298. Ultra Training Philosophy, What Shorter Distances Can Learn from Ultras, Black Canyon 100k Records, a Weird Brain Study, and Metabolic Flexibility!

Summary

Some Work, All Play, Ep. 298: "Ultra Training Philosophy, What Shorter Distances Can Learn from Ultras, Black Canyon 100k Records, a Weird Brain Study, and Metabolic Flexibility!"

Hosts: David Roche & Megan Roche, M.D.
Date: February 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

David and Megan Roche bring their signature enthusiasm, humor, and science-driven insights to an action-packed episode that digs into the evolution of ultra training, lessons between short and ultra distances, breaking records at Black Canyon 100k, the science of the "ultra brain," and practical fueling strategies. With storytelling, banter, and vulnerability, they discuss athlete development, the magic of fueling, a strange but fascinating brain study, and answer a heartfelt listener question on body image and fueling.

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Main Topics & Key Insights

1. Food Challenges, Ultra Fueling, and Treadmill Antics

[00:04 - 02:59]

• Megan gets ready for a treadmill eating video—sampling "real" foods (spaghetti, chicken noodle soup, subs) at progressively faster speeds.
• They're reflecting on whether real food is feasible for elite ultra racing ("imagine trying to eat a footlong sub at 6 min pace on rocky trails?").
• "Things have totally moved on from real food. If you're not [using gels, modern fueling], you simply cannot physically achieve the things that the body is capable of." – David [01:10]
• Megan is stepping up as the subject since David is recovering from injury.

Notable Quote:

"You have just expanded your horizons and you’re doing all these new things. Megan, serious question—what’s gotten into you?" – David [02:00]

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2. Training Progressions & Uphill Treadmill Theory

[05:45 - 12:04]

• Megan shares her transition post-partum from uphill treadmill sessions (mostly at 8% incline) to faster, less steep sessions (4%). Realizes that aerobic work pays off in surprising speed.
• David credits a lot of improvement to specificity and volume, not just flat speed work.
• The hosts debate where uphill treadmill "crosses over" with flat speed workouts and the mysterious benefits for running economy.

Notable Quote:

"You do your first bout of speed and you’re flying. I mean, you blew what I told you out of the water. I thought you were going way too fast on this session, but it turned out I was wrong." – David [10:19]

Notable Moment:

• The outtake of Megan laughing uncontrollably after her treadmill workout [10:59], which the hosts joke should have started the video.

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3. Injury, Healing, and Athlete Vulnerability

[13:16 - 14:47]

• David discusses his healing process: choosing unconventional methods after strict timelines from medical pros, focusing on anti-inflammatory protocols and supplements.
• Megan highlights every athlete’s healing journey being unique, especially at a pro level.
• Conversation on the mental side of setbacks—featuring honesty about insecurities and resilience.

Notable Quote:

"You go out, you try to live in alignment with your values...if you do, it’s not always going to lead to a Cinderella story on the other end." – David [16:26]

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4. Black Canyon 100k: Race Recap & Training Analysis

[21:09 - 39:00]

• Hans Troyer: Sets a new course record (7:20). Story from rhabdo hospitalization (2024) to comeback. Training is high in volume but not based on monster long runs, rather doubles, quality, hills, and smart vert—plus high-carb fueling.
• Race Strategy: Success for Hans, Tara, and others tied to the willingness to go HARD from the start and a special brain for suffering and racing.
• Women's Field: Massive drops in course record for the second year in a row (Jen Lichter, Ann Flower, Tara Dower). David and Megan analysis—women's ultrarunning is rapidly evolving through infusion of road speed, better fueling, and a willingness to “go for it.”
• Cadence: Megan observes women in the top 10 have notably high cadence, theorized as an asset in technical racing.
• Pacer Debate: Discussion of whether pacers should be allowed in pro fields. David favors less regulation: "Keep ultra running... just let people do their thing." Megan adds nuance, acknowledging the impact of pacers in races that now have closely bunched lead packs.

Notable Quotes:

"When you see him [Hans] run, you’re seeing someone... it’s like a kid is told that recess doesn’t end if they don’t stop playing." – David [22:02]
"[Jen Lichter] averaged 192 cadence the entire race... I think it’s an asset, especially when trails are rocky." – Megan [36:35]

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5. Ultra Training 101 – The Roches’ Core Principles

[41:09 - 59:07]

Rapid Fire 5 Key Points:

1. Speed Wins:

   • "Fastest runner wins." Even in ultras, performance is most predicted by aerobic capacity, lactate threshold, velocity at VO2max, and running economy—same variables as in marathoning or even 10K.
   • "Is it just the fastest runner winning and then we’re saying 'oh, the fastest runner does this weird shit?'... We complicate ultra training theory so, so, so much." – David [46:06]

2. Chronic Aerobic Volume > Massive Mileage:

   • Improving aerobic foundation is key, but massive mileage (as in classic ultra builds) is not a necessity and may be less relevant than for marathoners.
   • "I think mileage matters more for road marathon than it does for 100 mile races." – David [49:57]

3. Downhill Running Builds Durability:

   • Learning to hammer downhill once a week confers major muscular resilience—arguably more effective than endless slow long runs.

4. Multiple Paths to Muscular Endurance:

   • Get it from uphills, cross-training, weightlifting, and not just running mileage. Uphill treadmill and even cycling can power adaptation.

5. Don’t Take Shortcuts:

   • Progression and consistency trump all. High mileage and stacked long runs can yield short-term gains but at risk of burnout or breaking down.
   • "Health is performance and health should come first." – David [57:01]

Additional Principle:

• “What can short distances learn from ultras?” – Fueling, muscular endurance (from downhills & lifting), and flexibility in approach.

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6. Ultra Brain: Central Adaptation & Cool Study Finds

[62:43 - 68:21]

• Mouse Study: Activation of specific brain neurons (SF1 in the hypothalamus) after exercise is linked to improved endurance adaptations. Manipulating these neurons altered endurance outcomes.

• Practical Implications: Central nervous system adaptation might be as important as muscular or peripheral factors. Potential for future interventions in those unable to train physically.

• “By emphasizing the role of the central nervous system...this work suggests that central neural adaptations contribute more significantly to endurance than previously recognized.” – Study quote [64:50]

• Megan’s Hypothesis:

  • Carbohydrate intake may mediate (fuel) brain adaptation and recovery.
  • Mechanism may increase blood glucose post-exercise, supporting adaptation.

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7. Motivation & Reward – The Brain’s Performance Triggers

[70:15 - 74:23]

• Human Study: Monetary reward extended time to failure in cycling by 7 minutes at moderate pace; reduced extreme (all-out) effort on the subsequent test.
• Implication: Rewards (even extrinsic ones) can meaningfully increase endurance effort—but may not matter for already maxed-out, internally-motivated elites (e.g., Tara Dower).
• Coaching Take: Find ways to fashion “reward systems” in day-to-day training (silly Strava titles, personal celebrations) to help push adaptation and motivation.

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8. Listener Q&A: Body Image, Fueling, and GLP-1 Agonists

[82:40 - 89:26]

• Listener writes in: Training 15–20 hours/week, eating “super healthy” but feeling stuck with body image and considering medications like Ozempic.
• Megan’s Response:
  • "You are perfect as you are. Your body is a runner's body."
  • Under-fueling (Reds/Relative Energy Deficiency) can paradoxically cause the body to hold onto weight; more carbs + less restriction may help.
  • GLP-1 agonists not advised for high-training athletes due to appetite and fueling issues; more research needed.
• David’s Response:
  • "You need to change what you think is super healthy...definitely increase the sugar, or what you would refer to as sugar."
• Suggestion: Get bloodwork, work with a dietitian, and prioritize fueling as critical to both health and performance.

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9. Listener Corner & Community Shout-outs

[91:11 - End]

• Touching message from a listener about how Megan's racing and vulnerability has given them a hero to root for—especially as a female runner.
  • "There are so many people out there who are going to go just a little harder on that next workout because you've made us feel a little more badass." [92:28]
• Megan shares plans to race Canyons 100k and reflects on the value of being open with goals: "The thing is, you just start telling your story, and as you’re telling your story, you realize it’s actually not that big of a deal." [94:27]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Values don't really mean anything until they're tested." – David [16:26]
• "Fastest runner wins... I think we complicate ultra training theory so, so, so much." – David [46:10]
• "[Jen Lichter's] cadence in the final miles: Mile 61, 196. Mile 62, 200." – Megan [36:49]
• "Don’t take shortcuts... what I always look for as a coach is who is doing the long term progression over time and sticking with it, feeling good." – David [55:13]
• "Health is performance and health should come first." – David [57:01]
• "Award systems go a long way... so, you know, like a jokey Strava title or, you know, finding ways to celebrate yourself in the context of training." – David [73:10]

Comic Relief:

• Megan and David’s banter about hands-in-pants as “nature’s hand warmers” becomes a running joke [12:04 – 12:55, 94:59]
• Discussion of treadmill “condoms, IUDs,” and eating spaghetti at tempo pace [81:21 onwards], highlighting their signature blend of science and silliness.

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Key Timestamps

• 00:04 – Kitchen table talk: treadmill eating challenge, fueling in ultras
• 05:45 – Uphill treadmill training & postpartum speed returns
• 13:16 – David’s injury and "healing outside the box"
• 21:09 – Black Canyon 100k recap, Hans Troyer, Tara Dower
• 36:35 – Jen Lichter's cadence and women's high-cadence trend
• 41:09 – Ultra 101: foundational principles
• 62:43 – Bizarre brain study: neural adaptation and endurance
• 70:15 – Motivation, rewards, and pushing boundaries
• 82:40 – Listener Q&A: fueling, body image, GLP-1s
• 91:11 – Listener Corner: emotional connection & heroism

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Final Takeaways

• Modern ultra training relies on speed ("fastest runner wins"), quality aerobic volume, and varied muscular endurance—eschewing simply going “long and slow.”
• Fueling and the brain: High-carb approaches and central nervous system adaptation are changing the landscape at the front (and back) of trail and ultra racing.
• Inclusivity, authenticity, and joy: Through laughter, honesty about bodies and setbacks, and staying passionate, Megan & David show that loving the process and being human are just as vital as loving the science.

Memorable Sign-off:

"May all your pre-drips be extra moist. And we love you all. Huzzah, Huzzah." – David [95:29]

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For more training plans, heart rate zones, or deeper dives, visit their Patreon—and watch Megan’s treadmill eating challenge on YouTube for peak inspiration and laughs.

Transcript

[A]

Woohoo. 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 ready to get my spaghetti on on this Tuesday.

[A]

Get your spaghetti on always. But what are you talking about specifically?

[B]

I'm talking about our treadmill video that we have coming up which is going to be me running. We haven't determined what speed yet, but kind of fast. Trying to eat a variety of different real foods, including spaghetti.

[A]

Yeah, well, we're planning it out. We're going to go to Trader Joe's tonight and we're going to get frozen foods and we're gonna cook them all up. So what are you planning to actually try to eat?

[B]

I'm planning a variety of different things. Some of my favorites I think spaghetti and meatballs. Chicken noodle soup.

[A]

Perfect.

[B]

Maybe a cheeseburger.

[A]

I like it.

[B]

I would love actually just like a foot long sub from Subway.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

How great would that be? And then compare that to gels. We have the task of making a video for the feed and we're like, we gotta make it spicy.

[A]

Your solution is to just deep throat a foot long?

[B]

Well, it's always like, you know when someone's like, okay, how do you do real food options in ultra? And you're like, well have you seen Black Canyon? And these athletes running 6 minute face on rocky trails. Imagine trying to do that, eating a foot long snack. My brain can't stop thinking about it. Are you like that too?

[A]

Yeah, I mean I just think things have totally moved on from quote unquote real food. You know, like the reason that we love the feed and all that type of stuff is that if you're not doing that, you simply cannot physically achieve the things that the body is capable of. And we're just seeing that be pushed more and more that ultras are getting rethought and I think short distances, absolute no brainer. But my, my favorite part of this is that we're tasked with doing essentially a corporate video. Right? Like an introduction to being sponsored. That is just something that's required of us. And they're instead getting you doing chicken noodle soup on our treadmill.

[B]

Oh, it's gonna be you. So I've had this video idea for you for a long time. It's like, let's put David on a treadmill at 4 minute pace and see what he can consume. But your foot's hurt. I don't think we should hurt. It's actually healing quite well, but not quite ready for four minute pace. So I gotta step up and do it.

[A]

I'm so excited. You have just expanded your horizons and you're doing all these new things. Megan, serious question. What's gotten into you? You're just willing to put yourself out there and be silly.

[B]

It's just fun. As soon as you run one, you know, one stride and eat a thing of spaghetti, you're like, I got this. This is fun. This is silly. No, I actually, like, genuinely enjoy it. I think it's fun to think. It's like once you start to turn on that creative part of your brain, you're like, what else can we do here?

[A]

I'm really excited to see if you can do it.

[B]

What pace do you think I should go? So my plan was to go sub five minute. So like 4:50, 4:55 pace. I'm however, though, like a little concerned about holding a bowl and spooning stuff into my mouth that I might fly off the back of the treadmill.

[A]

Yeah. You know, Megan, me tearing my plantar and running on it for two months is kind of a sad story. You tearing your hamstring eating spaghetti on a treadmill for a reel at 450 paces might be even dumber. So I say we do under six minute pace and make it a little bit more reasonable.

[B]

5:30 pace. I feel like 5:30 pace would be much more controlled to try to eat. I could actually. It would be interesting too, because at that pace, I could actually probably eat something.

[A]

We're evaluating what things you can do at that pace. Honestly, just to put it out there, I think you can probably dethro the footlong at any pace.

[B]

You think I can?

[A]

At any pace.

[B]

Do you have data on this? You're like, no, I'm like, like, where are these assumptions coming from?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Divided by six from Subway or Quiznos. What kind of sub. This is very important.

[A]

Oh, Quiznos. Always Quiznos. Oh my God, that can get it.

[B]

Or Firehouse.

[A]

Oh, fire. I don't really know that one very well.

[B]

That was a. Are firehouse subs only in the south?

[A]

I'm not sure exactly.

[B]

This is like our first date.

[A]

You have a lot more experience deep throating than I thought.

[B]

Yeah, with a lot of. This is like our first date when we were talking about milkshakes and I was listing off like 40 different milkshake flavors at my favorite place. And you have never had. You'd never had a milkshake at this.

[A]

Point, but I've rectified that. Okay, we have the best episode for you today. We're gonna start talking About Megan unleashing her speed, how she's progressed from the uphill treadmill that we've talked about a lot to a slightly different approach than my healing progress. Very quick thing there. Then the Black Canyon 100k reshaping the whole game. And we're going to parlay that into an ultra 101 discussion where we give you the basics of our approach to training theory with ultras. And then, interestingly, how shorter distances can learn from ultras. Because usually we're saying ultras can learn from shorter distances. It goes both directions. Then a wildly cool study on the brain and exercise adaptation.

[B]

So this was a good one. Yeah, I like this. But yeah, yeah, it's important to add on. Even in the roadmap. I was going down and looking at the mechanisms this morning. I went deep, deep throated that article.

[A]

I avoided the mechanisms on this one. I really didn't want to know how they figured out deep brain stimulation on the mice. Uh, then a study on cycling and monetary incentives where the researchers played a trick on the participants. Really love that one. Tade Pago accidentally publishing his power zones. Or was it accidental? Who knows?

[B]

I was excited about this one. That's an oops. It reminds me of, like, back in the day when people used to upload a photo to Instagram to, like, edit it and then quickly deleted it. But some people would catch it and be like, check this out.

[A]

Yeah. And then a debate about pacers in pro trail races and a Q and A on metabolism, training structure, heart rate zones, and more.

[B]

This one's gonna be good, mostly because we spent this weekend doing a lot of ultra watching on different live feeds for, you know, Tarawera for Black Canyon, trying to find the existence of Barkley somewhere on the Internet. It's like, where are these? We have this great coverage from Black Canyon. And then I'm just like, Google searching Barkley. I'm like, where can I get information on this?

[A]

All you need to know about the Barkley marathons is they've made it impossible and dumb again. It's gotten dumb yet again. And I officially barely care. Yet again.

[B]

Why was it on the same weekend as Black Canyon and Tarawera?

[A]

I think there might be, like, trail construction or something that they're doing later in the year.

[B]

So they moved it up and they've.

[A]

Just made it utterly impossible since Jasmine's finished.

[B]

Just because I feel like since, like, Jasmine's finished. That year was so exciting. There was so much coverage. There was so much hype. And this year, I heard almost Nothing about Barkley.

[A]

I don't think they care.

[B]

That's actually true.

[A]

I think they are genuine in the fact that they just don't give a fuck. Laz. Laz does not care, which I respect a lot. And I could move further in Laz's direction. Okay, very quickly, before Black Canyon, really excited that last week you transitioned your workouts. We've done every single session basically since you gave birth on the uphill treadmill. And in fact, a video is coming out this week of your uphill treadmill workout. Before we get to your. Your speed, how do you feel about the video?

[B]

Oh, Cody did a great job with it. This is the thing is, like, I was hesitant to do YouTube, but I about the idea that Cody is the one behind the camera, behind, you know, crafting the narrative into a video. And I trust him so much. He is performance culture defined. And not only was it so fun to have him there for the workout, to the fact that the next workout I did, I was like, I miss Cody. This feels so much harder. But I actually trust him. Like, I just. I mean, I feel like he's great in terms of, like, how he puts stuff together. And you know what? I think he could fill my races.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I haven't told that to Cody yet. I haven't told that to you. But just being there, it's like I felt so comfortable and it was truly awesome, authentic, which is what I want. And maybe I'll feel differently after YouTube comments come out. But, you know, whether you like it or not, I feel like I'm here to stay.

[A]

So we need to get Megan full documentaries, you think?

[B]

I don't know. I mean, I'm definitely not publishing a DNF video. We'll draw the boundaries there. It's like, Cody, if it's like a reasonable day, I don't want to go through this, like, sad story of me having a rough time in racing. But, like, if it's a story worth telling, like, I would love for Cody to tell it.

[A]

So if you have a David Western States experience, you're not putting it out there.

[B]

I mean, you know, this is the thing is once you start recording, you're like, I'm just here for the whole ride. And I think I would probably get to the point that I would put it out there.

[A]

Honestly, I respect it.

[B]

But to do it though, I would have to, like, in order to get myself in that position to actually film, I just need like an out switch. And you feel like, press this button out.

[A]

So videos coming out on Thursday of this week, you know, in advance of that, do you have any insecurity about it now that you've seen a draft?

[B]

You know, I actually don't.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Cody did a great job.

[A]

I'm so proud of you.

[B]

I just like, all I wanted to do is create something authentic to me and feel good about it. And, like, the workout was fun and it motivated a great workout on the day, which is like, to me, what's most important.

[A]

12 by 5 minutes have a sexy title. But so we transitioned from the 8%, where you've done almost all of your sessions, where you've accumulated 60 minutes of work. And we think uphill treadmill is changing games, something that Hans Troyer has done a ton of in his Black Canyon build before, his course record, and you're really pushing that forward. What you did last week, though, is you moved it down to 4%, which felt like downhill.

[B]

Honestly, after being at 8% for so long.

[A]

Yeah. And this is where training theory for us starts to hit some roadblocks, because we're not exactly sure. All right, now that we're getting these workouts faster, where does the line draw between, like, just normal flat workouts and the uphill workouts and the muscular endurance that you get from the uphill? Like, where do the benefits lie? So Ali Alstrander's done a lot of these 4% workouts and does some at 8%. So how did you feel doing it? Because I was biking next to you and you fucking blew my mind. You were going so fast. And as you were doing it, like, my heart was dropping to my feet because I was like, oh, she's going to die.

[B]

Well, I've had this thing. I've been doing my workouts at 8% and I feel aerobically stronger than I ever have. But I don't think my speed and running economy are quite there yet. And I was fine with that. Postpartum, like, you know, that takes a long time to build and develop. But I actually think I was getting some Stealthy gains at 8 because dropping down to 4% and like low 6 minute pace, which it's around like a minute offset. So, like, if you drop that down to zero percent, that's probably like low five minute pace felt very comfortable.

[A]

It was shocking. And if anything, it was a huge validation of the uphill treadmill training theory. The fact that you haven't done any speed, like zero. Yeah. And for our listeners, this might not even strides. This might be blasphemy.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Megan hasn't been doing hill strides this.

[B]

Is how individual we are with coaching is like some athletes do hill strides, like 90% of athletes like under our training philosophy and some don't.

[A]

Yeah. And the reason is that one, you're got some, you know, substantial talent to work with, so you might not need to do it a lot. But then also, you know, you're dealing with this inflammatory context, not just postpartum, but then the long term autoimmune context where it's like, well, is it worth it to cause that inflammation rather than just stacking up volume and then having these really big sessions. So you haven't done any speed work, you've just done this and then you do your first bout of speed and you're flying. I mean, you blew what I told you out of the water. Like, I, I am always honest with you about workouts and I thought you were going way too fast on this session, but it turned out I did right too.

[B]

Actually I was, but I was just like, fifo, this feels good.

[A]

I was just seeing your hamstring tear in my brain the entire time as I was biking behind you.

[B]

But it is wild. So like, you know, 8% and 4% don't actually. I mean, they are very different when you think about it. But sometimes on paper you're like, how different actually is that? But I could feel like, you know, coming back postpartum, I actually felt my C section incision site after that work. And it goes to show like, you know, dropping 4% and around a minute per mile actually makes quite a big difference.

[A]

Yeah, well, I was fricking pumped. And so everybody check out the video that comes out on Thursday. Megan is a superstar in it and it ends with the best outtake.

[B]

I'm laughing right now.

[A]

That same laugh. It's Megan laughing for 30 seconds straight to finish the video. I feel like we should start the video with it. It's the most joyous thing I've ever seen.

[B]

It is a common. I will say this, when you watch the end, this thing happens in our relationship once a week. And I'm so glad that someone caught.

[A]

On camera, but this was unintentionally making you laugh. I did not mean to. So I was behind the camera asking Megan questions. And it was actually really sweet that you did the interview solo at first and then you came inside and said basically, David, could you come out?

[B]

I was freezing and I was like, I felt like my brain after 12 by 5 and being cold just wasn't quite processing well. And I just wanted you to there to help ask me questions. You're also kind of like my emotional support animal. Sometimes it's easier to be vulnerable while you're around. It's easier to just kind of think of these things. And I feel like we, you know, our living is, like, talking back and forth together that I'm like, come help me.

[A]

So I'm not in the video, really. I'm just kind of in the background asking questions that don't make it in. But at one point, I guess I asked you a question that was really vulnerable and deep. But I did it with my hands deep down my pants, which you do.

[B]

Like, once a week. You'll just be standing. I guess your hands get cold very easily, and so you always just shove them down your pants. But you'll do it at, like, the playground and outside school and, you know, at trailheads. And I'm like, david, what are you doing? You're speechless.

[A]

The school thing kind of threw me for a loop on the jokes.

[B]

Like, that went a little too far. I should have actually started with, like, the trailhead and ended at school.

[A]

Okay, look, we have nature's hand warmers right there. Why aren't we using them in public? I'm not like. I'm not like, there's no motion. They're just stationary.

[B]

Do you ever do it on your backside, or is it only your front side?

[A]

It's a good point. It probably would be very efficient to just, like, you know, you could just reach down and then push up, and.

[B]

In you go around the back.

[A]

While your hand is shaped into a little fist.

[B]

Is it less creepy from the front or the back? Definitely the back, I think.

[A]

I think the back is probably less creepy.

[B]

Yeah, because there's no question you're. Sometimes I'm like, what are your hands.

[A]

Actually, Depending on how much your elbows are bent and how far up your.

[B]

Arms are, you asked me this deep question, and I turn over. Your hands just in your pants. Like, how are my supposed to answer this?

[A]

But I can't wait for the world to see it. Um, and then final thing here is, my healing journey is going really well. I'm only coming back on the treadmill right now because it's a controlled surface, but seems like right now it's going okay. And basically, what motivated me to try something a little different with healing was I was told by one medical practitioner that I couldn't dream of racing, really, until July. And when I heard that, I was like, all right, need to go a different route. And so on Patreon this week, I'm going to publish Just some of the learnings I've had, not that they're going to apply to everybody, but like the types of things you can do to expedite healing processes. Because I think the while the running part of it is who knows if that's going to work. Exactly. I do think the like anti inflammatory, inflammatory approach and some of the supplements I've taken actually have gone a long way to helping accelerate that process.

[B]

Also, every healing journey is so different and I feel like it's hard to predict, especially the pro athlete level where you're like trying everything to get back to being mental, trained to be able to compete. And for you to be at this point is kind of wild, especially people going through their own injury journeys. But also what's unique too is like you know, you're setting that treadmill at 5% as you're coming back in. If you think about it in the context of the plantar, like that's putting your put foot in more plantar flexion as you do that. So theoretically more stress. But it feels better to you.

[A]

It feels better. You might be laying the groundwork for as I rip it this week after the podcast comes out. But yeah, so things are progressing. I'm not sure I'll be able to get to a golden ticket race, which is kind of funny considering what happened at Black Canyon.

[B]

Canyon. Hannah, back up.

[A]

Yeah, yes, we're talking about that in a minute. But Canyon Woodward, who got the golden ticket at javelina, went on to earn another golden ticket or at least be in a golden ticket position at Black Canyon.

[B]

What a great performance.

[A]

What an incredible performance, but also fucking hilarious. It's the universe looking down and just being like, haha. Which I think we all need, right? It really does make me smile when I saw that. One, I knew Canyon was going to be able to do that at Black Canyon. But two, just a reminder not to take yourself seriously.

[B]

Well, two things. One, Canyon got a Patagonia deal after getting the golden ticket and mounted coast at javelina, which is incredible. And I don't know if he would have gotten that deal without the golden ticket. And so one, I think that's like instrumental for him. But two, I also think that the golden ticket changes how you race and maybe if he didn't have that golden ticket within him, he might have gone out more aggressively and blown up. So who knows?

[A]

You're trying to massage my delicate little ego over here.

[B]

I'm like, from a coaching perspective, that's actually a great gift to give to someone heading into and it's he earned it in heading into Black Canyon. I actually think it's quite helpful to have.

[A]

Well, I think he would have crushed it no matter what. And it brings us to a message from a listener which is in the David Hawkins voice shows that our listeners really understand my sense of humor. Here it is. Real talk haters want to know why I gave my golden ticket to someone I knew was actually about to become a better runner than me and would probably earn another one before me Anyway, the answer is I don't know, but give it back, please.

[B]

Please. That's incredible.

[A]

Golden tickets roll down. Why can't they roll back up?

[B]

They really should roll back up. But how are you feeling about it?

[A]

Oh, to be serious, I feel really good. I mean, you know, part of my brain laughs at it, but also it's just, that's the nature of being human. You know, you go out, you try to live in alignment with your values, whatever those are. And if you do, you know, it's not always going to lead to like a Cinderella story on the other end. Like, you know, you watch that and the actual story being, oh, Canyon goes and gets another golden ticket. So this act didn't mean anything in the big scheme of things. And you are injured in the race as you're doing this interview, which is what I was dealing with with the torn plantar and won't be able to race again at that level to do it. Um, that's not the Cinderella ending. Right. Um, but that's life. So, you know, I feel like I put my values on my sleeve and I'm happy about that because you know, values don't really mean anything until they're tested.

[B]

Well, based on your values and your weekly actions, you should really just put that golden ticket down your pants. Oh, we're giving it to canyon and be like, I need one, one really good ride with this thing and take.

[A]

It with some brown streaks.

[B]

Now you can have it the other way and around.

[A]

Oh, no, you gotta fold it up and make it into like origami. Yeah. One of your little subs. 12 inches straight up. All right, let's get on the back end before we do that quick promo for the feed. Huge deals right now. Go to the feed.com swap swap. If you're a first time customer there, you get 40% off. If you're returning $10 off every hundred dollars spent. So everything is 10% off. Even without deals, it's bonkers.

[B]

And we've been going through so many gels. Yeah, it is bonkers. Yeah, I Mean, I've been doing mostly 120 grams of carbs an hour on my, like, hard sessions on my long runs. That adds up quick.

[A]

It's wild. I mean, just seeing Black Canyon, how much carbs have changed the game in such a short time and how. I think that's starting to distribute much more to the women's races now. Whereas the men's race has kind of caught that wave a little bit earlier. Just a little bit. And now we're seeing it with women. But I still think in the women's racing, there's room for more because most women are not fueling at the very, very high levels that you sometimes see on the men's side. It's like even the people that are doing higher carb are not very, very high carb. What's going to happen when those bounds are pushed? I think that there's still more room there. Not for everybody, because, like, at the very top, things are starting to that seem to get bonkers. But I think that women high carb fueling, like, if you're out there listening, give it a try. Try doing what Megan's doing where you're pushing to 1 to 20 on these hard sessions, like these treadmills and things. See what happens.

[B]

I'm also trying to be more flexible with fueling and give my body just different gels. Because, you know, when you look at the structure of some of these races, like Tarawera, it was a long time until the first crude aid station, like around 50k. And if you're carrying all your gels at 120 grams of carbs, an hour, that's a lot. And so I've been trying enervit gels with races coming up, like UTMB races with nac, I gotta learn to like NAC gels. And so, like, it's, you know, I think it's also about being flexible with what you can take in. So you can get the most out of aid stations too.

[A]

Depends which NAC gel it is. Yeah, so I love that. And there's someone at NAC in particular who I deeply love, so I never want to, like, downgrade anything. I did try their caffeine gel and I liked their caffeine gel on the bite. Like, the other day I tried the cool mint knack gel. And I feel like I can say this even though I love someone at the company. The cool mint NAC gel was the grossest thing I've ever put in my mouth.

[B]

You're like, I actually automatically spat it across the room.

[A]

I'VE never spat out anything like that in my life. And it wasn't like, it was just like, oh my God, what happened to this thing? It tasted like I was having menthol, just like straight. So, you know, maybe don't try that one on race day.

[B]

Well, here's the thing. If you tell me it's performance or you tell me something's good, I'm like, I will swallow. I will, I will do it. I'm going to will myself into it.

[A]

Perfect. That's what you said at Quiz Notes too.

[B]

Yeah. If I don't have to carry an extra like 12 gels, it might be worth it.

[A]

Yeah. So go to the feed, check everything out there. But maybe the most important thing right now is that Gnomeo is back in stock, probably just for a short time. And we are hearing bonkers things like as we talked about it and written about it, we've started to get more stories from listeners and we're starting to hear people say that Gnomeo helps them feel better and helps their long term adaptation. So it's less about like, oh, this day I'm going to take it and I'm going to perform so much better. That's bonkers. That's more bicarb. But like how it makes you feel over time. Get it before it sells out because it's probably going to sell out soon. I assume.

[B]

It's a little wild. It's one of those places where the no secrets lifestyle. I'm like, damn, this stuff. It's almost like, it's like, shh.

[A]

It's unfortunate really that, you know, we're about to talk about Black Canyon and every time we do them I'm like, fuck. Whatever advantage we have, we have to find new ones because, you know, it's all starting to become democratized information, which is good, you know, I mean you.

[B]

Democratized everything from like the first week you try it. So it's a little tricky. We talked about Gnomeo pretty early on.

[A]

So go to the feed.com swapswp now let's do a brief talk of the Blackcam 100K parlaying that into the bigger ultra discussion. And we're just going to shoot through like eight points here. First up, Hans Troyer. Course record, seven hours 20 minutes. Absolute beast. Love that guy so much.

[B]

What a good human. It's also so cool just to see him like race this year with swag and confidence. Going for it. Also coming back after experiencing rabdo here at Black Canyon.

[A]

And so like that story might be a perfect place to start with Hans, for those that don't remember. So if you're newer to the podcast, in 2024, after Black Canyon, we didn't know Hans. I had never even heard of Hans, other than just a little whispers. But we saw him at that race, and at mile 20, I turned to Megan. I was like, this guy is going to reset everything. I don't know why you know that you just. When you see him run, you're seeing someone. It's like a kid is told that recess doesn't end if they don't stop playing.

[B]

Actually, in a very similar way to Tara Dauer. Because 2024, we saw Tara come through Bumblebee too, and we were like, whoa.

[A]

And then most of all, table is.

[B]

Happening, what, MF48, exactly where we saw.

[A]

Tara Dauer on the verge of death, basically.

[B]

Just overriding it, essentially. And she's like, death, I see you. And that is not going to happen. As a coach, I was like, like, is she going to finish this race? And I learned firsthand as a coach, that's just how Tara races. It's the first time I saw her race after coaching her for a few months. But we saw Hans and Tara together at 2024 Black Canyon, and it's kind of wild how that brain. Like, I feel like over time with coaching, maybe one of our talents is just talent identification. Being like, these two athletes are going to go on to shape ultra running.

[A]

And talent identification does not mean VO2 max. It means a lot of things.

[B]

That's why ultras are cool.

[A]

And so started coaching Hans that summer after he had rhabdomyolysis. Was in the hospital for a long time. And this is just. It's really fun to see the world seeing what, you know, I think has been obvious for a really long time that Hans isn't just, like, really good. He's one of the greats of all time. And, you know, he's still in his mid-20s. The journey ahead's gonna be bonkers. And what was so fun is he just totally lived his truth out there, pushed from the front all day.

[B]

Did you see his heart rate? I'm sure you did.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

162.

[A]

Average on day is high for him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Um, yeah. How hard you can race these when you have adequate carbs. So he takes Hyper Light Performance fuel. Uh, check that out on the feed. Hyper Light, they're incredible company. Great people. Um, and they're coming out with the gel soon, which I'm very excited about that he was also taking during the race. But when you take high carb, you can push so much harder that Hans is going through 50k of that race. And that 50k would win almost any 50k. But then you have to go further on harder trails. And you combine that with like training theory, where Hans is doing kind of the most souped up swap training possible, where, you know, pretty high volume but not crazy long runs for the most part. You know, double workouts a lot, lots of uphill, treadmill, all that type of thing. It's like, God, what. What's possible?

[B]

Walk me through what you think about in terms of just say no to rhabdo. Because just say no to rhabdo, which is like our coin for doing high vert weekends in the six weeks before racing to prepare the body for those demands. And definitely more relevant when you're coming back from a case of rhabdo. How do you structure vert for him? And like, are you planning, like, how do you plan that?

[A]

We really only think about it one day a week. The rest of the week he can do it if he'd like, but he doesn't do that much. It's more on his Saturday quality long run. We are stacking up vert as much as we can, which, you know, in winter varies a little bit. He's in Georgia, and so sometimes it was icy, but generally his longest long run would be four hours with Hivert. Um, but most of the time it's like two to three hours with vert, where we're slamming the downhills every time. So essentially one time a week, slamming the downhills. And I think that's basically all you need outside of the really big mountain races, in which case you need to reinforce it a lot just so that the nervous system doesn't break down. But you're protected from rhabdo if you can do that pretty consistently. And so for every athlete out there, downhills focused once a week. I think it's a good way to go.

[B]

It was also fun. We kind of did a journal club on his training. I love doing this at the after athletes races is like, let's learn from each other and learn from what you're giving Hans. And he also did a lot of track work too, in com, the vert and hills, a lot of doubles. It was fun to see, you know, how that training theory. And he's does big volume too. Yeah.

[A]

One thing I might publish on Patreon is just like a six or eight week breakdown of, okay, here's what a plan looks like. Maybe not. Hans's specific training Since I don't want to, like, give. I don't want to give his training without, you know.

[B]

And you shouldn't. But it's actually all on Strava.

[A]

Yeah, it's all on Strava, so you can see it. But. And he does everything to a number, basically. He's such a fantastic athlete to coach. But, you know, publishing, like, what would the dream world look like for a peak athlete? Not to say you should ever do this. Like, in fact, don't do this. But it might be interesting because you don't see that that often while an athlete is still in their prime. Or, like, you know, the training theory is kind of maxed out.

[B]

Yeah, I'm excited for that. How do you think he felt in the context of racing? Cause he went out hard. Perhaps maybe a little even too hard. The fact that he sustained that after 50k was pretty bonkers. How did he feel about that and, like, the competitive sense of it?

[A]

Well, I think that brings us to number two of our points here, which is going out hard is key to win. Um, there's really no substitute for it. And I think Hans thrives on that. Right. Like, what separates him is not his TR theory or anything. It's. He has a brain that if you created a perfect athlete in a lab, you would create Hans. Like, his brain is not limiting him whatsoever. It is his ultimate strength. And that's why, way back in the day, like, 18 months ago, I was on the Singletrack podcast, and I said, bet on Hans as my, like, term for the future. And it's not because I could foresee exactly where he'd go with speed. You know, he's got faster even than I would have assumed, as fast as he did. It's because you see him and you're like, oh, this is like the reincarnation of dream athletes of the past. This is Zach Miller 2.0, or athletes in other sports that have this mental game that you could just never picture. I don't know if you can even teach it.

[B]

That's actually what I was just about to ask, because this reminds me so much of Tara. Is this brain that is such an asset to her. It is probably the most important aspect of her performance. It's how she unlocks things within herself. And as a coach, sometimes you're like, where does this come from?

[A]

Yeah, well, I think Tara and Hans are a little different. Let's talk about Tara real quick. Third place crushed it. And, I mean, she can just venture into darker spaces and make them light in a way. That almost shows, like, what do you think that is?

[B]

In a way, that's. It's interesting because when I saw her, she looked like she was hurting at mile 20. But that's just how Tara is. And in some sense, the race going out fast actually played right into Tara's hands because she just goes out hard, and because she hurts, it's all going to hurt, and she's going to get herself to the finish line. And so I think actually for Tara, it's advantageous to go out hard because she can suffer so much and suffer so well. She has a tattoo that says suffer well. I don't know where it comes from with Tara. Like, it's an innate part of her she talked about. Actually, one of the best interviews is Brett Hornig interviewing Tara after the race.

[A]

You have to go watch that.

[B]

Tara is just hilarious and also, like, pretty. Just cracked out from running an ultra. She's got a barf bag right next to her that I'm pretty sure she used 35 seconds after the interview. And she actually has a side note to talk about Chick Fil a in the Denver Airport. I feel like now any ultra runner that goes to Chick Fil a in the Denver Airport, it's gonna be like, Tara. But she talked about, like, you know, having an older brother and playing rugby, and I think she's just cultivated this for a long time.

[A]

Yeah. But I. At the same time, I think there's something genetic that we can't really isolate with the nervous system sometimes that is just special that you then build on over time. And maybe the thing is, maybe we all do have have it, that it's just a question of getting comfortable with it and telling yourself it's okay and accepting yourself.

[B]

Anyway, I think you have it now after being in the bike accident, and I think that's, like, actually an interesting reflection. You actually published a beautiful Instagram that maybe we can read at the end of this. We don't have it up because we weren't planning this, but you had a line about how something like, everything got easier in racing after the bike accident, yet everything in life got harder, which was. It was so beautifully said. But I almost wonder if if, like, that concussion and the brain injury associated with it did something to your brain in ultras that you. I mean. I mean, you're, like, bypassing, like, hurt in systems that I feel like I haven't seen you before, and I know you really well, you know?

[A]

Yeah, that's an interesting concept. So on Patreon last week, I did a Big mental health post. So got very vulnerable there. Much more vulnerable than on Instagram.

[B]

It was beautiful actually. You know, talking about the deep dark places that you've been the last 18 months.

[A]

Mainly because I wanted to promote the business of Sarah Elkins therapist who's starting on their own. Hey, if you're looking for a great therapist, go check out Sarah Elkins.

[B]

Well, I love that you're like, I need to like, you know, I need to give her business. So you're like, I'm going to write this beautiful post. And it's actually like as I was reading, I was like, this is really well done.

[A]

She would hate it. But basically what it does is it traces things back to the When I'm sit by a car in April 2024 and you know, it's interesting, you could probably go back and listen to podcast episodes and hear little glimmers of this. And I know we talked about it that summer tumor where something changed in my brain fundamentally where chemical joy became less common. And I don't know exactly what it is. I mean you hear about this after concussions sometimes, but I was able to understand I should be feeling joy. And I appreciate this. Like, I like this. I love this. And then there were moments of those sparks, but they didn't last very long. And one of the things I reflected on while writing this post is I feel chemical joy again in a way that's so, so fucking amazing.

[B]

Does it come on all at once or has it been something that you've been noticing more the last couple of months?

[A]

Well, it's been gradual over time, but I think after the western states DNF hitting a major low point with depression in that little valley there and then in the process of coming out of that, notice that my brain just feels better and more resilient at handling things than it used to. And so the line that you were mentioning thing was after talking about the subsequent part of that injury in April, I said then Leadville happened. That was unexpected. And it definitely postured over some termites in the termites in the foundation of my mental health to this day I wonder if something changed in my brain after the accident that made everything a bit harder except for ultrarunning which got a lot easier.

[B]

Isn't that beautiful? It makes me think too that like, you know, I think a lot of ultra runners, they come from places of like, like this actually. It's like to be able to see the light or to be able to push the body in. Ultra running comes actually from dark places and like that's not all the time. And I think like, you know, it's important that running is not the primary form of therapy, that there's like other ways to help bring you out of that darkness. But I think sometimes that like knowing that darkness actually can be an advantage, like an advantageous thing.

[A]

Sometimes in ultras other forms of therapy is putting your hands down your pants.

[B]

Actually it's putting a golden ticket down your pants.

[A]

Putting golden tickets down your pants.

[B]

It's the best therapy.

[A]

Watching Instagram reels, that sometimes helps. Um, but yeah, I mean, you know, those athletes are so special. Um, and that brings to point three for women. Jen Lichter and Ann Flower and Tara were all under the previous course record with Jen and Ann just absolutely crushing it. Um, and fascinating from a training perspective because you know, these athletes are the fastest athletes on the start line too, which we'll get to some of our training discussion. But you know, last year the course record by Riley Brady was considered a breakthrough. One of the best performances of the entire year. And then that record goes down so much yet again.

[B]

That was 8, 16. And to see an athlete go sub 8 on this course, sub 8 nuts. And you know, Ann and Jen, gosh, I can't imagine being in Jen's position and hurting so bad and knowing that you have Ann just a little bit over a minute behind you for most of like the back half of the race, like, that's wild.

[A]

So for those that don't know Jen Lichter, you, you know, absolute mountain running champion already has crushed the shorter distances and moved up a little bit longer. And her speed, good 50k time is bonkers. And Leadville course record holder, 50 mile world record holder of Ann Flower. Yeah, yeah. And so I, I wonder why are the women's times dropping so so much? So like Han set the course record for men by, you know, what, like five minutes, four minutes or something and that was monumental. I do not think there's, you know, another like it's the women's record went down by a huge amount last year and then a huge amount this year. Are we going to keep seeing that? Because statistically when you see a record drop by a huge amount two years in a row, that means that there's just going to probably be more room there, right? Or have we did. Do we just see like two freakish performances and it's going to kind of start capping out?

[B]

I think it's going to start cap. I mean those performances were like so insane.

[A]

Tara dropped her time by 15 minutes yet again, look at her progress.

[B]

If you look at Tara's progression, she ran just under 10 hours in 2023 and has continuous dropped that time all the way down to, you know, 8, 11, which is nuts.

[A]

There's the Megan Roach effect there.

[B]

I did predict 8, 10, 30 for her, and she ran 8 11, which is pretty cool.

[A]

That's your biggest talent as a coach.

[B]

She was coming through an 8, 10. I was like, we could do 8, 10. We could do a 10.

[A]

It's like, do the lean.

[B]

Do the lean. We got this. We got this. You know, I think in women's ultra running, it's like road runners. Really fast roadrunners coming in. Obviously, Jen Lecter has been a talent forever, and I think to some extent, it's high carb fueling and the willingness to go for it, and that's just, like, shaping things. But if you look at it, it's like, you know, the women weren't that much slower than the men on this course. And so I think that time will get faster just because that's ultra running right now, but I don't think it's gonna get appreciably faster.

[A]

Yeah, I feel like this year, I mean, I would've probably said this last year, so who knows? Seemed like, all right, this was a huge breakthrough that might end up creating kind of a more of a ceiling than it seems, just based on how much progress there's been. Um, because knowing the athletes training and how they're racing this and how hard they go, I imagine this is kind of the byproduct of both training theory and nutrition kind of coming together at the same time with the fastest athletes doing it. Now, like, I mean, Molly Seidel was in fourth place, Olympic bronze medalist. Got a golden ticket. Incredible story. We'll make that 0.4.

[B]

Actually, at one point, she was in the lead at mile 20, and she looked so good. The hard part about ultras is there's just like a big learning curve. Like, at one point, she bypassed an aid station where she probably should have gotten water, didn't have cooling on her. And it's like once she puts that together for Western states, I am so beyond excited.

[A]

Yeah, it's just so cool to see how this is progressing and that you're having all these worlds combined where the short distance racing and the long distance racing are kind of one of the same. If people are learning that the skills overlap so much and that one side can learn from the other and vice versa, it's like a gate, all bets are off. Like, you know, I, I was wondering this weekend I was texting Jess McLean, McLean during the race. And so Jess McLean lives in Arizona, follows trail running as a great athlete and is also just unbelievably fast. She ran a 31:12, 10k, so like 5 minute pace basically in training as a pure training run. She did a 4 by 1.5 mile workout at Wildly fast paces on Wednesday. Um, it's like what happens if that athlete with this fitness came over and had her fueling ability right now? And I don't know, I actually think there might be that type of potential there. And you know, who knows? Trail running is complicated. As we saw with, you know, Des Linden in the 50k, it wasn't like she came over and dominated right away.

[B]

Well, she also hasn't dominated the last few marathons and so I think it's hard to like really draw conclusions from that. I would love to see Jess on trails and see what happens. My takeaway from the women's race actually, which was interesting, is did you notice the high cadence of almost all of the female athletes finishing like in the title top 10.

[A]

Ish.

[B]

And you compare that to male athletes. So I was actually going back through strawbust. And Jen Lecter averaged 1:92 cadence the entire race.

[A]

Oh my goodness.

[B]

And then picked it up at the end. I actually wonder if she was dealing with like maybe a potential little like hamstring, like you know, micro injury or something at the end.

[A]

It makes sense for cadence to go up as you go because you can get speed from cadence after you lose power.

[B]

But I think that's an asset and I think focusing on that like as your quads start to go as, you know, maybe if it's like a hamstrings that start to go too. Her cadence in the final miles. Mile 61, 96. Mile 61, 198. Mile 62, 200. And I think it's an asset in women's racing. And Ann Flower averaged 1 85. Molly Sidell, 1 88.

[A]

Oh my goodness.

[B]

And I think, I think it's an asset, especially when trails are rocky. It's like, you know, keeping you light on your feet and shuffly. And I don't, we don't quite see that as much in male athletes.

[A]

In fact, male athletes often seem selected on trail running for kind of a loping stride.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah. Like the Jim Wamsley Like 160 cadence.

[A]

Like that. Um, so who knows? Interesting stuff there. I say we move on from these points and get straight to ultra 101. Is there anything else you want to talk about with Black Canyon?

[B]

Yeah, let's talk about the pacer debate real quick.

[A]

Okay, well, we were going to have that later, I thought.

[B]

Let's bring it up.

[A]

Okay, we're bringing it up.

[B]

It's relevant for Black Canyon. What do you think? So there's been a lot of controversy right now about elite athletes having Pacers and whether that should be allowed in the context of vulture running.

[A]

Yeah. So there was. The Pro Trail Runners Association, I think, officially put out a position statement, which I guess is like a union y thing for training.

[B]

It's a little confusing. Yeah. If you look into, like, the context of who's there and. Yes.

[A]

Yeah. And they argued that there shouldn't be pacers for, like, elite races, for pro races. And I don't know. I think that we should just keep ultra running. Just no rules. Just let people do their thing. I think it's. We shouldn't overthink all this stuff. Every conversation about Ultra and Trails right now at the pro web level is like, how can we professionalize this more and more? And I'm like, well, actually, I think the reason that professionals are having so many opportunities is that trail running feels like the type of place that isn't so antiseptic and clean. And it's like, you know, from a. Like, that's the wrong word to use.

[B]

Antiseptic.

[A]

Antiseptic might be good. Not clean.

[B]

Clean is good.

[A]

But the idea being that, like, you know, you come over to Trails and it's like, we don't have 8 million rules. There aren't. No one's looking at your shoes with a measuring tape. Like, no. You know, it's like things are just simpler. So I don't know. I just think there's no need to legislate it. Just let races legislate it.

[B]

I felt the same way. We talked about this on our Patreon pod this week on Friday, and I felt the same way. It's like, trails are fun to me. At the end of the day, it just adds so much to the experience to have a pacer. And for me, like, pacing you at Leadville was one of the best days of my life. And I feel like it just creates, like, relationships that are beautiful and race memories that are beautiful. But then I was watching Black Canyon, and there was a moment where Hans was in the lead and Eli Heming was chasing him, and he had a pacer, Chris Myers, who was right between the two of them, and it just. It was one of Those things of like, I think at a race like Black Canyon where it's so fast and I think right now too, we also have bunching. So like, you know, it used to be that runners were just out in the woods alone and a pacer makes sense, but now there's large groups of runners running together at the ends of races. I think it does get a little tricky.

[A]

Yeah. Suddenly I became a libertarian. When we're talking about.

[B]

I know I saw it a few times on the Black Canyon livestream and I. And it's like to pace also 50k of a 100k race that's substantial. Like if I did this race, I actually had fomo. I really wanted to do this race. Then I saw Jen lecture Strava and I was like, maybe I don't have FOMO anymore. It's one of the most impressive Strava files I've ever seen. But like I could have had you for 50k and that's like a huge advantage.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I, maybe you're right. And maybe the, the rule here should be under 100k or maybe no Pacer softer 50 miles.

[B]

Well, I think, I think actually it should just be a hundred mile races, Chef pacers.

[A]

Okay. Yeah. Well, I guess if I'm already giving ground to this, probably shows that I'm wrong altogether.

[B]

I don't. I mean, I think there's, I think there's great arguments in either direction. The other thing too is, is then you have to differentiate. Like one of the beauties of trail running is that you're not differentiating between a pro field and a regular field. And if you make this rule for pro athletes, then you have to differentiate. And I think that gets tricky.

[A]

Yeah. And I think that it puts against the ethos of the sport altogether. So I don't know, maybe I'm getting my confidence back. Libertarian rules. You know what I think about required gear Bullshit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You tell me to carry a coat. No, man, I'll die in the woods. That's my choice as an American. Okay, you want to do ultra 101 principles?

[B]

Let's do it.

[A]

So we talked about Buck Canyon for a while. So I kind of want to rapid fire this as much as it's feasible to do a huge overview of how do you train for these races. Because in the old days at least there was this idea that, well, ultra running is just time on feet and people just go out for a really long time, often not fueling much at all. Make yourself really, you know, able to fat oxidize, be a Tough motherfucker and also very unhealthy. And, you know, eventually get good, lose.

[B]

All of your Achilles tendons in the process.

[A]

But no, I don't think that's it. And, you know, I think. I hope swap has played a big role in pushing this. But right now at the front of ultras, you're seeing a lot of discussions on this. So if you watch the Black Canyon live feed, you heard so much about, oh, well, this athlete's doing huge crazy volume. And this athlete's not. Not too much discussion of swap doing more reasonable stuff, but that's okay. And it's an. It brings up interesting discussions about what are we actually seeing from a scientific perspective and what are we seeing that is still a little bit of superstition. I think there's a lot of debate there. And so. So let's lay out some of our thoughts where it stands now with the idea that we're still really open to change. And we have been changing as high carb has started to fully shift training theory.

[B]

High carb has shifted training theory in so many different ways. And I think that gets the idea too, that high carb, I think, enables us to run faster from the start. And thus you have to be fast to compete at the top end of these sports.

[A]

Yeah. And I mean to just make it personal about how this feels in practice. Practice is when I started coaching these events, I thought I was just going to be coaching short distance TR owners. And then, you know, some ultra runners came on board and then some really good altruiners came on board. And then all of a sudden people were winning races and all it was was trying to apply the short distance principles to long distances. And since then I've learned, oh, well, there's some lessons from the long distances that can apply to short distances. So I think it's made me a better coach. And, you know, from a personal perspective, I couldn't really race super long distances for the longest time until I kind of figured out how to put it all together with high carb and until.

[B]

You'Re hit by a super long Subaru. But, yeah, that helped you a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Blue Subaru.

[A]

Do we. Do we owe that woman? What's nice is there wasn't insurance payout.

[B]

So that was good. That was good.

[A]

I'm not saying. I'm not saying it's the best financial plan. I'm just saying we have had a financial company reach out and offering to sponsor the podcast.

[B]

We did turn them down. Didn't fit with our Brand.

[A]

Yeah, Ashley, that's a good, good sidebar here. So we had a really good offer, and it's a cool company. It's actually the type of financial instrument that, like, I'd be into. But it's saying financial instrument alone gives me the ick about myself in the pod. And it's like, would that lose more, like, brand equity?

[B]

And people trusting us the way that we do ads is, like, talking about it so authentically. And neither of us are going to.

[A]

Be like, see, we could have done it right there.

[B]

We're going to put these financial instruments down our pants.

[A]

No, it's perfect. It's perfect. You get hit by a car, you got a little bit of insurance money. What are you going to do with that insurance money? And the answer is this company that we're not going to be partnering with. But to be real. To be real. What I said to them. So they gave a very generous offer that would be very, like, well, actually.

[B]

You didn't ask for enough. I was like, if we're going to partner with a financial instrument, you need to ask for a move.

[A]

Megan, I asked for so much. If any listener to this podcast.

[B]

No, you did not.

[A]

If any listener to the podcast heard what we were being offered per episode, they'd be like, oh, my God, you have to do that. So it shows how much we value you. But in my final message to them.

[B]

And they listen to the podcast, did you feel bad?

[A]

Oh, I felt so bad because it went back and forth for a while.

[B]

And they gave also, we love them. It's just not our area of expertise.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And they give such a generous offer and they listen, and so we love you, and we're just trying to be honest about this, too. And my final message to them, though, was, look, we've talked about it, and the only way this would make sense. And I kind of feel bad about this message.

[B]

Oh, God, I don't think I've seen this email.

[A]

Is if we asked for an amount of money, money that would not give you return on your. So I'm just, like, giving them an option to say, hey, we'll give you so much money that you can afford to lose everybody.

[B]

That's incredible.

[A]

More.

[B]

It's like, you know, sometimes you leave me off email communication, and I'm like, I wonder what David's saying over there.

[A]

Okay. In conclusion, sometimes getting hit by a car is a little, little bit. Maybe it gives you good ultra performances and a little bit of money. Okay, so first thing on the ultra 101 principles and I think this is really relevant based on the conversations that were happening on the live stream, is that speed is the most important variable. And I was thinking that if I wanted to be controversial, which I don't, I would write an Instagram post that would be titled Fastest runner wins. And I think that we complicate ultra training theory. So, so, so, so much much. And what you end up seeing is that is it just the fastest runner winning and then we're saying, oh well, the fastest runner does this weird shit. Whatever the weird shit is. Including swap weird shit like uphill treadmill and.

[B]

And broccoli sprouts.

[A]

Yeah. Or whatever. And baking soda, you know, and getting hit by cars. All that good shit. And hands.

[B]

Hands wrapped around.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. What is it like where the sun don't shine or around the corner? And I think most of the time that's what we end up seeing.

[B]

Well, would fastest runner wins be that controversial? You'd have to set a distance on it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well what distance would you put on it?

[A]

Well, Black Canyon is a great example. Yeah, it's 100k and yes there are rocks on there, but it is rewarding running economy. You know, you have to run very fast at a high percent of your VO2 max and thus your ceiling is going to matter a lot. And you know, then you read the aftermath like analysis of all this stuff and we just complicate it so much and it doesn't really make sense. If you understand training theory generally it's like yes, that matters. But we are not at such a pointy edge of ultra performance yet where it is anything but. Fastest runner wins. And there are variables there. Right. Like really good coaching. And you know, Jen Lichter coached by John Fitzgerald I believe. Incredible. Coach also coached.

[B]

He's awesome.

[A]

Will Mary who. Will Murray who kicked my ass, you know and I'd love to that you know, Hans has a T Rex in his Strava profile. So that's sweet for me but like Hans would be great without me, you know, I, I think um, and to, to make this scientific, there was a 2021 review that was looking at the physiological indicators of troning performance where they took all of the studies on the subject to that point and there haven't been any good follow ups to my awareness which involves seven studies total. And it found the top four predictors of performance. So in, in other words, they tested ST athletes before their range races and then had them race and then saw what happened. This included ultras and short distance races. Number one, maximal aerobic capacity. Number two, lactate threshold. Number three, velocity at maximal aerobic capacity, number four, running economy. I might have read those a little wrong but basically you get the idea. All of those variables wouldn't differ much from a 10k or a marathon. So when you actually make this scientific, you're essentially looking at how much room do you have under the speed curve curve because the more room you have, the faster you'll be able to go.

[B]

A lot of those studies too, when you look at where they were done, were also done in big mountain ultras. And I think that also varies a little bit because obviously you know, training style actually I think fastest runner wins applies to UTMB just like it applies to Black Canyon.

[A]

And that's the wild part.

[B]

The correlations might be a little bit weaker.

[A]

They're so much weaker.

[B]

And a lot of the studies are coming from big mountain races like that.

[A]

And the review study found that, that as you go up in distance it becomes less predictable. But, but at the UTMB study, velocity at VO2 max at maximum Boccacci was the only variable that had any correlation. So 5k performance essentially is the only thing that seems to matter when everything gets so weird and messy that you can't predict anything else. And I mean that stands to reason. I mean you look at UTMB and the conclusion from a lot of training theory of that was weighted uphills, weighted vests. And it's like, I agree, I like weighted vests. That's seems cool, not a huge part of our training theory. But then you look at the athletes, um, you know, Tom Evans and Ruth Croft, also the fastest athletes on the start line and I think that it makes it so that the speed can fully shine. But you know, are we just seeing the fastest athlete and then extrapolating that? I think usually we are.

[B]

And how are you structuring? So okay, if we were taking the fastest athlete, I think that's something that you continuously work on over time. That's just not like a focus as you're heading into recess. And not just a focus like you know, outside of off season, that's a continuous year round focus.

[A]

Even a bigger day difference for athletes at the back of the pack. Like there's so much more room to improve the top end and if you improve the top end you're going to improve your zone 2 and everything else is going to come up with it. It is not bottom up, it is top down with long term aerobic development at the forefront. And that brings us to number two, long term, long term aerobic volume is important, but massive mileage is not necessarily quite as important. And here's my controversial hot take that you can disagree with. I think mileage matters more for road marathon then it matters for 100 mile races.

[B]

Oh, I a thousand percent agree. Boom, boom. That's easy.

[A]

Same page.

[B]

I co signed that hot take. No, I 100% agree. How would you define though? So I do think carbs are changing the game and that especially for female athletes, I give much larger mileage depending on who it is than I ever used to and I feel comfortable doing that. What do you define as massive mileage and how do you. Because we see tons of studies about building easy aerobic volume is often the pathway to know making gains. Where do you find that distinction?

[A]

I mean you know it when you see it.

[B]

Yes, that's. No, it's actually a lot of coaching.

[A]

Yeah, the Supreme Court definition of pornography.

[B]

My definition of Strava pornography. Yeah.

[A]

When you get up to like, you know, you're talking 150 miles or something, which you sometimes see the old school approach to ultras. Yes, that can be fine because it's one way to build up aerobic volume. But what does it do to your speed? As long as you can maintain speed doing that great. But what ends up happening often is that speed builds for these athletes. They're very talented that we're drawing these conclusions from. So speed builds and then they enter a training approach of incredibly high volume. So they still have the speed in their system and then they do the volume get away from the speed and then.

[B]

And actually that works great in the beginning when you have great for a year or two, when you stack speed and then you build high volume. It's like that athlete can really excel for a year or two. But then what happens long, long term?

[A]

Yeah. And so it can work, but they often requires very very fast athletes who are constantly reinforcing it or are freaks. And it's the hard part is you get lessons from freaks. And so the controversial maybe sub statement here is great marathoners who can run downhills will be great ultra runners. And I feel very confident about that after what we've seen. And so the study on this is predictors of long distance performance, which was one of my all time favorites from 2019, took 85 elite runners runners. And it found that the most predictive variables of long term performance were their volume of easy runs, their high intensity speed work and their tempo runs. Um, and so volume of aerobic vault work matters, but it's a chronic stimulus more Than anything. And you know, our sub theory there is that cross training can accumulate volume. And, you know, you don't necessarily need like huge long runs to make this happen.

[B]

I love that point about downhills as the gateway to fatigue resistance. I think that can actually be point number three by itself is just like, like how important that is. And it's a big opportunity also in training, too, to focus on efficient downhills and doing so to, like, accumulate those eccentric muscle contractions too.

[A]

Yeah, there's some great studies, one in particular that theorized muscular resilience. They called it is the pathway to durability. Right. And where does muscular resilience come from? Maybe strength work, maybe mileage. But the main place that it differs from other parts of training theory is, is downhills cause eccentric contractions, which in studies cause very rapid strength increases. And if you do these long races, you're basically stressing the same system as a steep downhill. And so, you know, doing normal marathon style training with steep, fast downhills gets you most of the way there.

[B]

I often see that the first time I do steep, fast downhills within a training cycle, the next week or even, you know, two weeks later. I often feel that, like, increased amount of pop in my stride. I've actually felt it too, with the introduction of deadlifts. I had a deadlift. Your chagrin. You were so mad at me, and I was like, I'm gonna do my deadlifts.

[A]

But then I see how much you.

[B]

Lift, Megan, and I'm like, okay, I'm lifting really light.

[A]

There's a video of you on your YouTube.

[B]

It's like the babies lift ever David Goggins. Real talk female David Goggins over here.

[A]

I mean, maybe the hex bar that you're lifting with is like actually 300 pounds. That would explain it.

[B]

That's how. That's how you gotta believe. But then this week, you're like, mega. Megan, your butt looks real good.

[A]

Your butt.

[B]

I gotta objectify you and your deadlifts.

[A]

I mean, your butt always looks great, but there does seem. You're on the uphill treadmill and you're.

[B]

Like, megan, this is objective. This is not sexual.

[A]

No. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I was like, this is like, thank you. Maybe this is coaching.

[A]

That's even worse. Yeah, I mean, it looked like you were on that treadmill and it just looked so, so, like strong from your glutes, you know, and just.

[B]

That's not what you told me.

[A]

I know. I'm like, how do I make myself better?

[B]

I just dug you a hole that you have to get out of it.

[A]

Just.

[B]

No, you just.

[A]

Two Christmas hams going uphill. That's all I saw.

[B]

I actually appreciated it so much, and it gave me a lot of strength and power in that workout. Okay, I give you a little booty shake too.

[A]

Yeah. And, you know, I think that that goes a long way. And so then number four is muscular endurance can come through multiple mechanisms. So those examples include uphill treadmill, cross training. That's our big one. Weightlifting, as Megan said, and then weight vest and things like that. Um, but muscular endurance is not a one pronged thing. You need it for ultras. Um, but you can get it through a lot of different mechanisms.

[B]

And I think as we talk about all those different things, that's a lot. And I think the temptation sometimes as athletes get into ultras is to, like, do so much at once. And I think the tricky thing is sometimes in the short term that can be rewarded. And then what happens in the long run, and that actually, I think is point number five is don't take shortcuts.

[A]

You teed up point number five so well. So well, we had to do an edit earlier because Megan was just moving on. And I'm like, no, we need 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

[B]

Give me numbers. Yeah.

[A]

The lawyer in me is like, we need to have these headings.

[B]

I don't even know what number we're.

[A]

On in our brief. And yeah, don't take shortcuts is such a complicated point to make because the nature of availability bias in this sport means that no one really pays attention to the long term trajectories. Right. Like, it's just not relevant. And so you get outliers that can do numbers of different things. And you see people have these, like, long careers. But what I always look for as a coach is who is doing the long term progression over time and, you know, sticking with it, feeling good. Because if you've been around this long enough, you see so many stars come and go and so many people just fade out so fast. And if you track their trajectory, you can usually actually determine why. If you can see all of the training. Um, and so that's a complicated point to make because we're not just saying like, oh, this means that high volume is bad. High volume can be great. What becomes bad.

[B]

And in fact, we coach athletes at high volume.

[A]

Hans is doing 1:15, 1:20 miles a week. He's not like low volume. But I think if we're breaking down athletes all the time in training, it can become a problem. Um, and so you Know, you basically, if you train a runner like a cyclist, like in cyclists cycling, you can do a ton of volume because it's not much breakdown and that's great, you can do it forever.

[B]

Um, also cyclists, you know, when you think about the rate of reds in eating disorders, that sport is tricky. Yeah.

[A]

And you take bone density scans and maybe that statement on cyclists would be totally wrong. Um, but with runners you see all these ideas of, you know, training theory. Like we had a someone reach out, I might have put a message later about doing a six hour run on Saturdays and a four hour run on Sundays and they felt terrible. Um, and then they switched to just like a more reasonable approach and now they're like beating all their PRs in long races and it's like, well, yeah, because you know, the long term health focus, like essentially health is performance and health should come first.

[B]

And I think to me the trickiest part about health is performance is I think consistent. Very, very long, long runs toe the biggest line with health. And that's. That I think is a tricky point.

[A]

But we have to be open that we might be wrong there.

[B]

Oh, and I think big long runs do matter. Like you think about, you know, 120 grams of carbs an hour. You have to test that over long distances, put that all together. Like, you know, ultras are about logistics just as much as they are about fitness and speed. And it's helpful to have a place to test that. And I think that's where training races, like I have, you know, athletes. For me, my athletes at Black Canyon all had big training races in their systems.

[A]

And long story, if you take nothing else away from this, fastest runner wins. Like fastest runner wins. Who can run downhills and has is strong.

[B]

I can run on rocks. Yeah.

[A]

But I mean I think that that imply that's implied in the downhills because like, you know, I'm, I. It is frustrating sometimes to see trading theory become a volume accumulation contest when that is how it used to work in the old days. That isn't how it works now. Um, you know, we see what athletes do when they're fast and you know, when they're their strongest self, most powerful selves. And that goes for every athlete out there. Um, and that can lead to such incredible places and make this sport really sustainable where you don't need to be hit by cars. And so yeah, I mean, I think just keep building your power. Powerful athletes are the best athletes, which.

[B]

To me is sometimes exciting. I think sometimes when I see, you know, 140 mile training weeks my brain is just like.

[A]

It's like, yeah, do you need to do that to compete?

[B]

Do you need to do that? Like, it makes me sad to some extent because it's like, you know, where do you have to put your body through? And I mean, if you sustain that over time, that's putting your body legitimately through a fire hose. Maybe not for all athletes, but for. For most athletes. And I think, you know, that's tricky.

[A]

I like putting your body through a fire hose. Yeah, just like getting real small. Getting real small. Getting up in there. Oh, my goodness. I think you go pretty far. If you could fit through a fire hose, there'd be a lot of pressure there.

[B]

Yeah, go pretty far. Really launch yourself. Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Maybe last thing here is what can shorter distances learn from ultras? Because, you know, we always say, essentially this argument is saying ultra should learn from shorter distances and not get too cute around the edges, that shorter distances plus muscular endurance goes a long way. Um, I think there's three points here. We can just list these off. Fueling is the most obvious. Ultra fueling is going down to shorter distance training. And it's why athletes are able to adapt so fast. High carb fueling on key sessions makes your body just like, go through the.

[B]

Hose product at them. I think point two for me is just, you know, we focus a lot on downhills here and I. Downhills, even outside of steep races, like, even for flat races. Flat road marathoners have benefit in preparing their legs for mile 24 of the race through downhills.

[A]

Yeah, it's just a shortcut to strength that your body gets stronger from eccentric contraction. So you don't need much. But if you're a pure speed runner, like even a 5k track runner, getting your Sunday run over some steep hills will go a long way to adaptation. And then final one, muscular endurance matters, even for very short distances events like lifting is the main way. We've always seen that for those athletes. But cross training is the where place. We're huge fans. And then uphill treadmill too. Like, a lot of athletes are like, oh, was this just an ultra thing? It's like, no. This does weird things for speed, as Megan saw, too. So those three points are coming down. Long story short, that was mostly just fueling carbs.

[B]

I had the reflection too, about just how much cross training matters as a muscular endurance tool when I forgot my heart rate monitor on the bike. But because to me, it like, all of a sudden the bike got so grindy without the context of being in a lower heart Rate. And I think it's because, like, you know, for me I can push decent watts in like low zone 2, but it felt so grindy without the low zone 2 context. I see what you mean, but this is muscular endurance.

[A]

It feels so much harder than it actually is. You have the heart rate to give you that information that it's not hard.

[B]

Yeah. I look at my heart rate, I'm like, okay, I'm 140. This isn't bad. And then I just feel like I'm like grinding.

[A]

Yeah, no, a thousand percent agree. Cycling is, is, I think the next frontier here. Okay, so let's get on to some cool studies before we do that. Quick plug for patreon. Go to patreon.com slopswap if you want to see training plans about how all this fits together. We have like the super advanced options all the way down to people doing, you know, five or ten miles a week. Um, so people are loving the training plans. Here's a message. These are incredible. The plans, I mean, they are utterly invaluable. I had to change plans and pull out of my lap ultra and shift sites to a half marathon. The way the plans are structured, it makes it so easy to jump from the middle of one to the middle ish of another.

[B]

That's actually a great concept is the training theory is very similar across them all. Even from like the beginner plans, you can see the like routes of training theory crossing across all of them and it's, it's pretty easy to jump across them.

[A]

Next one I'm going to do is going to be like a beginner's 50k plan. Don't have anything like that. And most of the things are kind of more like intermediate, advanced and so going to do more beginner plans ahead. And then finally at the $10 a month here, we'll do heart rate zones. Had to make that a little bit more clear and as always, can't afford it for any reason. Just let us know and we'll make sure you get it.

[B]

The heart rate zones are clutch actually, especially because when you look at modality like you when you look at Garmin and Strava for calculating heart rate zones be like, oh, I don't know.

[A]

We've had a, we've had some pushback from some athletes recently and then they went along with it and they realized, oh my God, this is actually right.

[B]

So kind of excited.

[A]

So. Patreon.com swap s do a P. Now we're going to talk about two cool studies studies and may not get to many questions today, but hey, if you like those on Patreon, we have episodes that are just questions and they get a little freaky.

[B]

Our episode this week was fun. It was a Valentine's Day special.

[A]

Oh yeah, that was a weird one.

[B]

Yeah, we were live tracking Taraware. Actually we were trying to live track Tarawera. Yeah, as we were recording.

[A]

Okay, so first study here is a mouse study called exercise induced activation of ventromedial Hypothalamic stereogenic factor 1 neurons mediates improved improvements in endurance.

[B]

High five on that title.

[A]

I don't think I did very good, but I tried. Effort is the key to success.

[B]

And what they found was that these neurons in the ventromedial hypothalamic area of the brain, and they're called the SF1 neurons, they're activated following exercise and they wanted to look at these and see how they were activating in mice. And what they found was that repeated training actually resulted in increased post exercise activation of these neurons. And we'll get to why this is relevant in a second.

[A]

And that's because I think, let me correct me if I'm wrong, that inhibiting that, that neural activity blocked the adaptations and stimulating it enhanced the effects of exercise. So you're looking at a dose response relationship essentially between this neuron activity after exercise and how athletes adapted and or athletes mouth.

[B]

These are the Olympic athletes fastest mouth wins. The Norwegian mice have VO2 max of 102.

[A]

They won't stop talking about it. Yeah, the Norwegian mice are just so excited to be Norwegian.

[B]

They're just so excited to be on that hamster wheel.

[A]

The Norwegian mice. Yes, I know they seem kind, but at a certain point when you talk about your nationality that much, it becomes problematic just saying to all the Norwegian mice out there, not the Olympians. So really interesting from a theory perspective as it relates to what we talked about with the brain. Here's a quote from the study. By emphasizing the role of the central nervous system, particularly these neurons, this work suggests that central neural adaptations contribute more significantly to endurance than previously recognized. This line of investigation raises the intriguing possibility of developing exercise mimetics that activate the neurons or their downstream pathways, offering a novel strategy to enhance endurance and metabolic function in populations unable to engage in regular physical activity. I. E. If some someone's paralyzed, I imagine they could get stimulation of these parts of the neurons theoretically based on this mechanism. Ultimately the interplay between central and peripheral mechanisms could lead to more comprehensive approaches to improving physical endurance and overall health.

[B]

I feel like it's just really cool, from my perspective, to start asking these questions because obviously we see athletes like Hans and Tara, we're like, their brains are critical for performance. Like, it is wild. The impact. And I feel like to actually start studying the brain's impact on all things endurance exercise, I'm like, we need more of these studies. Yeah.

[A]

How much of endurance, how much of training, how much of life is just mediocre by involuntary parts of brain function? That's a scary thought to have.

[B]

It's a scary thought. It's also kind of a peaceful thought, too.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, it's like all of the things about yourself, like, for me, I always struggled with public speaking or speaking up or, like, having just a little bit of just like, you know, not loving social situations. And it's like, that's kind of deeply encoded in my brain. And there's part of me that wants to give myself a hug. It's like, I can't control that. There's nothing I can do about that.

[A]

Yeah, my brain has the deeply encoded part that says loser. And it's. And I've worked through it. We're through it. But I get told all the time in Internet comments that it's still really strong.

[B]

So it's not my fault. Guys, I come over here and I'm like, I'm going to give that part of your brain a hug.

[A]

No, no, for sure. I mean, the mental health post, to be serious, was talking about embracing that part, like, you know, and all of that. And I guess another question I have about this is, if we're starting to see these connections, is there any volitional or something you can work on outside of deep brain stimulation? My theory is that there might be. You know, like, as you work through, we talk about Hans, and I said that he's a kid who was told that recess doesn't end if you don't stop playing. What if we all became a little bit more like Hans in our normal life? Would that change how our neurons function? Because tons of other studies show that, you know, neuron pathways, all, you know, are altered by behavior and thoughts and things like that over time. Or getting hit by a car, to be serious. So, you know, is that something that can also be worked on? Who knows?

[B]

Well, my theory is that a lot of that is mediated by carbs. And, you know, we talked about this a lot in the feeling context. It's like, we still don't have information for how carbs are impacting the brain directly. And I think this is playing the biggest Role in ultra performance. And did you actually look at the mechanism? So whenever you're doing these brain studies and you're identifying these neurons, you always want to understand, like, what are the potential pathways and how do these relate? It reminds me much of, like, genetic studies where, you know, you're isolating, you know, genes and you're trying to figure out what does that gene actually do and are we developing mechanisms for why this is important?

[A]

And it's kind of similar to genes. It's knock on knockoff. Like, you know, they deactivated the neural pathway here.

[B]

And their theory is that SF1 neural stimulation actually increases blood glucose. And so if you are having activation of these neuroscientists neurons, you're actually potentially increasing, like, recovery as a result of, like, glucose pathways. And so that's actually very fascinating to me is that, you know, what they're identifying here is actually related to glucose.

[A]

Giving your brain what it needs.

[B]

Exactly. Carbs. It needs carbs.

[A]

It's like an idiocracy reference, giving the plants what they need. Electrolytes. Yeah. I mean, very cool. And when we talk about fatigue resistance, which is the most important term in ultra resistance, the rationale you can see for doing, like, really long, long runs or whatever, though we think there's other mechanisms. We're talking about central fatigue, and that's what this is measuring is central fatigue. You know, central processes, central neuron processes. So, you know, the central nervous system is most likely the origin point of so much of our behavior adaptation change over time. How do you change it? I mean, maybe this. What this actually shows is that there's going to be deep brain stimulation dopamine in the professional cycling.

[B]

That is so scary to think about.

[A]

Maybe there already is.

[B]

I mean, I was gonna say the professional cycling peloton would see this study in mice and be like, sun us up.

[A]

There are products, right, that do some brain stimulation.

[B]

Now, remember there used to be back in the day, someone in California to like our little studio apartment in California. Remember, they sent us that, like, that, like, halo headset. Do you remember that? We never wore it. We were just kind of like, what is this thing?

[A]

Yeah, interesting. Yeah. What do we do with it?

[B]

We left it in our closet, and eventually I think it went to goodwill. Sometimes we get those things, and I'm like, what do we do with this one?

[A]

Yeah. We got offered to get sent something last week. That is crazy. And I said, no.

[B]

What was it?

[A]

It's a breathing tool. I don't want to give too many details, but yeah, I think that's probably as far as I can go because I think they're still in stealth mode, but weird stuff is coming is all I have to say.

[B]

Are you excited for that or scared for that? Like, I see this.

[A]

Excited, excited. Because I think always there's mechanisms to understand that will push our are like the value we get from it beyond whatever tool it is. Right. Like, this isn't cheating like epo. It's like understanding how the brain works or understanding how the respiratory and cardiovascular systems work. And, you know, if you figure that out, you can also develop a lot of theories that go outside of it. Like most of our understanding of training theory for long ultras doesn't come from like, you know, one to one. Okay. This leads to this outcome. It's okay. Like a good example is fatigue resistance. Efforts at the end of long runs where you do like, you know, 5 by 45 second hills or whatever, comes from a study that measured who has the best fatigue resistance and what do you see? And the study on cyclists found that the ability to activate glucose burning at the end of a long fat burning effort is the main thing that corresponded with fatigue resistance. I'm like, well, what if you reverse engineer that? Similarly, what if you reverse engineer this? We get really good endurance mice, apparently.

[B]

Yeah, we already got pretty good endurance mice. Mice can run a long way on those wheels. Yeah.

[A]

Remarkable. Norwegian mice. Norway pride. Okay, next one. The study is called a monetary reward. Prolongs cycling time to task failure without alternating performance, fatigue ability and perceptual responses. This one was weird. And that makes it fun.

[B]

I kind of like it. They took 18 participants, nine women, nine men. I love that split in two sessions. And they had them do in the first session a time to failure test in the heavy intensity training domain, um, which is like LT1 to critical power.

[A]

So moderate, moderate, moderate effort.

[B]

Um, and then they had them do a one minute rest and then they had them do a time to failure test that was harder in the extreme intensity domain they're calling it, which is more along the lines of like above critical power.

[A]

Yeah. So in the first session we're talking a little bit less than an hour. On the second session we're talking about just over a minute. So it's one moderately hard effort to failure. The second one, one hard effort to failure separated by a minute. So they have them do that as a baseline and then on the second test they tricked them. Um, they did the same, same test, but they offered a monetary reward on the first time to failure test. So the one that was in the heavy intensity domain, AKA moderate effort. And what's interesting, kind of gets back to the brain, that significantly increased the time to failure by seven minutes on average from 46 minutes in the first Test to 53 minutes in the second Test.

[B]

That's a lot. Yeah, but it actually, in the subsequent test, in the extreme time to failure, dropped it by 11 seconds. Seconds from 68 seconds down to 57 seconds.

[A]

Yeah. And that makes sense because you just pushed yourself harder the first time. You have less the second thing. And also maybe your volitional effort is lower because you've gotten whatever money you are going to get already and you're like, I'm fucking out.

[B]

Like, I'm done.

[A]

And so. Yeah, I mean, maybe the interesting thing is how do you harness this in normal life?

[B]

Well, my question is, have pro athletes already harnessed this? Like, you would think that, like, Tara Dower is definitely money independent when you think about it. Like, she would probably be maxed out either way if she cared about this study. Yeah. And so you got to think that, like the professional athletes at the top level. Level, it's like this is actually kind of irrelevant for them.

[A]

You think so?

[B]

Maybe it depends on how much money it is.

[A]

You're. You're arguing for an amount of intrinsic motivation that I think is rare.

[B]

That's. I mean, maybe Tara is a rare bird, but like, you know, maybe. I feel like. I feel like a lot of professional athletes might actually have significantly less power improvement than we think.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

[B]

We should test it. Yeah.

[A]

I think athletes, when they're motivated by some sort of, like, you know, extrinsic variable. Yes, we can talk of a game about wanting intrinsic motivation, but extrinsic things go a long way to reaching places that you didn't think were possible. And there are some athletes that don't need it. Right. Like Tara Hans, I think is another.

[B]

I don't know, seven minutes worth, though. That's a lot.

[A]

Okay. To. To be serious about where I'm going with it. It's like, obviously most people are not professional athletes, though this could have prize money relations and things like that. I think where it goes to most people is how do you give yourself reward systems from day to day life as much as possible, because reward systems go a long way and so joke.

[B]

Goes a long way for me.

[A]

What?

[B]

Scratch and sniff Snickers. I love me a good sticker. Yeah. Okay, cool. A sticker chart.

[A]

You'll go for it for a sticker chart.

[B]

Actually, I think in parenting they found that actually sticker charts don't really work, which is interesting. Oh, yeah.

[A]

Oh, bullshit. Yeah.

[B]

All these, like, parenting philosophies that I don't.

[A]

I no longer believe in science. Science is wrong, dumb. We should go back to what it was before the darkness.

[B]

But what kind of extrinsic factors are you thinking of that would be productive?

[A]

So basically, it's making the intrinsic extrinsic. So, you know, like a jokey Shrava title or, you know, finding ways to celebrate yourself in the context of training. And this also gets back to the neurons discussion we talked about before. How can you put yourself in a state afterward, like, after whatever you do, where you're like, fuck yeah, me, and let yourself do that thing? Because I think that will actually enhance adaptations. And my guess is people like Tara and Hans are able to do that on such a routine basis that their physiology fundamentally adapts. So it's not a brain thing, it's a body thing, but it seems like a brain thing. And I think we all can push a little bit towards that. But you have to aggressively hold on to that kind of childlike nature, because if you're not, the logical brain can't harness things like this unless you have someone giving you cash there.

[B]

So you're telling me your absurd Java titles are for performance?

[A]

Of course.

[B]

Yes. Basically, this is reverse engineering my cringe.

[A]

My. In fact, I guess the mental health post kind of did reverse engineer my cringe.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Because I think I have it here. So what started the post on Patreon about my mental health was I did another David Hawkins video last week, and I think I'm going to retire the character.

[B]

What?

[A]

You seemed like you were getting a little tired of it.

[B]

No, I mean, you just asked me again, you asked me to film this right before my run workout and right before I was about to go do a Janji film shoot. So I. I was like, man, I'm in a Meadow for 30 minutes filming this. That's so hard to pull off.

[A]

The first one, I totally get it. But someone said, I feel like this side of David only came out because of what happened to Western states. And we are so thankful. Keep these coming. And very cool of them to say that, but the idea being that, yes, actually, I probably would not have posted anything like this in May of last year. And that gets a little bit to the mental health context and how that informed, like, the Western states part. But it wasn't solely that. And so. So, you know, maybe I am Guilty as charged.

[B]

You should read the thing in all caps about deodorant.

[A]

In conclusion, I use secret deodorant because it makes me smell like spring.

[B]

See, it's so good. You did, like, once a month, you.

[A]

Need to do it. Okay. Once a month.

[B]

Just film at a time. That is, like, in the afternoon for my day.

[A]

For your day. Yeah. I'm trying to look at any other quotes from this that we should, um, read. I mean, maybe the most telling thing is after Leadville this year, I said no to every single podcast other than Ultra Uncovered. Um, so if you never heard that. It's hosted by Corinne Shaloy, who I love and, you know, wanted to be there for her, and she's been there for me, but, you know, it was a transition of, like, the emotional context of all of this that was important for me. And it took, you know, going through a point and getting hit by a car to get there. And I think unfortunate part is it's probably what it takes for most of the U.S. so. Yeah.

[B]

Here's to learning, actually, inside info. You actually said no to Ryan Holiday's podcast, and I was pretty darn sad about that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He's one of my favorite, like, philosophy. Writes a lot about philosophy. He writes a lot of books. He's a runner himself. And I was like, david, if you're going to Austin, you're gonna do this.

[A]

Yeah. When he. When he asks about, like, what's your. What's your favorite, you know, philosophical quote? I. I pull out my book of, like, Cicero or whatever, and it's like, backstage, seat windows up. That's the way I like to. Actually, no, that sounds really uncomfortable.

[B]

Sounds like ludicrous.

[A]

Ludicrous.

[B]

I aspire Car sex sounds terrible.

[A]

I aspire to ludicrous's freakiness.

[B]

Yeah. Sex place is listed, and I feel like car is, like, 10 out of 10.

[A]

Yeah. Car would be pretty low.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The mechanics of that list them top 10.

[B]

Go hotel. Good job. You did so good job. Is that good? Meadow?

[A]

Meadow. No, that sounds horrible. You got pine needles everywhere.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, that happens. Give me two. I just gave you two.

[A]

The Meadow answer is pretty funny. Yeah.

[B]

Mom's house.

[A]

When mom's not there. And when mom doesn't have a cleaning service coming that day. That should probably be the follow up. We love you, Nana.

[B]

Sorry, sorry.

[A]

Okay, okay. Moving on, Moving on. Tade Pagac's power. This is going to get freaky. This is sexual to us. So very briefly on Strava, Tade Pagacha uploaded his ride and it had his Strava power zones listed.

[B]

I wonder if he just messed up something that day and did it. Or do you think he's doing this intentionally?

[A]

Maybe. The zones were very high, but they, they weren't freakish in an insane way. So I'm not sure exactly how they do it on Strava, but his Z2 prediction was 238 to 323 watts. Is that what it was?

[B]

That was what it was, yeah.

[A]

So top end Z2 of 3:23. I would think it was higher. Maybe Strava zone drove off.

[B]

Strava zones actually seem to like overdo zone two a little bit. I think usually zone two, both with running and cycling that I've seen is usually higher than Strava zone.

[A]

Zone. Yeah, yeah. So his power would be higher in zone two. So it predicts my zone two power to go up to 252 watts. So it's based on your functional threshold power. Maybe his functional threshold power is miss based on the ratio that it gives me. That would be saying his functional threshold power is 431 watts, which is very high. But nothing so unbelievably scary that it would mean that he wins as much as he wins because I hear he's even stronger this year. So it was interesting. But I think it was just people getting a window into what is obvious about him. The question is, is his zone 2 actually 3? 360? Not is it 323? Do you think it was intentional or do you think it was unintentional?

[B]

Tad's. He's a swag tastic guy. My bet is that it's intentional. Oh yeah. Would it be funny if he just got a power meter that was wrong too. And he's like, I'm just gonna scare everyone.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I freaking love Tade. I know Tade is like kind of making cycling boring.

[B]

How is he gonna be better this year? Yeah, I mean, is that what people are speculating?

[A]

Yeah, he's doing like he done did a couple cycles segments hard that is are crushing past times in Drona or where all. All the, all the cycling teams are in like Sierra Nevada area. And you know, he. There's a video of him coming by on the UAE Emirates team train, which is a little weird to say, but like flying and destroyed the all time best which he had set before. And so yeah, I mean if he's better, cycling's going to be kind of bonkers. I mean, you know his level at his peak, I guess. Jim. Jim Wamsley can kind of be like that. Ultras are just a little different. So that it's a, it's just, it's.

[B]

It'S just a lower denominator. People that participate. Yeah.

[A]

But also like we talked about, the long distance ultras have so many variables that utmb, you could run it 10 times, you're probably not gonna get the same winner 5 times outta 10. Whereas a 50k, you'll probably get the same winner every time. And Jim would be that winner, um, just like Patty would. And cycling is a little bit more predictable though. Has a lot of variables too.

[B]

Ah, yeah.

[A]

Okay. So let's move on to questions. We can do a couple here. I looked up the kicker run treadmill because we should probably do an ad for that eventually. But it's not on sale yet and it's gonna be soon and I don't know when and I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, so I'm a little flummoxed right now.

[B]

But it will be exciting.

[A]

It will be.

[B]

Also, I had the reflection this week cause you know, I dropped my workout down from 8% to 4%. 4% at those pieces. Like usually when you run on a tremol at those pieces there's like some shake. It's hard to run out. It felt so smooth. I think that's like part of why I was so delighted by that smooth that I think it's part of why the workout actually felt a lot easier than I thought it would.

[A]

Yeah. The Wahoo kicker run treadmill. It's unbelievable until you step foot on it. Like if you think treadmills move or bounce or whatever. I used to think that was just a thing treadmills did. Nope, they don't. It's a bonkers piece of technology and don't know if I'm supposed to say this, but it's going to be on sale soon. Maybe maybe later this week. So there's a link in our show notes. We'll give another plug for it. But I think it's going to be a pretty big sale. So eventually. Check it out.

[B]

Ours is about to have spaghetti all over it after I eat all these different things.

[A]

We need a treadmill condom.

[B]

Yeah. Oh yeah. Just like a mat over it. Yeah.

[A]

Treadmill Iud just like clothes hangers all over the treadmill.

[B]

Do you think I'm going to be able to get the spaghetti meatballs in my mouth?

[A]

I believe in you when you're trying to get things in your mouth.

[B]

Yeah. Twins and a half Past it is. Yeah, I trailed that off because I was like, wow, buddy.

[A]

I mean, that's a low hanging fruit joke.

[B]

Yeah, but then again, you get it.

[A]

Getting low. What would you say to yourself if you knew when you were like 22, what has happened?

[B]

All of these, you know, med school dreams of being in surgery, and now I'm just over here apparently eating low hanging fruit.

[A]

You can always take things out if you want.

[B]

Do you want to take that out? No, I don't. That's the thing is like, I've also gotten so much chiller with that too.

[A]

So you're saying you don't want to take it out?

[B]

Never. It's what the IUD is for.

[A]

Oh, God. Oh, thank God for the iud.

[B]

I know, I know. We have so much spaghetti everywhere.

[A]

Oh, my God. I'm kind of ashamed of myself right now. I don't know why. I think it's the mom's room or the mom's house too.

[B]

No, that one was actually funny. The low hanging one was not. Sorry, sorry.

[A]

I'm shit by a car. Give me a credit. Um, I think we don't need question answer. We've.

[B]

Oh my God, we're so far in. That was really fun.

[A]

Uh, maybe rapid fire a couple just to. Hey, David and Megan, thank you for all you do for the running community. Please know that I'm always rooting for both of you. Great. Um, we appreciate it. I'm a mountain runner that loves spending long days in the mountains. I don't race, but have quite a few fkts by accident. My main goal is again those long days doing technical running in the mountains. I do not have a runner's body. Mine definitely more of a palace athlete. But I struggle with eating enough to fuel what I do and maintaining a body shape that isn't. And I'm not gonna read that, but I'm exercising 15 to 20 hours a week and I eat super healthy. Lots of vegetables and protein and no sugar. And I cannot understand why my weight remains on the higher side. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on a GLP1 for someone like me. So, like Ozempic will go V, things like that. And you can answer this, Megan, because I imagine we have the same answer.

[B]

Yeah, well, one, you're perfect as you are.

[A]

Your body is a runner. Runner's body like you are running. That is a runner's body. Power running is a power sport. You are a fucking beast.

[B]

Also, you're training 15 to 20 hours a week, which is a lot. It's kind of amazing what the body can do in training. And I think honor that. Love that. And if that's tricky, like, potties are hard, like, that's one of the biggest reflections I've had personally and as a coach is like, you know, just existing and body image and everything hard. I think work with a therapist, like, that can be so transformative to people, is working with a therapist to, like, become a little bit. Even a little bit more comfortable goes a long ways.

[A]

And we all internalize so many messages that just fuck us up, right? Like, so when you say this, it's like, I understand a thousand percent. You know, we've talked about my body image stuff in the past. That being said, from a physiological perspective, there are definitely things here. And Megan looked at me like I was stepping on her territory.

[B]

I just held up, like, four points, and I was like, I'm about to go. Don't take it. Uh, I think the first one, too, is that this actually sounds a little bit like a reds risk to me of, you know, churning 15 to 20 hours a week trying to think about body image and body shape and eating a lot of veggies and protein and no sugar. And it's like, you know, the body might actually be feeling this way because it doesn't have enough carbs on board. And actually the interesting thing about reds is that, like, paradoxically actually weaken, gain and can actually happen in reds because it's like the metabolism just gets all wonky, hormones get all wonky, and the body can gain weight. And that can be tricky and just from a diagnostic standpoint, because not everyone thinks about that. And so this kind of strikes me as a classic case of that too.

[A]

Herman Pon came out with a new article just last week.

[B]

He's great.

[A]

That was gonna be in the outline. I think it's a little bit too, like, of what we talk about every week. Um, but what was really interesting is so Herman Potner all talks about metabolic flexibility. And so this athlete really needs to understand this principle that in the framework that they've developed, an athlete who does this type of training 15 to 20 hours a week, I have. That's a lot. I've never trained that much for a single week in my whole, whole life. Um, so it's definitely even 15 hours. I don't. I don't think so. Maybe I've hit 15, but never 15 to 20 consistently or even like two weeks. Um, so athletes that train that much and under fuel will sometimes have lower total burn rate across a day than an entirely sedentary person, let your mind wrap around that, that metabol. I think a lot of people are like, oh, I burn a certain number of calories, thus, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that is not the way it works. It is not an equation like that. In fact, you need to fuel the fire to make sure your body stays in a healthy enough place that you can have like a functioning metabolism, because that metabolism is then connected to how the endocrine system functions, which is very relevant for a female athlete like this, but also relevant for male athletes and the nervous system, as we talked about before. So, long story short, I think the answer is you need to change what you think is super healthy. You know, not necessarily reduce the veggies, but definitely increase the sugar or what you would refer to as sugar. Like this athlete needs to be eating carbs. And a lot of them, like so many carbs, like so many carbs. And you do that and I think a lot of your concerns will change pretty rapidly.

[B]

And I think get blood work done, work with an RD, ideally on blood work. Insulin, IGF1, free T3, hemoglobin, A1, CBC. Those are all like markers that could show, show evidence of low energy availability. And I think look for it. And then I think on the GLP1. So, you know, thinking about these become much more commonplace in society. They're tricky for athletes because, you know, they decrease appetite, they cause a lot of nausea and they delay gastric emptying. And you think about for fueling as an athlete, that can be very tricky when, like, you know, you need to take in high grams of carbs an hour to perform well at the top level.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. I think GLP1s are a complicated discussion. It's why we haven't talked about them here, here, because, you know, you see studies, they're a lot more complicated than just the narrative you're being.

[B]

Oh, and we're still learning pathways, both.

[A]

For good and for worse.

[B]

Yeah, I saw a very interesting study about GLP1s and bone and there's like a lot of interesting things that have yet to be studied. But amongst that host of interesting things yet to be studied, I'm like, what else do they do? We don't know.

[A]

And the reason we're not talking about it. Well, there is a narrative online that they are, are in some circles that they are just bad by like principle. And it's like, no, actually, you know, it seems like there might be really interesting things here, but I've actually seen.

[B]

Them be incredible for addiction. Too, which is fascinating in people that have done, like, so much work to stop drinking or to dial back drinking or smoking, and then they get on a GLP1 and it changes the brain in a way that they no longer crave those substances. And that also makes me want to give, like, you know, if something like a GLP one can translate that quickly from acting on the brain, it's like, you know, you think about the ejection pathways, and it makes me want to give those pathways a hug because it's like, that's hard and that's intrinsic. Yeah.

[A]

And we'll save a full conversation on that for another day because I think the complexity is much different than is often presented online, where you have some people just demonizing them altogether for everyone. Whereas, you know, we don't know. But for this athlete, I would say that that is an absolute non starter until you agreed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Until you start, you know, fueling your body better.

[B]

Well, I think it's a non starter in general as an athlete training 15 to 20 hours a week.

[A]

True. Um, yeah. No, I mean, yeah, I'm. I'm gonna keep it on that athlete.

[B]

I don't.

[A]

I just don't want to. I. I want to make sure that people that are out there that are on GLP1s, which is a lot of our listeners, based on the statistics of it when you read it and people aren't comfortable talking about it, that you are loved and it is, it's not. Don't view it as like a quote unquote shortcut. Like it's a conversation for you to have and a health conversation. And maybe at some point we can do a bigger discussion of. Of what we've seen and heard.

[B]

Oh, yeah. And how to. How to combat some of the fueling issues that could be challenging on GLP ones too, like in ultras. You know, I think that's the biggest areas. Cause, like, athletes do take them and they do have to fuel their bodies. And how do we. How do we, you know, help athletes in that?

[A]

I don't know is my answer.

[B]

That's a hard one.

[A]

But the correct answer is eat a lot of carbs. And we're here for. For you. We got this. Okay. You want to go on to listener corner?

[B]

Yeah, let's do John G. First, though.

[A]

Oh, do it.

[B]

Yes. You're like, Megan, you got this. Go J A N J I dot com.

[A]

Yes. Good job.

[B]

You're like, Megan, you never spell websites. You just spelled the website. I'm not, I'm not our advertising girl.

[A]

Every listener needs to go to John G. Right now because of Megan doing the spelling. Let's encourage her.

[B]

Okay. And check out. I just got. We still have winter. It's been like downright tropical here in Boulder, but we still have winter yet to come. And I just got the thermal runner insulated jacket and I love it.

[A]

Yeah, such a good jacket.

[B]

It's such a great jacket for winter. I also love the fleece tight. The Aurora fleece tight. I wear all the time in winter. It's great.

[A]

Can't go wrong with Jongi. I love the Atlas pant. That's like my go to. I order it one size up from what I normally would.

[B]

Actually, you order all your pants like four size up, Four sizes up.

[A]

I do want my pants to feel loose.

[B]

Yeah. No, you either go four sizes up or you wear my pants.

[A]

True. I like the women's cut. I think it's because my hips. This is my new character. I have the child Baron hips. And they feel good in your pants.

[B]

Do you want to bear our children?

[A]

Do I want to bear the children? No, I do not. In fact, I want to sometimes. No, I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that joke. And in fact, this character is gone forever.

[B]

Yeah, I like that you just randomly broke into character. John G's gonna love Janji, as always, is gonna love that.

[A]

J n g I.com.

[B]

Actually, I did a video shoot for Janji this week with Cody and I was running around the switchback like 18 different times being like, I love John G. Huzzah. And I'm pretty sure half of Boulder heard it.

[A]

That's good advertising in Boulder.

[B]

That's good advertising in Boulder.

[A]

Do it. Okay, so on to Listener Corner. Do you have a preference for which one? I read?

[B]

Did you? No, I didn't.

[A]

I don't remember what either of them said.

[B]

You just the first one.

[A]

Okay. First they start by saying more Megan videos.

[B]

Oh, I'm.

[A]

Your wish is granted. I've been listening to the podcast since you guys started. I knew you were fast, but I started listening for the science and the coaching. Then you came. People I was invested in because I genuinely liked you. Thank you. And then you became professional athletes. I was inspired by and was excited to follow. I've been running since I was a kid. I'm now 42, and I've never had a professional runner. I was invested in these athletes. Never spoke to me as people. But, man, when David started the Road to Western States, I became emotionally invested. The way I know Other people are invested in baseball or football athletes when you DNF'd. I've never hurt so much for someone I didn't even know. But I was also so grateful for the opportunity to care so much about the sport. I've been getting more and more excited as Megan started hinting she was getting back to fitness. And when she blew the doors off of Equal Dipsy, I knew something special was happening. And yes, I love her story as a mom and powerful, brilliant, brilliant woman and someone who's persevered through adversity. But damn, I'm so excited to have a female runner to get excited about and follow and invest in emotionally. I've never had that before. That treadmill video, forget it. I'll be watching it before my next workout. For inspiration, I posted one online of Megan running real fast. So badass. I just appreciate you putting yourself out there. The Internet can really suck. But please know there are so many people out there who are going to just a little harder on that next workout because you've made us feel a little more badass. Thank you.

[B]

Oh, this means, like, actually truly means a lot. Especially coming ahead of Thursday when that video gets released to the world. And that just means a ton.

[A]

So in the video, I should validate this person first. We love you. Thank you. Just so cool. And I feel the same way about Megan every day. You inspire me. And on that note, in the video, you do say what race you're doing this year.

[B]

I do. I was just feeling it.

[A]

So we don't have to say it now. But was that a plan or that just come out?

[B]

That just came out.

[A]

Just came out.

[B]

Um, I'm excited. I'm racing. Can you canyons 100k this year, we, the podcast listeners did a little. A little pre drip, you know, and I said it. A pre drip. Oh, God. Especially in reference to everything that's been said on this podcast. People are like, we don't want that. Actually take that back.

[A]

They're going to be watching videos of this podcast next time they pre drink.

[B]

That was great. But no, I said on the YouTube, that's like, you know, the thing I've had, you know, this long standing now, pericarditis that comes and goes in my heart is. I also just don't know. And I was very honest about that in the video is like, I. I actually have no problem wearing races on my sleeves. Like, the more I've thought about that, it's just that, like, the sleeves are so uncertain and I just, I don't know that sometimes I'm just like, well, if it's so uncertain, it. Sometimes it's easier to just pivot and go with it. But that's also like, the authentic part of being me is that, like, it is uncertain. And I think if I'm going to show up fully, it's like, you also talk about that, too, is I'm excited for races, and, like, based on my history, 50% of time, they don't happen. And that's. That's like, that's okay.

[A]

What does that mean?

[B]

And then sometimes you look at the races and you look at Jen Lecter and you're like, actually, I'm fine with that. I was so sad about it on Wednesday. And then I saw Black Ken in, and I'm like, great job, women. That looked hard.

[A]

So what's made you okay with wearing it on your sleeve so much? Because it is vulnerable. Right. And that it's hard to put yourself out there like that when there is so much uncertainty. Like, how have you made that transition?

[B]

Well, I think as it relates to YouTube and this is like, no, but.

[A]

I mean, more with the race.

[B]

Like, more of the race. I mean, I just. You don't care. At some point, like, the thing is, you just start telling your story. And as you're telling your story, you realize it's actually not that big of a deal. And so it doesn't feel like a big deal. Like, I'm racing canyons. I'm so excited about it. I've the fittest I've ever been. And I also don't know realistically. Like, ideally, I'll do a 50k beforehand and I'll see how my heart responds, and hopefully I'll be on the starting line.

[A]

Okay, well, Megan, right now I just want to say. I just want to. I just want to say that, Megan, I am so proud of you and that you are wearing it on your.

[B]

Sleeve beautifully, as I'm wearing on my sleeve. David is putting his hands in the back.

[A]

My hands. Yes, they are down my pants.

[B]

Are they so warm right now?

[A]

They are around the corner. And yes, they are warm. And I just have to say the real talk. You should all put your hands down your pants to celebrate Meghan wearing things.

[B]

On her sleeve in public.

[A]

In public. And now my hands are in private. Except when I'm outside of schools.

[B]

I forgot about that part. Oh, my God. This had a lot of gems.

[A]

May all your pre drips be extra moist. And we love you all. Huzzah, Huzzah. Oh, no.