like, what are you guys doing? But no, to be real, though, I do think, like, you know, screening is helpful, but I think on the flip side of screening, there's a lot of fear and anxiety associated with this. I think also too, like, colonoscopies, like, not always the most straightforward procedure. It's still a procedure. There's still risks associated with it. And so I feel like it creates a lot of fear and anxiety and places running, which does a lot of health good as a potential mechanism before we're really even there in the science. And so I think, to me, that is risky.

[A]

Can I make two important jokes?

[B]

What?

[A]

First, yes. It's not straightforward. It's kind of like straight and then up the side and around a little bit.

[B]

Look at your knowledge of the colon. You're undulating there.

[A]

I was doing really good hand signals there. And number two is I won't put my foot in an MRI machine. But if someone's sticking something on my.

[B]

Butt, like, I'm all for it.

[A]

I'm all for it. So I'm guessing you don't love that at number nine.

[B]

I don't love it at all on this list. But if it gets you at a colonoscopy because you've had this history of blood in your stool, I'm like, fuck, yes. Talk about it.

[A]

I had such bad stomach issues when I first picked up running that a lot of runners understand. But it used to be severe that I was prematurely diagnosed with celiac, which I don't have, but some doctors told me about that. And so, long story short, I think screening's helpful. Megan's a little bit in dispute of its placement in this study list as.

[B]

A thing for the whole population. It's like, I think colon health extremely important, but I think it just sometimes creating unnecessary fear in the world of, like, there's like, so much unnecessary fear as it relates to science right now is tricky, important.

[A]

Scientific aside. Defector. My favorite sports website has an article every Christmas that they come out.

[B]

I know where this is going.

[A]

What we stuck in our anuses last.

[B]

Year, and it's actually. There's like, some consistent objects that are on that list every single year.

[A]

Light bulbs. Every year, Every year. You don't want to do that, by the way. There's a vacuum effect. It's not. Not good. But they take it from medical listing. And so it's doctors putting in, like, little comments about what happened, and they'd.

[B]

Like Corroborated it with X rays too, which is wild. Yeah.

[A]

And so it's often like accidentally fell in the shower onto a shower bottle. Like there are so many of those and perhaps I should just go down that path rather than needing to get this skin. That one was goofy. Okay, Number eight on the list. And here's the takeaway. Energy needs are extremely high after long events and they may stack across bigger training. This is a case study report called tonal total energy expenditure and intake during a 161 kilometer mountain ultra.

[B]

And this was a case study that looked at two athletes who finished the Wasatch 100 and they actually ran the race at the same time together, just coincidentally. Um, and they found that the levels of energy expenditure and metabolic rates were super high over a week post ultra. And this is really helpful, I think in the context similar almost to the myelin, of like what is happening to the body after we're doing these long events and the importance of rest and, you know, letting the body's metabolic rate return to normal and also fueling the body.

[A]

Yeah. So there's two aspects of this that I think are really relevant. First is total energy expenditure during long events and during heavy training is wild. Like it's super high. We know that that's where the high carb fueling principles come in. That when you're doing harder events, you feel high carb. The most significant thing. And how this has fundamentally changed how I approach coaching. And then also my own training is in the week after for seven days. Even after seven days, two times elevated metabolic rate. So they weren't doing shit, but their metabolic system was acting like they were doing a long run even at that stage. And by telling athletes in a very concerted way that you need to feel like it's long run day for a week after. I've seen way better recovery rates after these long events and it might even be approaching things like the myelin discussion. And so while this is a case study and it has limited conclusions, this is one that I think has stepped in and I've changed how I approach things because of a simple study design.

[B]

And they're doing parallel studies and they did one at Western states this year. And I'm excited to see the results of that. But there's also been studies that are looking at bone metabolism markers and what happens to, you know, bone health after acute ultras too, especially like these longer distance races and how those might remain a little bit awry in that period of time. And it's like, like you know, focus on recovery just to avoid even injury risk.

[A]

So what do you think about this at number eight?

[B]

I like this one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, it's a good one.

[A]

It's solid and it's a good place for it too, because some interesting things, but a case study, not like fundamentally changing the game or talking about a whole body of literature quite as much.

[B]

But I feel like it's fueling the field for more studies too, which makes me excited. And so I feel like the research potential here is high. And also like, you know, it's a bias that after doing these long hundreds, rest and don't stack them, you know, again and again.

[A]

And eat a lot. Yeah, basically eat a lot. And in heavy training too, you're stacking very similar types of chronic stress and thus probably your metabolic rate has similar ratios. And it might partially start to explain why when athletes do under fuel over time, they can start to see progressively worse outcomes when their metabolic rate starts to crash. So number seven, this one is really complicated. And the takeaway is low carb studies usually miss the mark. Highlighting something I believe came out in January of last year. Carbohydrate ingestion eliminates hypoglycemia and improves endurance exercise performance in triathletes. Adapted to very low and very high carbohydrate. It's a caloric diets, very long study design there. But this one, when it came out, went all over the place. You saw it on every podcast, on every Instagram post. And we had to step up and do one of our very rare scientific takedowns earlier in the year. I forget what episode it was, maybe like 2:42 or something like that.

[B]

And it was one of those moments that boosted our testosterone and also raised our anxiety levels at 2am because we don't like doing this.

[A]

We panicked. We panicked. And I don't want to get into it too much now. You can go back and listen to that episode. But the basic theory of this study is that it took athletes and had them do 10 grams of carbs per hour and found that 10 grams of carbs per hour improved performance 22%. So the argument was that you didn't need very high levels of carbs to cause the performance benefits of just preventing going to zero. And we disagreed. We were like, well, do a high carb group and you'll see that those performance benefits will get greater and greater and greater. And the study design itself was great. Scientifically, it was amazing. Their conclusions went so much beyond the pale. It went so far and it Was just a clear example of bias of researchers talking to other researchers who already know the answers they're going to get.

[B]

Well, it's really hard to do a 10 grams per hour intervention group and not test higher but see benefits there and not think about the potential of like a dose response relationship of like what happens if we turn these carbs up to 90 grams of carbs an hour.

[A]

So we're really into Hank Green youtubes right now, right?

[B]

Yeah, he's good. Hank Green and John Green. So we found this via John Green who wrote the Anthropocene, reviewed and like great author. And then we're like, holy shit. They've also done so much. They have YouTubes, they have podcasts, they're like everywhere.

[A]

Yeah, they're the most open minded people in the entire world. And that's what's sexiest to me about humans, I think is open mindedness. Like, you know, if there's like a playboy for me, it's someone just, it's Hank Green. It's just someone on the COVID being like, I don't know.

[B]

You know what's a playboy for me is that I love the phrase I don't know. But it's Hank Green sitting in his office, which is kind of a mess.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Like he, he's like, you know, these podcasts or these YouTubes get like 1.5 million views and his podcast is just like a disaster behind him. He's breaking down science and it's just like, I don't know. And something about it I just love just like, you know, him showing him up as he is and it's great, right?

[A]

We do watch it in bed.

[B]

Yeah, we do.

[A]

And if we're ever going to, you.

[B]

Know, it's after Hank Green, we just pause it.

[A]

So that's a good point. It's actually true.

[B]

I don't think we've ever like, not actually. We've had moments where you like haven't paused things and then there's like something weird in the background.

[A]

So I don't know if it's okay. I just read the first Harry Potter for the first time to Leo and in Harry Potter, not a spoiler after, I think it was published in 1997, the images, like the paintings and stuff are kind of alive so they follow.

[B]

You with their eyes and I forgot about that.

[A]

Yeah, it's part of the principles of it. And so I'm just imagining Hank Green.

[B]

We should have a picture of him in our room.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But the Mona Lisa eyes.

[A]

Yeah. The reason I Brought it up is that he had an amazing YouTube that was on why it's not alien. And the answer is that, well, aliens are this ultimate unfalsifiable thing. Like if you can't say, I don't know, you can easily say it's this unexplained thing that goes beyond our comprehension because that explains everything. Thus, the people that need to be most careful of that phenomenon are people who want to see the answer that they're expecting. So in X Files, David Duchovny's character, I believe Mulder was his name. I actually did watch the X Files when I was young, had a poster on his wall that said, I want to believe, believe. So if you want to believe and a study comes out that justifies your belief system, that's scary. And the hard part about low carb studies is it's almost always from the same group of researchers of a cohort of people that are low carb proponents already designing studies for it that are clearly going to find the answer to be low carb. And that. So that's my conclusion with number seven. It's not that this is a bad study. I don't think it is. I think it's a very interesting one. It's that that that world has to be very careful as we're going to talk about number six, where on the flip side, we need to be very careful when studies confirm our biases.

[B]

Well, that was extremely well said. But I think the challenge is that viewpoint of like, I want to believe. This is often much more in science than we even want to know or believe. And I think you can see that probably in high carb researchers. Like, you know, if we did a study, we'd be like, we want to see the 120gram per hour group. I mean, we wouldn't let that impact our, you know, how we summarize the research and how we make our conclusions. But, like, that's probably what we want to see too. And I feel like in science we need to do a better job of like admitting that or putting that finding some way to like, work that it's very challenging.

[A]

It's hard too, because to zoom out outside of my area of expertise, like a lot of researchers in science have similar views about like, really complicated topics that aren't related to exercise physiology.

[B]

Well, that's exactly where I was going to go is you need to go back in time and look at people's views and how are they dogmatic on other topics and how have those other topics, like, you know, come to light in the scientific community.

[A]

And that's one reason like, like I've hopefully opened my own mind in Hank Green style. Is the idea being, look, I understand obviously our listeners understand we're liberal people, but we're extremely open to other ideas as much as we can be. So like, if you're not liberal like us, we love you and we want to have a place for everyone. But the idea being that like, I do understand now that the biases I come in with from just like my background worldview are also shared by a lot of people that are creating studies. Thus I understand where some of the skepticism comes in, even if I disagree with it. And so basically trying to meet in that middle point of mutual understanding and empathy is the message, I believe, of hankering. Because he'll also step up and say, look, this is bullshit when it's necessary to say that. And that's kind of what we said on this. Is that an okay conclusion way to land a plane?

[B]

That was a great way to land a plane. And also we should just meet in Hank Green's office and be like, this is an open meeting of empathy and discussion. We would love to just hang out with you and here and teach us your ways.

[A]

That'd be so fun. Okay, number six is related and also related to the biases point this time ours. Um, and it is that higher carb intake may improve running economy in advanced athletes. This study just came out. It was carbon 13 labeled glucose fructose show greater exogenous and whole body carbohydrate oxidation and lower oxygen cost of running, running at 120 versus 60 versus 90 grams per hour in elite male marathoners.

[B]

And the study was relevant in a few different ways. One, the study methodology was great. Like, you know, using this carbon labeled glucose fructose is awesome. And I think it's going to pave the way for future research. And that makes me excited. But also they tested fast male marathoners at 60, 90 and 120 grams of carbs per hour and they found a 2.6% running economy benefit at higher intakes.

[A]

So 120 relative to 60. Yeah, yep. Yeah. And complicated thing when this study came out is like, oh yes, I love it so much. Um, when you look deeper at the exact numbers here, I think the conclusions might need to be tempered a little bit. Um, so in the real world we would say high carb 90 plus grams per hour or we, we term high carb 75 plus is beneficial and 90 plus for faster athletes. Um, because higher the Amount of output matters a little bit. Bit. But if you look at the numbers, maybe it doesn't say 2.6% across the board because the dose response between 60 and 90 doesn't indicate 2.6 at 60 and 120 would necessarily be the final conclusion. And so I think my initial extreme enthusiasm about this study has slowly turned into keep leaning on the real world, don't lean on this study. Because I don't know if future studies will find the same thing.

[B]

Agreed. 2.6% is a lot on the order of like super shoes. I'm especially 2.6% over already high carb dosage. And agree, I think like when you dive into the study, there's a few things that I'm looking at that I'm just like, hmm, and my brain has a little light bulb moment. So I'm curious to see where this research goes. But we're seeing anecdotal evidence of this all the time. I mean, the number of times that I like pop into Instagram and the first thing I see some case study of, you know, some very informal case study on Instagram of an athlete doing 175 grams of carbs to win some Ironman is very high.

[A]

All extremely powerful athletes.

[B]

Yeah. All that's putting out big wattage.

[A]

Don't do that at home. Yeah. I think the interesting part about reading seven and six together, so the low carb and the high carb is it shows where studies in real world practice sometimes don't go in the science to practice direction. In fact, they almost never do. It's almost always the practice to science. And the hard part is designing studies that can actually isolate variables in a complex system. And so with carbs, we have real world tests happening at every major race in the world all the time. And for us, we have a huge sample size because we've been proponents of high carb for so long, we'll get messages from people that say, oh, I finally did this in my race and went four hours faster or whatever and. Or in marathons I went 15 minutes faster. And that adds up to support what you see in the real world. And then it's like, well, can that percolate down to studies in a control sense? It's hard when you, when you're looking at, we're saying 2.6% is too big of an outcome for us to just feel like a hundred percent comfortable that this will be repeatable, will be replicatable in every other study. It's like, that's crazy because how do you even isolate 2.6% so small. Like, it's such a small change already. So I think it's hard to isolate this in the real world. And often we're gonna be left a little bit wanting and might see studies that kind of contradict each other over time.

[B]

I also think it's so individual too. And I think the challenge is, like, when you do studies like this, you know, you're looking at that, like, you know, means more than the outliers. And I think we're gonna have huge outliers on either side of, you know, what. What does a smaller female athlete, you know, how are they gonna respond to 120 plus grams of carbs per hour? And so I have a lot of questions on this, and I think it's very nuanced.

[A]

Absolutely. So do you agree with 6 and 7's placement?

[B]

I do. I like 6 before 7.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I feel like that was, I think ranking the high carb, like, you know, ahead of the low carb was great. And I think it's just like, I think it shines a light on how tricky science is. And I think, you know, in exercise science, we're looking just as much at, like, you know, outliers, anecdotal evidence, what we're seeing across the board with just people that email us and, you know, all of the different things coming in. In addition to science, we have the.

[A]

Ultimate selection bias, though.

[B]

We have huge selection bias, but at least we're admitting it.

[A]

Yeah, 6 and 7 didn't change anybody's behavior, so that's why they're not ranked higher in the overall list. So you want to get to the top five?

[B]

Yeah. We made it through without a six, seven joke.

[A]

Oh, you're right. I totally missed it.

[B]

It's fitting that we did that.

[A]

Why does it appear everywhere?

[B]

It's everywhere.

[A]

You know how the mind fans predicted the world would end in 2012? According to people that talked about their calendar ending? That is 6, 7. It is everywhere. All right, so before we get to the top five, Patreon time. This was originally a post on Patreon, but most importantly, we have training plans for every single distance. What got released this weekend was the champion plan for 50k to 50 miles, our most advanced plan for those distances. It is so, so good if you're going for wins or you're just looking for your personal breakthrough. So go to patreon.com swap S W A P. Starting at $5 a month, you get 174 bonus episodes. These plans, articles, so much more Also.

[B]

Behind the scenes on the plan. So you couldn't train this weekend aside from the heat suit, your hour of glory, sweating away on our Zwift ride bike. And you channeled five or six hours into this plan. And then I came in and looked at it and I think our primary concern as we were doing the plan is is this like too strong? Like, is this, you know, we're putting things on here that we might give, you know, a very advanced Olympic hopeful in the marathon. And you know, I think just approach this plan with understanding of like your body. But I think at the same time it really speaks to like the champion level of things and it's kind of nice to put that on the world.

[A]

Yeah, we have beginner plans as well and we're going to get more of those over time. An advanced marathon plan where we're hearing crazy stuff like here's a post I completely commented previously about the 2025 PRS I bagged using the Swap Patreon training plans. Well, Now I've started 2026 with an 11 minute half marathon PR in a rare podium them. That's pretty cool. And then another post about a 50k PR in training using the winter plan, which is designed to improve Z2 output. The winter plan might be our best plan ever based on the feedback we're getting of people being like, oh, all of a sudden I'm running a minute and a half per mile faster in zone two. So. And that also uses ski and cross training and stuff like that if you want to do those sports. So go to patreon.com swap for that and a lot more. And as always, if you can't afford us, afford it. Email us, let us know. We'll get you in.

[B]

Okay, give me a Magic 8 ball. Where are we going with plans? It's kind of fun. We use our date night to sit down and do a lot of scheming of like YouTube and podcasts and where are things going? What should our next plan be?

[A]

I kind of want a simple plan. I want more beginner plans for this year. And then simple. Some simple plans. Some plans for people that aren't necessarily going to every single training wrinkle and are more rinse and repeat week after week in a way that might fit busy lives better.

[B]

I like that. I'm gonna counter that with a track based plan. Yeah, yeah, we need. I feel like people are loving track workouts right now. They're kind of fun, they're repeatable and in the winter it's a great option. Like if they do, like, shovel or plow your track, it's kind of clutch.

[A]

Kind of clutch, but, yeah, I'm just worried about injuries.

[B]

Yeah, it's tricky. Well, you can put that as a caveat on there.

[A]

Caveat.

[B]

Yep. Yeah, we can be open.

[A]

Ms. Nuance over here. All right, let's go to number five. Here is the conclusion. Long run length may determine injury risk. And the study is called how much running is Too much. Identifying high risk running sessions in a 5200 person cohort study.

[B]

A nice large study. Look at this.

[A]

Yeah, this is. This is why it's top five.

[B]

It's nice to have a bigger study.

[A]

Megan's. Oh, I was gonna make a joke. Never mind.

[B]

You make it. You can't just tease us like that.

[A]

No, no, it's not okay.

[B]

Tear me down.

[A]

No, no.

[B]

I saw it in your eyes. You're like, I'm gonna tear down Megan.

[A]

I want it. It.

[B]

Bring it on.

[A]

I was gonna say Megan's button gets tickled by large cohort studies.

[B]

It does.

[A]

Okay, okay. Not even a joke.

[B]

Not even a joke. It's just true.

[A]

Um, so what's really funny about this one is it took tons of runners actual training in the real world, and then determined injury risk based on what happened in their outcomes. And there's two related findings here, one of which is extremely counterintuitive. The first finding, which is direct and the subject of this, is that if the long run length of an athlete over was over their longest run of the previous 30 days by 10% or more, that's when injury risk increased. And so there was a dose response relationship that if it went higher and higher and higher. So if your long run was 16 miles when you hadn't done eight miles in the previous 30 days, injury risk skyrocketed. That that was the main determinant of.

[B]

Injury, which makes sense to me based off of, like, what we've seen in practice. But to me, like, one of the more curious findings was that weekly volume actually had the opposite relationship with injury risk. So increasing weekly totals, often beyond 10%, did not actually correspond with higher injury rates. And to me, it's like, okay, that actually kind of might make sense from an athlete's behavior or, like, who's putting, like, you know, athletes that are more willing to put themselves into, like, higher mileage and step that up are probably more injury resilient to begin with. And so there's a little bit of, like, okay, like, what's going on here? But I think at the same time, too, the the long run volume to me seems a lot more relevant.

[A]

Yeah, so it's chronic versus acute load is what this study is really getting at. In chronic load, as much as you might have heard the 10% rule in your weekly volume probably isn't the thing because if you're keeping that easy, it's not a huge load on the body and it's rarely going to cause injury unless there's some fundamental offset otherwise or you do that too hard. But the acute stresses where long runs get super long or probably hard runs get incredibly hard, that's where risk lies. And a good example is my foot. It began at mile 51 of Javelina where I had already broken this study's protocol pretty substantially. And every ultra is going to break this study's protocol because you know, if you're doing long runs like that all the time, you're going to get injured most likely. And what's weird is that training theory in ultras with high carb fueling is starting to see old school long runs all the time. Like athletes are doing 40 miles again, I'm like, careful, careful. That is risky.

[B]

Well, I think that's actually being derived a lot from time based training. And this is where I think time based versus mileage based long runs become an interesting discussion. Discussion is like, you know, athletes are getting a lot faster. And so if we give an athlete a four or five hour long run without guidance on the type of terrain like you can think about, you know, you, you could go out and cover 50 miles plus miles in that time.

[A]

Uh, I don't know because I'd be walking right now, my one mile power limp might not be able to do that. It should be a nice three or four mile.

[B]

Isn't that kind of, it's kind of want to think about that and you know, it's, I'm curious to see, like I would love to see a study that looks at, you know, time based long runs versus distance based long runs as it relates to ultra running. Because vert is obviously a unique factor there. And the way that I've settled upon it is distance based long runs with avert component of it. So like give me 18 miles or 4,000ft of vert.

[A]

Yeah. So this is the best type of study because it looks at the real world and then science ifies it, which is kind of what we talked about it, it combines the best of all worlds. How much does this apply? I don't think you need to worry about the 10% number specifically. It's more as you increase Long run distance, make sure it's mostly easy and let your body adapt to it. And then fueling is huge because if you're able to fuel properly, the stress is less high. So you want it. Those acute stresses are where bad things start to happen. Not just injury wise, but also endocrine system wise. And ways to reduce acute stress. It's not like happening in a vacuum. It's not an absolute number. You can increase by 40%. And if you adequately feel it and it's appropriately easy, you're probably in a great spot. Whereas if someone increases by 1% and they do it fasted, they might be fucked. And so, you know, there's ways to make this healthy. We just need to pay attention to this long run principle more than the volume principle.

[B]

And races are long, long runs as you've been talking about. And I think this a common theme right now is just like how much races take out of the body across all of these studies that we've talked about so far. And it's like a training race. Yes, that can be a great thing. But I think respect a training race, like it's a very large stress.

[A]

Absolutely. Do you agree with that? A five?

[B]

I do actually.

[A]

Now we're starting to get to the heaviest hitter studies of all time. These are the Britney Spears, these are the Limp Bizkits of the countdown.

[B]

I might need to be higher though.

[A]

You might need to be higher.

[B]

You know, I think that impacts a lot of how we think about training theory and training distribution and long run principles, especially for ultra runners. Like, I think long runs are different. Like, you know, give me a marathon and marathon runner that we know well. And it's like, yeah, two hour long run is a two hour long run. But once we start talking about four and five hour long runs, how that's translating to me is very different.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's a venting point for me. I'm like, this is why I always come back to you need to be able to coach the marathon, to be able to coach any event to optimally. And if you can't, there's a problem because coaching a professional marathoner, Amanda Vestry, right now, like we, for her long runs, like we were debating together, you know, because we like to, I like to talk with athletes about training when it's, you know, at the edges a little bit, when you're really pushing 105 minute long run versus a two hour long run. And it's because we know how far she's gonna go in her long run. So it's basically the same as distance based. And we settled on 105 minutes. And it points out just how narrow the margins are when you start to push the limits of performance. Because she's covering like 18 miles in 105 minutes.

[B]

Imagine if you gave her a five hour long run.

[A]

Yeah, but, but the point being two hours is a huge stress for an athlete like that. Huge risk. And those, the, the margins become really narrow in marathons in the ways that they're not in ultras. And it's a mind fuck as a coach sometimes because you want to engage so much with like what's happening in the, the world of training theory while also understanding that the true margins that are being tested are not like a 5,000 person cohort study even. It's like at the true limits with athletes like that.

[B]

Well, I think you can also break it down like when you're thinking about like, like elite, elite athletes that are running that fast over 105 minutes. So the difference of 105 minutes and you know, 120 minutes matters. Also I feel like time based is problematic when you're thinking about athletes that are not or that might be at the back of the pack because you know a three hour long run, they might not be covering the distance they need to fully be ready for a 50 kilometer race. And so I feel like it breaks down on both ends.

[A]

Absolutely. Okay, number four. And at some point you're going to have to knock one of these studies down to upgrade that one like you said.

[B]

True.

[A]

You have to stand by your principles here, there. So number four, takeaway. Athletes may need higher protein intake than previously thought, especially on rest days. The study is called Protein Nutrition for Endurance Athletes. A metabolic focus on promoting recovery and training adaptation.

[B]

And we talked about this one earlier in the year and it found that they used a new method of quantifying protein oxidation rate which I thought it.

[A]

Was actually cool by itself like amino acid oxidation something.

[B]

It was. Yeah.

[A]

It had some cool acronym that I didn't put in the outline.

[B]

They all have acronyms. It's actually my thing is like don't make things out acronyms. Yeah. Unless it's gonna like, unless you're like confident it's gonna sell out and be a commonly used acronym.

[A]

I like that. That's a good principle.

[B]

Yeah, it's a good scientific principle. But anyways, they found that athletes might need significantly more than what we previously thought including on rest days where needs bumped up quite a bit based off of their protein oxidation rates.

[A]

Yeah. So often before I think the Needs were like 1, 2 to 1.5 for athletes and they pushed that up to 1.8 to higher on rest days. And this is why it's number four for me. It's is yes, we've talked about higher protein for a while and yes, this confirms our biases so we need to be careful. But the place that was counterintuitive and has changed the way I approach it personally and the way I've tried to coach is protein goes up when you're on a rest day. Pro needs. And that's not what I would've expected. And they, they did this by measuring exhalation rates directly. And if that's the case, it provides a huge opportunity and might partially explain why athletes are tired after rest day because they're not getting some of the substrate they need. It's not just, you know, accommodating your burn rate plus a little bit. It's jack up that protein. And I've started to say on Sundays before, Monday rest days, high protein tomorrow, so so often to get athletes into this groove of adaptation.

[B]

In fact, I've started to do a protein shake on rest days. To me, I wasn't doing that before, not because like of the calories or the protein or whatever. It's just that protein shakes to me are much more of a business proposition. And my mind is not really in a business proposition state on a classic Monday rest day when I haven't trained, I'm just like not. Yeah, for ready for it.

[A]

Like I'm just like, you eat a fun meal.

[B]

I'm have macaroni and cheese instead of having a protein shake. But now I've actually added it in as like an afternoon snack often and I feel like I've been feeling quite good after rest days.

[A]

You do have protein Mac and cheese?

[B]

I do. It's good.

[A]

You like it?

[B]

I know, yeah. It's like $6 at our grocery store up in the mountains. It's worth it.

[A]

It's worth it. So would you bump this down or would you keep it here?

[B]

I'd bump it down, I'd bump it up well back. I would, I would flip this one and the study that we just did. Yeah, I'd have this at 5 and move that one down to 4.

[A]

I was hoping you would insult one of the other studies.

[B]

No, you know, this one, it's like, like, I don't know, it's a no shit study to me.

[A]

But what I, the reason it's high for me is that the new method of protein oxidation Calculation.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe it's you looking at the methods. That's usually my jam.

[A]

But. And. But the problem is this method might overestimate protein needs. That's the. The flip side is me. If the other Ms. Method underestimated it, this one might overestimate. And the other reason I like it is this pushes back against the narrative you also will see in a lot of influencer realms, realms where you don't need much protein, though that has started.

[B]

Influencer. I feel like all I've seen in influencer realms is like, here's the 64 ways you can put protein in different foods.

[A]

Maybe this is more like 2010 influencer.

[B]

Yeah, but we're in the. We're not in the 2010. We're in the protein era. And that's also kind of why I'm like. I do think, like, you know, protein is being shoved at us in every direction, including in our food and from influencers. And so I'm like, we can just move this up to five.

[A]

Yeah. But generally, if you feel sore or if you're just tired or you're aging at all, increasing your protein is.

[B]

Oh, but protein's so important.

[A]

It's a huge way to improve. This study helps illustrate that, and I think we're gonna see future ones that really come out on this, too. Now we're on to the top three.

[B]

The top three.

[A]

I don't think you can insult any of these. Yeah, they're all so, so good.

[B]

They're all so good.

[A]

They're all so good. Next one. This is another big cohort study. It's called Runner or Not called. The takeaway is runners get faster by accumulating more easy volume. The study is called Training Intensity Distribution of Marathon Runners Across Performance Levels.

[B]

And the study looked at a whopping 120,000 runners. And we're analyzing how they were training on Strava and then relating that to marathon results.

[A]

Yeah. So a million caveats when you're looking at this level of data gathering, because you can see small errors, little errors that might come out in how you're gathering, the data will magnify to such an extent that you're drawing erroneous conclusions. Like, if someone is more diligent about their uploads or whatever, like, this isn't a controlled enough study on the individual data points to necessarily say, this is exactly right in all cases.

[B]

Yeah, they're doing David roach training. That's just not on Strava. What happens? It breaks down.

[A]

It breaks everything down.

[B]

You would fuck this Study up so hard.

[A]

I have a resolution that if I come back, if I'm able to heal this, I'm gonna put everything on Strava between now and Black Canyon.

[B]

Oh, I'm so excited.

[A]

So that when I DNF'd at mile.

[B]

30, everyone's like, I see why we're this come from. Are you still thinking black onion?

[A]

I mean, I delusional.

[B]

Hope I like it.

[A]

Keep going. I can talk about it now because I'm, you know, still 5% hope. But I'm enough of a optimist in these settings to elevate that 5% to the maximum. Um, so what they found here that's really relevant is that faster marathons were solely explained by increases in easy volume. So volume in zone one and zone two in a five zone model, and then most significantly, higher intensity volume, so that you're looking at zone three, zone four, zone five stayed the same whether an athlete was doing lower volume or high volume. So those faster runners weren't increasing their hard workouts. They were doing just as much of that. They solely increased easy aerobic volume. So at the end of the day, if you want to get faster, based on this study, you just increase the time spent doing easy training. And so in this case, it was running. So you didn't look at cross training, if I remember correctly. But cross training could probably also accommodate that. And the mistake most people make is just doing too much intensity relative to easy training.

[B]

And this does saturate at some point. Like, I think, you know, a big theme of this, like podcast discussion has been talking about myelin and recovery. And, you know, even alluding to things like bone biomarker turnover is at some point, I think easy aerobic volume does saturate, and it has a recovery limitation to the point that you're not responding to the speed stimulus and actually raising the ceiling. And so I feel like as we talk to so many runners that are just like, I'm gonna do everything, there is a limit too.

[A]

That being said, all of easy running's adaptations damage those. Those systems less.

[B]

That's true. Yep.

[A]

So that you can see why it might be beneficial. Maybe not. What we're seeing here is not just the aerobic system improving, it's also just health improving. Um, you know, if you're gonna get more injured from the acute stresses, especially the hard ones, even though the study that we talked about before didn't look at hard ones.

[B]

That'S gonna be your study. You're like, I'm gonna have to have to admit my Bias looking at hard ones.

[A]

Moving on.

[B]

Wait, wait, wait. My point is I think, you know, volume is great, but I think at a certain limit, and I think this is a rare podcast listener that has reached this. But I think at a certain limit, volume does saturate for sure.

[A]

You don't chase volume above all else. You need to improve your top end output. But it's not saying, you know, all the athletes are doing some of the top end that are achieving their goals, but if you're able to do it, it's good. And what's interesting about this study, and the only reason I might have it higher than number three if I re rank these, is on Instagram, there's this amazing account called Knowledge is Watt W a t T and it looks at biking studies and they do the best data visualization of studies I've ever seen. Like, you look at these studies and you immediately understand them just with a quick glance. There's no little figures. Like, there's some people that do data visualizations of studies that have like, like humans with like, fake eyes.

[B]

Oh my gosh.

[A]

Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

[B]

Like, they make it. They cutify it. Yeah, they cutify.

[A]

And I'm like, I don't want to cutify it. I want to graph. And they graphed this study. I've never seen them do a running study since I've started following them. And they did this one and did a perfect graph that just demonstrated it. But the reason that's significant to me is this group of researchers that understands science so well comes into running post this one, that's a sign that it might be be more of a significant finding even than number three. So let's look, keep an eye out to see if we can move it up in the list. What do you think?

[B]

I think we can move this one up.

[A]

All right.

[B]

I think your number two has some bias here.

[A]

Oh, how dare you.

[B]

We're coming at number two.

[A]

You number two's conclusion, Passive heat training may increase hemoglobin mass. The study title, long term passive heat acclimation enhances maximal oxygen consumption via hematological and cardiac adaptation in endurance runners.

[B]

And we talked about this one relatively recently. And as I was reviewing this study, my first thought was, how have we not already seen this? Like, I feel like we've had so many different heat studies this year, including active heat studies that have looked at increased hemoglobin mass, especially over three to five weeks of active heat training. And I feel like to me, my brain had assumed that we had already found this with passive heat training, but indeed we had not.

[A]

Yeah. So what it found is that hemoglobin mass in this study cohort of five weeks, of five times a week, hot tub, increased their hemoglobin mass by 3.8%. Uh, that's really significant because it aligns almost directly with what we've seen from heat suit training, where if you do heat suit for five weeks, hemoglobin mass improves by 3 to 5% because that's oxygen carrying capacity. It directly improves your VO2 max, which advanced athletes can't get through almost any other means. Any other legal means, at least. So you can see how something passive that doesn't increase stress levels, unlike heat suit, could be so revolutionary. So the reason I think it's relevant is we've seen a heat suit revolution, revolution, and everyone's like, was going to heat suits last year and in reality we might have been able to get the same things all along from just sitting in a hot tub, which doesn't impact training quality, unlike heat suit. So it might fundamentally change the way athletes approach this, especially at the pro level.

[B]

Well, it's tricky and I'm left with a lot of questions, which is why I feel like I demote this to 3 is 1, how does it apply to female athletes? Athletes, Constant question across heat training research.

[A]

Who cares?

[B]

Those women. Why do we care? Make me a sandwich.

[A]

Well, I'm the only one that ever makes you a sandwich in our house.

[B]

You actually do make sandwiches.

[A]

I do, yeah.

[B]

You really, you have good sandwiches.

[A]

I get our groceries and so I'm doing pretty good and I. To be serious, I don't care. No, I'm just. Sorry, Sorry.

[B]

You're like, I want a high quality sandwich.

[A]

I was going to try to temper it, but I feel like podcast listeners understand and that, you know, as we preach just love and kindness and acceptance.

[B]

Okay, first point in question, female athletes. Second point in question, how does this stack? So, like, what happens? I mean, we're looking here at passive heat versus not doing passive heat. And my question is, is what happens when you start to combine passive heat and active heat? What happens as you start to combine passive heat with active heat or maybe just both in isolation at altitude? Like, you know, a lot of these gains can happen independently at altitude. And so I just have a lot of questions.

[A]

Questions? Yeah, lots of questions. But that's the fun part of science.

[B]

It is the fun part of science. I know, but I think these are.

[A]

So easy to do. The, the heat, passive heat studies, you Just put somebody in like a sauna or a hot tub. And that to me is really exciting because that's why the research can actually drive practice in these cases. And the problem is.

[B]

But they all have crazy protocols. Who's gonna sit in the hot tub for five times 50 minutes a week? Only pro athletes. Like, who has time for that? We don't even have time for that.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

We make a lot of time for training and there's no way in hell I have time to sit in a hot tub tub for 50 minutes five times a week.

[A]

Yeah, I just love that. Maybe actually this is a point to downgrade. It is. The heat suit studies came before the heat suit practices for the most part. There's always been heat suits in, in training theory and just overdressing and stuff. But when the heat suit studies came out, every athlete's flocked to it because this was such a great adaptation. And so I always say science doesn't drive practice, but it did. And that should have been a huge red flag for me. Me, because I was always a passive heat guy. That was my practice. That's what I pushed for athletes. And then once he came in, I'm like, oh, I need to be scientific and go with that.

[B]

No, you're like, I need to be scientific and I need to be more than science. I'm going to do a 20 mile heat suit and put it on YouTube when like in reality you could have just done a 30 minute.

[A]

In reality I could have stuck some up my butt the whole time.

[B]

Well, you could do both. That's what I mean. That's what you were talking about.

[A]

No, no, I was just talking about it generally.

[B]

Like, I just want to stick a light bulb up there for fun.

[A]

It's America's pastime.

[B]

You could be Killian and you were thinking of light bulbs.

[A]

Yeah, but you know, my theory there was that I'm trying to anticipate where the science will go and to downgrade this study perhaps is that if I'm saying it's so great because science is helping practice, maybe that's a sign that it's we should just go back to practice. And yes, practice includes some of this, but it also includes some overdressing. And this isn't saying just do passive, it's saying trust what our ancestors have done for generations at the elite level and then go with that.

[B]

I thought you'd say beyond generations. I thought you were going back to like jokes. No, I thought you're going back to like hunter gathering.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Well, I mean, they were taught.

[A]

I mean, in the whole evolutionary advantage of humans is thermoregulation. And the reason that this is such a cool adaptation is because it's hijacking that process. I don't know if it's okay to say hijacking.

[B]

It's fine.

[A]

That might be problematic.

[B]

You're launching it with your hand, too.

[A]

Yeah, it's a very funny form, but it's coming in and taking this system that is forced to adapt over just a very short time period evolutionarily because it's such a strong survivability signal. Like, the reason that the hunter gatherers could persistent hunt is because we can adapt to heat. Heat. And then our brains could get bigger, and then we could pass down, you know, generation to generation and eventually make jokes about rectal thermometers on podcasts, which was the pinnacle of human achievement. And it's all downhill from here. And that's why this is so cool, is it takes that history of what makes us, you know, the pinnacle species on the planet from a. You know, I don't know if that's okay to say. Dolphins are cool.

[B]

You've ruined your dad moments.

[A]

I know.

[B]

Dolphins are cool also.

[A]

Ants are cool. There's no. And there's way more bacteria than humans, so I don't know. It depends what your metric is.

[B]

You're like, we're the pinnacle species. And it's only the boy. It's only the man. Don't make me a sandwich.

[A]

Oh, no. Moving on to number one. Drum roll, please. This one is shoe design and performance is changing rapidly, aided by machine learning. Running the title Data driven shoe design improves running economy beyond state of the art advanced footwear technology running shoes.

[B]

Okay. And I love this one because they're using machine learning as it relates to shoes. And I feel like machine learning. Obviously, 2025, huge time for this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But shoe designers at Puma use computer aided design, and they use that to get 3% running economy benefit over other super shoes.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Which to me was the money finding. It's like, you know, know, Nike has already put so much time in alpha flies and vapor flies. And here comes Puma, who I thought was a smaller dog, and they're taking on Nike. And so I love this.

[A]

Puma came in and dominated. So they used computed design, so cad, and it was converted to a parametric finite model element model. I don't know what that is. And then they applied optimization algorithms. I kind of know what that is. And the optimization algorithms, to me, are the significant Part here's. They let. Let algorithms say, make us the best shoe. And we have Puma R3s. You take a look at it, it doesn't look like any other shoe.

[B]

It is so light.

[A]

It is so light. Significantly. That's why shoe weight. I always come back to it. It's like, take this away from shoe designers that think all of these weird thoughts. Let a computer design it. They come back with the lightest shoe on the market. And interestingly, before this study even came out, we saw Puma athletes dominating. We didn't know why. We were like, oh, training group. Oh, whatever. And yes, training group is clearly doing great.

[B]

Great.

[A]

But maybe the whole time it was just optimization algorithms behind the scenes helping with shoes. Because a 3% difference over other super shoes, not just Nike's, but every other super shoe that's at the top level. And across everyone tested, not just one or two responders, but everyone was a responder. That's wild. Also kind of points toward weight being a significant driver here, not just plate design, because plate design theoretically would interact with different footfalls differently. So I love this study because I think it showed tech when we take it to the max, take it to where it goes in every other field, might fully change running in ways we don't expect. Not just with shoes, but with fueling and everything else.

[B]

Well, I like this because they took speed and their. Their desire for speed and turned the dial up to 14. They're like, tell us how we make this fast. And you think about that, like, 3% could be the difference between making an Olympic team and not for someone. A hundred percent is. Yeah. All the time in most cases. And it's kind of wild to think about that. I have bias, though, because these shoes give me terrible plantar fasciitis, and I actually can't wear them. And. And they did not adjust or they did not put any kind of, like, injury consideration into the model, which I find fascinating and curious. Like how other athletes like Puma athletes. I can imagine being a Puma athlete and there's this, like, amazing shoe. What if you can't wear it? Yeah, but that applies to all shoes.

[A]

You know, like, you'll be able to figure out how to wear it.

[B]

You know what I mean? It's like PUMA could, like, take your.

[A]

Foot if 3% matters to you, which it doesn't really matter to us. Right. Like, there's no situation in which we need this for our performance, because choices are more just. They all are different.

[B]

We don't need it for our Strava files.

[A]

I mean I could.

[B]

Yeah, I do. I'm Megan. I really do.

[A]

I need it for my treadmill manual uploads where I can put any number I really want if I truly wanted to. But if it truly matters, you'll figure it out because it's just a shoe.

[B]

And I mean talk to my crippling plantar fasciitis. I mean, are you running right now? We should go on this. Well, I didn't wear.

[A]

I could wear it and maybe it would be reverse psychology on my plantar.

[B]

We're so fast, we don't care anymore.

[A]

Okay. So the reason this is number one for me, one, one. It explains what's really happening in the real world. And launched. It's like a Sputnik moment where everyone understands the world before these types of designs and after are gonna is gonna look totally different. It's another vaporfly moment where in 2016 Nike had a short term advantage where their athletes had prototype vaporflies on their feet and made the Olympic team before carbon plated shoes were prominent. This is another step where every shoe company is now catching up and releasing protos to their athletes. Athletes. But it's not stopping at 3%. Right. Like if you go 4% in 2016 and then continual improvement after and then another 3% leap.

[B]

Well, at some point it's gonna stop. At some point we hit an exoskeleton for.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. But the, the simple like just charting that out. You don't stop at a 3% growth rate. You continue to improve. And yes, you'll get some sort of like you know, top end asymptote of that but not yet. And that's gonna keep pushing shoe design. But then also how does this apply in other parts places and you know.

[B]

Well, that's what makes me sad is we are so far from this in trail running. I'm like where's our, where's our cat? What are we doing with shoes?

[A]

It's going to go wild.

[B]

It is going to go wild. But I feel like the trial market is so open and I want to see you know, a trail shoe that has similar design methodology and I think trails like because we've made trail shoes so complicated with lugs and outsoles and all these and you know, hoka putting freaking ankle gators on their shoes. Like we. There's a lot more design elements and I'm excited to see where this goes.

[A]

Yeah, basically I'd like to take any trail shoe and present it to the researchers that designed Puma and just watch Them laugh. Watch them laugh at the whole. The humor behind thinking all of this random shit is relevant to speed. When they are working with computers to just say, hey, give us rocket ships, we'll talk about.

[B]

I'm at least grateful to be open minded. Remember we shot on the Tecton 3s? We're like, why did they put an ankle gaiter on the shoe? Why give us an ankle condom? We don't need this, you know. We what? I fucking love those shoes.

[A]

You're obsessed with that shoe.

[B]

I love that shoe. It's like my favorite shoe.

[A]

Yeah. And to think about AI, you know, like the future is AI, right? Like it already. Maybe it's the present even. A lot of these studies point out the potential benefits of AI in science, which is the large data gathering Systems. So the 120,000 person study, or any huge study, there's currently already systems where you can put huge data sets into it. And then if you can do the data gathering, the conclusions that are drawn from it, you don't have to do the statistics. It will help you with that. And when you think about the future, long before AGI, this could be a place that comes in and helps the scientific and running worlds that we haven't really foreseen the true benefits yet. Like we're talking 3% here, but it could be even more when we start getting better data. And so the, the time of data gathering is here and the processing can come from other places. That's extremely exciting when we think about how conclusions might differ from traditional dogma and step away from paths that have just been taken before.

[B]

Well, I'm excited to be a fly in the wall right now of trail running shoe companies and be like, what actually is the data gathering process like? To me from an outsider, it feels like they're just taking shoes and being like here we designed this shoe. We're going to data gather and just send this to 20 trail runners and see what they think. Not, we're going to apply, you know, as much possible data as we can get and feed this into computer algorithms.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And way outside of shoes. Like the most exciting time to be into science of running because we're like science is in 2026 outside of running, but in running for the most part we're still in 2005 and you're going to see changes over a few years that are just like the industrial revolution of this sport. And we've seen that in feeling. Right. But athletes have had to come in and be the ones that experiment. And I think Think my experience of what's happened since my accident in 2024 is essentially just jumping ahead of the science with fueling and I tried to do that with heat this year. It didn't work. But the principle is I understood the science is still behind and it's catching up. And so we're going to keep telling you about it and to researchers out there, we love what you're doing. Keep doing it. Send us your studies as soon as they come out or even before they come out and we'll tease them and we just want to tell everybody about all the fun ahead.

[B]

Well, give me your predictions because I feel like if you're trying to be on the cutting edge of science, which for you as an athlete, like it makes sense, like you know, you're ahead of the science on carbs, ahead of the science on heat. And I actually do think heat in part led to your lead belt performance. Yeah, you just had a tough day. Western states. Well, no, no, I have tough days.

[A]

True, true. But I also think I overdid the.

[B]

Also 20 mile heat suits. Duh.

[A]

If some is good. More you.

[B]

I mean it was like watching that was like oh my lordy.

[A]

You know how every incel has one story of like one girl being mean to them in 8th grade or whatever? This is my story of becoming an incel, which means involuntary celibate.

[B]

All right, thank you. I actually know what that meant. Could you tell I was staring at you. Panic.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Where is it going? I think continuous lactate monitors. Yep, that's the next frontier is I think lactate has a huge amount of potential. But taking your lactate requires such specific conditions that we don't truly understand how the body works under stress. We understand how it works in controlled stress. How does it work in chaotic stress? We're going to figure that out relatively soon in the big scheme of things. When that happens, we'll have reams of data that we can't really understand.

[B]

But not yours. Because you don't like blood?

[A]

Oh no. But it's great because you just pop, pop it on.

[B]

Would you even pop it on? Oh, it's continuous glucose, you'd be fine with that?

[A]

Absolutely. I mean in some cases just measure sweat. And if it's accurate you can take that data, you can smooth it out, you can have AI help you figure out training theory. And so a lot of this is figuring out ways to just like improve athletes performance with current fitness. They have what happens when we address the underlying fitness itself. And I think training theory itself might just have its own explosion. And we'll have to be at the forefront of what's happening, because otherwise us and our athletes will get left behind. And so hopefully we can push that forward before the rest of the world sees it. So we get a one year head start.

[B]

Right. Like, which is relevant.

[A]

Long story short.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With science. Science, I think it's about trying to maintain a constant one year head start. One year advantage. If you can stay one year ahead in this world, you have a big enough advantage that there'll be some fundamental outcome benefit. Kind of like in hedge funds. Like, if hedge funds have a little bit of a knowledge about the market that other people don't, even if they lose some of their bets, they'll win just enough to make astronomical returns. You know, we're the millennium fund of as our goal, I think, well, in.

[B]

2027, there's just gonna be a surge on lasagna tins. Everyone's gonna be sticking their feet in lasagna. Like we're curing our plantar fasciitis.

[A]

So conclusion. Do you think this is number one?

[B]

I do, yes. I think 3% faster over all super shoes. When there's been so much, you know, put into super shoes. And from Puma, like, I love that the little dog's doing it.

[A]

And I actually think it's cat.

[B]

You know, just, you know, you're right.

[A]

And it's quite a large cat. Medium sized, at least.

[B]

Even better. Even better. The cat comes for us all.

[A]

That was so fun.

[B]

That was really. Can we do this more often?

[A]

Yeah, I don't know.

[B]

Not until next year.

[A]

It takes so much work to, like, summarize all this. Um, but hey, share the podcast with your friends. Actually, I think this is a good one to start on if someone wants to get the scientific vibes and the fun vibes. So give the podcast five stars. Click, follow, share with your friends, or at least one friend. Um, like, let's get this going in 2026. This is the time of year when people are going for it finally after the holidays. So try to share, try to follow if you can.

[B]

Okay. Where are we going as swap in 2026? We didn't talk about this being on here. We have a date night this week to talk about it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Give me a little primer.

[A]

I think podcast stays in.

[B]

I think podcast stays in. I could see releasing videos. Hankering inspired me. I was like, you know, when I was thinking about videos, like, we're gonna need to curate a whole space. We're gonna need to make it look sexy. But you know what? We could just have the space we're in and have it be authentic. There's something about him. I think it'd actually be really cool, too. This is a lot of work, and so I don't know if we're going this direction, but, like, when we talk about, like, graphs and data visualizations to pop them up on the screen.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Get director Cody involved.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And the feed has talked about wanting to do this. It's just us.

[B]

Or maybe we have, like, every fourth podcast. We do that or something.

[A]

Thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I think you need to have consistency.

[B]

True. Yeah.

[A]

You can put. You can put anything up on YouTube.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And it doesn't have to get caught by the algorithm. So. Yeah, I think podcasts stay mostly the same. Patreon. The original goal back in 2022, when we started it, was to have an outlet for a little media company. And I think it's become that for the most part. But it's just us. The question is, do we want to expand in any sense?

[B]

Like, I kind of want to write more for it right now. My time. My time is so taken up right now. Like, Like, Leo and Ollie being three in one. It's been a lot, and I feel like I really want to have that writing outlet too. And so I just need to figure out from, like, a childcare perspective how I can write more and share. And I would love to share more of, like, the female athlete lens on there, too.

[A]

You have all those calluses on your hand from making me so many sandwiches.

[B]

That's a mayonnaise callous.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You like a lot of mayonnaise. Oh, gosh.

[A]

Moving on, then. YouTube, I think, is the big one. That.

[B]

That's what we're talking about.

[A]

Date night.

[B]

Is you're calling us Speak.

[A]

Well, where do we go with that? Yeah, you know, like, there's a lot of opportunity, and it's not like going to races anymore. Even though we're going to have race documentaries, we want it to be educational and fun and funny. Kind of like the podcast, but more polished. So I don't know. Exactly. And that's something we're going to talk.

[B]

About and our adventures and our training. Like, I'm excited.

[A]

Adventures. Like, I think.

[B]

Well, I think every once in a while, like, going to an iconic place, like doing the four pass loop together and having, like, you know, drone shots, I'm like, that is so beautiful.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I also just want to do the four pass loop.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

I think.

[A]

I think your understanding of what what people want to see on YouTube and mine is probably two different things.

[B]

We make the adventure fun and silly and science backed and share stories. You okay?

[A]

My finger just cramped. What is going on with my body?

[B]

It seems problematic.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know what that's all about.

[B]

You don't train for four days and your fingers are cramping.

[A]

Yeah. Who knows? Um, probably shows why I used to have really bad fatigue resistance.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Um, anything else with swat? I think that's about it.

[B]

I think that's about it. Yeah. Any merch or anything?

[A]

No.

[B]

That's a lot.

[A]

You're on Me do joke Instagrams every week.

[B]

I am. It's been fun.

[A]

I got a fun one coming later today.

[B]

I actually really enjoy filming those for you. Yeah.

[A]

Are you excited for this one?

[B]

I feel like we should bring some of those vibes into the YouTube too.

[A]

Yeah, I would love that.

[B]

I mean, director Cody YouTube shorts actually could be interesting.

[A]

True. Director Cody, I think, is a little bit more of an artist than I am.

[B]

He's not gonna be down for the colonoscopy video. Can you.

[A]

No. He said yes. He said yes.

[B]

He said yes. Yes.

[A]

He was so excited.

[B]

Were you holding him hostage?

[A]

He understands YouTube. Yeah, YouTube would love the colonoscopy. Okay.

[B]

You can do it as like a fifth or sixth video. Not our first video of the new year.

[A]

How about second?

[B]

How about fourth? How about six? Seven?

[A]

Okay, perfect. All right. Um, we are already an hour and 13 in.

[B]

So how did that happen? Should we just end on news and listener Corner?

[A]

I think News and listener corner.

[B]

Let's do it. Yep.

[A]

Um, so first up in our three pieces of news, we're gonna start this again in 2026. We kind of got way mainly because we weren't putting things into the outline. And then we just wanted to talk to each other. First up, Shelby Houlahan. You know, incredible athlete, also served a four year doping ban. Everyone knows the burrito gate situation, but she did her first trace. I believe it was a 14 miler. She went incredibly fast. She won. She set a course record.

[B]

I think she won overall.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And interesting as a piece of news. And in the trail space.

[B]

Did you see the video of her? She was flowing.

[A]

I did not see.

[B]

Like, sometimes when you see a trail race, you're just kind of like, okay, are they running on, like, you know, cross country, college, cross country, kind of golf course, manicured grass? No, she was running on, like, legit rocks. Like, this was. It was in Phoenix or outside Phoenix somewhere. And some of those Trails are technical. Some of those trails are technical. And she, the footage that I saw, she was running on a very technical trail and just flowing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so, which is a good sign because, like, sometimes you never know when you take a road Runner. You can, I can kind of tell by like vibes and personality and running form and she feels like she fits the bill. But I saw it on video and I was like, damn.

[A]

Yeah. And so it's complicated because. Because I think this is exemplified in the Run single track post. So single track podcast is amazing. Go. Click follow on their podcast right now. But they were doing a trail news segment where they posted about her course record. And you go through the comments and I think anyone who says trail running is open and accepting and loving, go read those comments and it'll tell you something different.

[B]

Actually, don't read those comments because it's gonna make you feel pretty kind of terrible about humanity. Like, just take our understanding of the summer summarization of it was not accepting, not loving, cutting Shelby down. Like, don't go retelling literally everything. It's going to infect your brain.

[A]

Yeah. And it's fucked, Right?

[B]

I agree.

[A]

You know, so she served a four year ban and let's say for the sakes of this discussion that it was intentional doping that led to that. Right? Like just totally intentional. And even if that's the case, forgiveness needs to be at the forefront. And yes, the argument, the counterargument from people would be that there's some long term benefit from cheating and that cheaters cheat or whatever. But it's like if you apply that logic to everyone else in the world outside of the doping arena, no one is pure, Right?

[B]

Oh, we are all carrying something.

[A]

We all fail purity tests.

[B]

I was having a moment thinking about this in the shower, actually, where I was getting real fired up last night after seeing those comments and being like, you know, she's a pro athlete and so she's been exposed at this level. But we are all carrying something that if we got exposed for this, that reason would be like, oh, my goodness, what is happening? You know, like something, I mean, it can be something silly. It can be like, you know, I think about this all the time.

[A]

You know, you feel, you feel really self righteous about Shelby. Go put your Google search history online, like every single thing you've ever searched, and then we'll see if you feel the same way. Her, her life has been exposed so publicly. And so, you know, we want to like, zero tolerance when it comes to the rules, have to apply We've said that a million times and stick by it. And obviously this is complicated to talk about, but the reason people are not supportive in those comments, even though there are people that feel like we do, and I hope. Right, because trails are supposed to be loving and open and inclusive, is because everyone feels as if they present forgiveness, they're going to be also attacked. And that is fucked. That shows the extent of the purity test. And the same thing has infected politics. Right.

[B]

Like, it's affected every community of sub communities of sub communities. Yes.

[A]

Forgiveness is the answer. I just think love and forgiveness all the time. And the reason there's an edit there is that we're uncomfortable talking about this in some ways, too, because, you know, saying love and forgiveness will lead to other people being like, well, imagine a slippery slope where you apply love and forgiveness to everyone all the time. And it's like, do not do that with love and forgiveness. Just apply it and it will be good. It will work out. And at the end of the day, it's just fucking troll running. It'll be okay.

[B]

That is so wild said.

[A]

Is that a better than what I said before the edit?

[B]

That was great. I really liked your slippery slope point. Yeah. It's like, don't think about the slippery slope too much.

[A]

Yeah. When you come to, you know, a lawyer like myself, just say a slippery slope. That's the hate green of legal concepts. Okay. Number two, this is a fun one. There was a bicarb bar released. I haven't tried it.

[B]

It's from a company called Race Day.

[A]

Race Day?

[B]

Yes. And it seems like they. I mean, they're just releasing them. And I went to their website and their first batch is sold out.

[A]

Out.

[B]

Which is kind of cool.

[A]

Race Day, please send it to us. Um, we can get you on the feed maybe, if it's good. But what's so interesting about it so is it takes sodium bicarbonate, puts it in some sort of energy bar, and their argument is that it slows digestion. Right. Like, how exactly does it work?

[B]

Well, I was like, are you gonna have to swallow this thing? I'm just, like, picturing swallowing this bar whole. Because when I think of bicarbonate, I'm like, you have to fully swallow it to be able to have it. Like, bypass the GI upset that you're gonna get.

[A]

I should go full BOA constrictor. First you wrap your whole body around it, really, really tight, and then you swallow it all at once.

[B]

Maybe you're onto something.

[A]

Did you like my arm?

[B]

Yeah, that was that was great. Maybe we're onto something. Maybe we should create bicarbon that way.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Boa. Constricted bicarb. Um, but the argument is that, like, by spreading it out with real food and carbs, you're slowing down absorption and reducing GI stress. I kind of wonder about that because it's like you can just take baking soda at that point with carbs.

[A]

But we don't know the science.

[B]

But we don't know the science. And I'm curious. I want to try it.

[A]

I want to try it. And most interestingly, I. I think I again, I read in the comments of the Instagram post that it had 6 grams of BIC of. Of sodium in it.

[B]

Well, it's 21 grams of bicarb, which when you like apply like the molecular rate, whatever, it comes down to like 6 grams of sodium, which is a lot.

[A]

Yeah. Chemistry, not my strong suit. Um, but 6 grams of sodium in a bar. I wonder what this thing tastes like.

[B]

I cannot imagine.

[A]

I cannot wait to read reviews because I've taken a bicarb gel from ministry before and even to me that was 5 grams.

[B]

I like all taste of sodium bicarb.

[A]

Yes. And it was in a very small thing and I could see. I like salt in my sweet. Like I put salt in my hot chocolate. I put salt in everything.

[B]

I mean, you're a salty boy.

[A]

I'm a salty boy. But it was a little overwhelming to me. What does it taste like in a bar? This might be the most sodium tasting thing you've ever had.

[B]

I want to know.

[A]

I want to know.

[B]

I want to try it.

[A]

So race day. Send some to us. We'll split. But if anyone's trying to it, let us know because this is cool and if it works, could be really fun.

[B]

Do you think it's going to work?

[A]

I don't want to say that because I'm hopeful. I want the company to be same.

[B]

I want the company to be successful too. But that sounds like a lot of sodium.

[A]

Sounds like a lot of sodium and.

[B]

A lot of bicarb.

[A]

And then final piece of news here was such a inspirational one and tracing the best ever to do it in ultra running male or female won Western states 14 times.

[B]

I believe former Leadville course record holder just got broken this year.

[A]

Just got broken with which obviously was operating at such a disadvantage on tech and fueling and all of that that that record might be the best ever run. Um, she just did a hundred miles at age 65 with her walker at across the years in R Viper race Um, I believe she has rheumatoid arthritis. I'm not sure.

[B]

I read that she's been struggling with rheumatoid arthritis.

[A]

Yeah. Secondary. And just incredibly cool to see her out there. Going for it. Saw some funny interviews with her, too. Did you know she was at Quad Dipsy?

[B]

I did not know that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wait, she was there?

[A]

Yeah. What? Yeah, I meant to tell you. You were like, where was she? She was right there at the aid station.

[B]

No way. I just like, she's awesome. I would have loved to go up and say hi.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But it's just amazing she was there.

[A]

Yeah. Dude. Sorry.

[B]

I'm sorry.

[A]

I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything.

[B]

I'm like, the ultimate introvert, but when it comes to and Trace, and I'm like, I'm gonna go up and say hi. I'm gonna ask her her life story. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. And so 100 miles with a walker. I just think it's so cool to keep doing hard things for the sake of doing hard things, even when the. The context of it changes, you know, and we've talked about that a lot. It's like, when we do retire from, like, trying to be, like, compete amongst the very best in the world, which will happen at some point, what does our life look like? And it's like, I hope it looks like this. You know, I mean, just going for it for the sake of going for it.

[B]

Did you see? She had. She was listening to headphones, and they had. They recorded. And it made me think about, like, what we're going to do in, like, 25 years.

[A]

Just stick with whatever tech we use.

[B]

We're going to have, like, the bone conduction headphones that give me, like, a volume alert every two hours.

[A]

Yeah. By. By then, who knows what the tech will look like.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Um. But no. Love it so much. What a cool story.

[B]

Yeah. She's an inspiration.

[A]

Yeah. All right. Do you want to do any questions? I think we just go straight.

[B]

Let's go to one corner. This was fun, dude.

[A]

We have so many good questions, though.

[B]

Next week.

[A]

Well, if you like questions, go to our Patreon bonus episodes because that's all we do there.

[B]

Did you just ask a Running with Kids question? Running for Kids question in there? Maybe I wasn't in there earlier when I was. It's a question about high school and middle school running.

[A]

Okay. Anything to talk about before we get to listener corner.

[B]

John G. John G. I have been lo. The fleece tights. They are just like. I wear them every single run at this point, no matter the temperature. And it's great.

[A]

Someone commented on Patreon that it's the best piece of clothing they've ever had.

[B]

The fleece tights in particular. Yeah, it's like I cannot tell you, like I have not had tights that are this warm that I can also move and feel like, you know, I feel fast in them, which is rare. Sometimes I feel like my, my legs are being like suffocated like tree trunks. And this we had boa constrictor right there.

[A]

I literally just did it.

[B]

Yeah, you could boa constrictor my legs with some tights.

[A]

Wait, you're saying I could?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, like, oh, good. This is a good way to end.

[B]

But I feel like a lot of tights are that situation. Non consensually. I'm like, I don't want this.

[A]

After the whole sandwich thing, I was worried this wouldn't really work out. Yeah. John G makes the best year. I love the Atlas pant. I have a nice John G shipment coming this week too. And I'm giddy. It's the best. Treat yourself there. Go through their, their options. Like the best gear lasts forever. And I think that's the biggest thing of all is when you pay a little bit more for something like John, it then lasts for years. Everything I've had from them I've had for four or five years because long before they sponsored us, that was what we wore for just our daily running clothes. So it's the best stuff.

[B]

I actually wear a long bra now every single run. Even in the winter when I'm just like, you know, have a jacket underneath because I can fit a phone in three gels in the back of it. And so oftentimes I can get like, I can have a handheld and that and I don't need a belt or a pack. And it's great.

[A]

So go to J a n j I.com and now let's go to customer corner here to is. I live in a rural area and the trails I run in are remote. If I see another person on a 20 mile run and it's a busy day this summer, we had a very good huckleberry year. Very good huckleberry.

[B]

Huckleberries. Think about huckleberry. I'm like, oh, country song or something.

[A]

Bushes were dripping with berries. I've always said that the bushes are dripping with berries.

[B]

That's, that's the first sentence in the country song. Are my bushes dripping with berries?

[A]

I walk into the bar and the bushes are dripping with berries on. In early September, I ran into bear tracks. And then the trail got increasing. More, more berry and berry. You can imagine. Spelled both ways. Talking to myself out loud while running gets old, but I needed a noise to alert creatures through the brush of my presence. Fortunately, I had one of the swap podcasts downloaded with no cell service. I played that on speaker until I got to trails with better visibility ahead of me and could return to the sounds of nature. Ha. To the. The bears.

[B]

To the bears. Well, honored. This actually reminds me of running very early mornings in Rancho San Antonio in California, and I was often just thinking about mountain lions as I was out there in the dark by myself. And I would carry my phone with Beyonce playing.

[A]

Ah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And that was my ode to the mountain lions. And so I'm honored that someone's doing this for us. And bears.

[A]

Problem is the mountain lions might be.

[B]

Attracted by that, by Beyonce.

[A]

Just do the single ladies.

[B]

I know they're like, we're here, we're here. Whereas I feel like bears hear us and like, we outta here.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, on a serious note, this is, like, scary in some ways when you're out there in a remote place if you think so much about what's happening. I mean, you know, something terrible happened in Colorado this past week with mountain lion.

[B]

I actually had a moment. I was running up. I was, like, so excited to create this new loop up in Nederland, up in the mountains here in Colorado. And I got, like, three miles into the loop, and this scary dog just came out of the woods with no Colorado, and I hadn't seen anyone in miles. Yeah. And it was. I mean, those moments are actually quite scary and stick with you.

[A]

Yeah. And so to be with you when you're going through that moment that now is funny, but at the moment isn't funny. Like, in some ways, it's. It's a little horrifying. It's really special. So I've also heard our podcast being used for babies. So the highest number of minutes listened was not 21,000. Someone listened like 25 or 30,000. It's like, how was that possible? Just ask them. And what they did is they would play episodes multiple times, times to their kids just to calm them down.

[B]

Oh, my goodness. Well, if you run out of all of us, you can just play the Gilmore Girls. Actually, my sister reminded me of. We'd also watch a lot of seventh Heaven, too. I feel like we have some seventh Heaven vibes.

[A]

Dude, you're really making me of the WB cinematic universe.

[B]

I don't know about that. Don't you want to be of the WB cinematic universe?

[A]

I wasn't really of that.

[B]

You were more an MTV boy.

[A]

I was more of a book boy at that time. And now I.

[B]

Well, no, I was much more a book girl. And then I went WB while you were mtv.

[A]

True.

[B]

Yeah, true.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. What a year.

[B]

It's been a while. I'm excited for this year.

[A]

It's gonna be so fun.

[B]

It's gonna be so fun.

[A]

I can't wait for science. And so the reason we did the breakdown of the 10 episode 10 studies this week is that no studies have really come out yet. But starting this week, everything happens. Everybody's back online. We're gonna get shoe announcements. We're gonna get, you know, new studies. We're gonna get so much fun news all the time.

[B]

We're gonna get your very important shoe announcement. Check Instagram for it. Oh, yes, check. It's coming right after this. We're filming it after this.

[A]

We're going to describe it here real quick.

[B]

Actually, you were starting to film it this morning and Leo is just like silly dada.

[A]

Silly dada?

[B]

What's that doing?

[A]

I'm going to announce my shoe sponsor for 2026. It's going to be crazy.

[B]

It's going to be great. We should. For every video that you make as this, like, you know, comedic influencer, we need Leo in the background just being like silly influencer in the wild. It's like toddler in the wild making fun of you.

[A]

I'm such an influencer. But thank you for being on this journey with Megan.

[B]

Oh, it's so fun.

[A]

We love you all. Hu.