300. A Shocking Disgrace at the US Half Marathon Champs and What Needs To Happen Next, Learning From Elite Cycling Training, and Optimism Science!

Summary

Podcast Summary: Some Work, All Play #300

Episode Title: A Shocking Disgrace at the US Half Marathon Champs and What Needs To Happen Next, Learning From Elite Cycling Training, and Optimism Science!
Date: March 2, 2026
Hosts: David Roche and Megan Roche

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1. Episode Overview

This milestone 300th episode tackles the explosive controversy at the recent US Half Marathon Championships, where a disastrous course misdirection robbed top female athletes of podium, prize money, and world team opportunities. David and Megan, blending legal insight, coaching experience, and signature humor, delve into the scandal, its legal and ethical implications, and what must change in USATF governance. The episode also explores new research on elite cycling training volumes, gender differences in tapering, and a playful yet critical look at optimism science. Classic banter, listener questions, and some spicy moments round out this passionate, information-packed episode.

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2. Main Segments & Key Insights

A. The US Half Marathon Champs Controversy

[02:14–41:00]

• The Incident:
  At the USATF Half Marathon Championships in Atlanta, frontrunners Jess McLean, Emma Grace Hurley, and Edna Kurgat were directed off course by the lead vehicle and race officials. All three were forced to run ~0.6 km extra, ruining life-changing results and world team selections. Jess, an athlete David coaches, was set to win with a commanding lead.

• Stakes and Emotional Impact:

  • Winner’s purse: $20,000 plus major sponsor bonuses, a huge financial and career milestone [04:35]
  • Emotional devastation for athletes: “It was one of the best moments of my life… to that next moment… I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of other people that cried like I did.” – David [11:39]

• USATF’s Response:

  • Immediate protest and appeal by athletes were denied.
  • USATF admitted the course was not properly marked per their own rule (243) but claimed their rulebook offers “no recourse” to overturn results [15:00].
  • Statement criticized as tone-deaf, legalistic, and devoid of empathy.

• Legal and Ethical Critique:

  • David (lawyer & coach) asserts their “rulebook is not law—it’s a guideline, and can’t predict every act of gross negligence” [17:02].
  • Admittance of error opens USATF (and Atlanta Track Club) to potential civil liability for lost income, pain and suffering [18:44].
  • Clear consensus from the running community and even the “winners” (like Molly Book) for rectifying results and supporting the wronged athletes [23:51].

• Gender Dynamics & Fairness:

  • Megan points out possible gender bias (“If this were a top male American athlete, it would be rectified 98/100 times”) [25:12].
  • Significance of advocating for women’s rights and visibility in the sport, especially during Women’s History Month [25:41].

• Proposed Solutions & Community Action:

  • Multiple podiums and full financial/prize allocation to all six top finishers; send the rightful three to Worlds [27:40].
  • Call for immediate leadership change at USATF if not resolved: “Do you stand for athletes or do you stand for yourselves?” – David [32:44]
  • Outrage on social media and within athlete circles is near-unanimous for change.

Notable Quote:

“If USATF fails to act on behalf of athletes, the leadership has to change. This isn’t about one situation, it’s about: do our governing bodies represent us and care?” — David [34:06]

Memorable Moment:
Megan and David riff on the absurd legal rigidity: “They treat Rule 243 like the Constitution. Just write a better rulebook!” [16:52]

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B. Elite Cycling Training Insights

[44:29–53:31]

• New study: Analysis of World Tour male and female cyclists’ training 10 weeks before race season.

• Findings:

  • Men: 19 hours/week; Women: 16.7 hours/week (with women doing slightly higher intensity to match training stress) [45:14].
  • Both did 6 sessions/week; most time in easy (“pyramidal”) zones.
  • Volume “not as high as you’d assume.” At the elite level, aerobic “saturation” is reached earlier—key implication for runners and other endurance athletes [49:02].

• Tapering Insights:

  • Men: Small volume decrease pre-race (19→17 hrs); Women: Major decrease (16.7→11.2 hrs)—mirrors how Megan coaches runners with individualized taper strategies, especially for female athletes who respond better to bigger tapers [53:31].

Notable Quote:

“Whenever we hear about pro cyclist training, you hear 25–30 hour weeks… No, you’re looking at the max training. These athletes saturate quickly, then step back.” — David [49:02]

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C. Optimism Science: Does It Make Us Live Longer?

[61:47–75:56]

• Study Review:
  • Epidemiological studies claim optimism is correlated with up to 15% longer life [69:03]; David and Megan poke holes in methodology and confounding factors (e.g., optimism is likely related to health, upbringing, SES, and genetic predisposition) [63:21–69:26].
  • Discussion of the role of optimism in athletic and everyday performance; optimism’s teachability and value despite sketchy causality.

Notable Quote:

“If optimism is just deciding to see a little more good, maybe it’s worth it. At the end of the day, maybe wanting to be optimistic ends up being what you are.” — David [70:56]

Memorable Moment:
Vividly funny tangent as the hosts use ChatGPT to answer the classic anatomy question, “how many holes…?” [64:00–64:46]

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3. Notable Quotes & Moments by Timestamp

• David on USATF’s Rulebook Rigidity ([17:02]):
  “You’re saying your rulebook, which is not a force of law… needs to anticipate every single case of gross negligence from race organizers? That’s such bullshit.”

• Megan on Gender Dynamics ([25:12]):
  “If we ran this simulation a hundred times for men, 98 out of 100 times it would be rectified.”

• Emotional Release ([11:39]):
  “I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of other people that cried like I did… Jess handled it beautifully.”

• On Optimism & Longevity ([70:56]):
  “If that’s influenced just a little bit, maybe you’ll be helped… The compassion to say I’m hopeful for a good tomorrow, and I’m going to assume that I’m doing good now.”

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4. Listener Questions & Lightning Round

[76:24–82:19]

• Trail "Gravel Shoe" Trend:
  Listener suggests a gravel/road-to-trail shoe category could spur real “super shoe” innovation into trail running [76:41]. Megan agrees: “Honestly, best trail shoe on gravel roads is the AlphaFly. Just put a little lug on it and boom.”

• Nighttime Bicarb Loading:
  Discusses (and mostly debunks) the trend of taking bicarbonate at night for performance, calling it “old-school” and not necessary now that better supplements exist [79:10].

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5. Tone & Style

• Bold, passionate, and playful with a mix of legal rigor and heartfelt outrage.
• Frequent asides and inside-jokes (“carrot and stick,” “masturbate to rules,” carrot analogies), classic SWAP energy.
• Transparent about their personal investment—David as Jess’s coach and as a lawyer, both as advocates for equity in sport.
• Constant encouragement for community action: “If USATF doesn’t change, we change the leadership!”

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6. Additional Segments, Sponsors & Listener Corner

[82:24–End]

• Brief plugs for The Feed (Stryker gels), Janji (spring colors!), and Patreon.
• Listener Corner highlights notes of gratitude from college athletes and urges optimism & community support for younger runners navigating toxic systems.

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7. Overall Takeaways & Action Items

• USATF’s credibility and athlete support are on the line; community advocacy matters.
• Athlete health and justice must take precedence over bureaucracy.
• Training insights from elite cycling can apply to running: more is not always better.
• Optimism, while impossible to fully disentangle from external factors, remains a worthwhile mindset in both sport and life.

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Closing Message (via ChatGPT) ([76:13]):
“Remember that tab hanging out on David’s computer? It could be worse.” (A wink to finding joy and lightness amidst (sporting) chaos.)

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This summary was compiled for those who want a comprehensive, timestamped, and engaging guide to episode #300 of Some Work, All Play. The full episode is a deep dive into athletic justice, high-level endurance science, and the enduring spirit of optimism.

Transcript

[A]

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

[B]

Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday, and I'm prophylactically laughing on this Tuesday.

[A]

Prophylactically laughing. I like that. What's that about?

[B]

It's coming from this morning. This morning's dance party. We are in the kitchen singing. We just bopping around, being like, wake me up before you go, go. And you decided to change the lyrics last minute, which I love. What did you sing?

[A]

Wake me up before you shit post, which was excellent. Yeah.

[B]

What a great way to change lyrics. Also topical.

[A]

I had a lot of fun yester. So it started with the very first story we're gonna talk about in the podcast, which is Jess McLean being robbed of a national championship. It's all gonna change because we are gonna lead the way. We'll get to that in a second. But afterward, I had so much fun being mean on the Internet to dumb people.

[B]

You went on a rampage. I was like, bro, usually you tell me these things, you come over and you're like, megan, should I post this?

[A]

I wake you up before I ship those.

[B]

You really do. And I'm like, absolutely the fuck not. And I came downstairs and you're like, look, it was just like a slew of comments to people being like, hot take. Just should have known the course. And you're like, hot, hottest. Take back.

[A]

You're wrong. Hot take. You're a moron.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, you legitimately said that, I think.

[A]

No, I didn't say. I didn't say that. That was someone else that did the moron comment. I didn't make any personal attacks.

[B]

They were close.

[A]

I was making.

[B]

I mean, probably to the person receiving it, it felt awfully personal.

[A]

They were critiques on people's intellect. And it's not their fault that they were dropped so many times when they were babies. I have also dropped our babies and hopefully that's not caused any issues that they are eventually wrong on the Internet like those people are.

[B]

But anyways, when you sang this in the kitchen. Wake me up before you shitpost, which I feel like you should always sing before you shitpost. It's just kind of like a vibes check in the brain if you don't

[A]

have a Megan to tell you not to do it.

[B]

Yeah. You just kind of need to, like, think about that for a second. Leo started hysterically laughing, and I feel like he has no idea what a shit post is. Maybe he does at age three. Hopefully not. But it goes to show that I feel like, David, your body Language indicates when you're gonna make a joke and he's picking up on it.

[A]

We always talk about that in the podcast, how you anticipate when I'm trying to sound like I'm serious and a joke is coming. I think Leo knows it too, which probably means I'm not very good at making jokes.

[B]

No, it means your jokes are so good that we prophylactically laugh. Okay. Like something good is coming and we can't contain it within ourselves.

[A]

Oh, I'm so happy to actually be laughing today because yesterday morning started with some tears, which is going to get to the main topic of the podcast. So let's jump right into it with a roadmap. We're going to start with a disgraceful response by USATF at the US Half Marathon Championships.

[B]

This is raising David's testosterone. Maybe some of the highest I've ever seen it.

[A]

Yeah. And I think this goes beyond our personal relationship with Jess McLean, who is going to win and goes to fundamental problems with running in the US ATF that absolutely need to change.

[B]

Also, kind of what a perfect place for you to comment on. A lot of times we catch things, we're like, we're not experts. But, David, you are literally Jess's coach and you're a lawyer.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is. Your lawyer skills are coming into coaching.

[A]

Right up my alley. So we'll get to that. But then after that, a new gel. We love that. We are both very excited about a cyclist training volume study that has some counterintuitive findings. A weird study on optimism and longevity that might have implications for athletics. Keyword there is might. Um, plus a Q and A on gravel shoes, training races, outdoor dangers, bicarb at night.

[B]

Ooh, for sexy time or race time. We'll see.

[A]

We'll get there. Uh, zone one versus zone two. Training for your easy days. A coaching academy, inflammation and more.

[B]

Did you just add some things to this?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Did you just add questions without me knowing?

[A]

Always.

[B]

I didn't know that.

[A]

I always want to mix it up on Megan.

[B]

Like gravel shoes, training races, outdoor dangers. I don't know about any of these things.

[A]

Yeah, you're so good at preparing that sometimes just like in your head, like, you know, you're methodical, you want to do things right. Sometimes I want to put you on your heels. You're like, the only way I'm going to win.

[B]

Get away from your five point plan. Classic lawyer. You're like, here's the evidence I didn't tell you about.

[A]

Surprise the witness on the stand. Okay, so we're going to start with the big story in running. This was on the New York Times this morning. It's the story that is dominating the news, as it should, which is yesterday at the Atlanta Half Marathon, their US ATF was hosting the US Half Marathon Championships. This race is a big deal not just for, you know, whoever becomes the national champion or finishes on the podium, but also it selects for the U.S. team at the World Championships. And most significantly perhaps is, if you know the status of running contracts, it's $20,000 to the winner, plus massive bonuses from shoe companies, plus PR bonuses, plus rollover bonuses the following year. So we're talking, you know, life changing amounts of money are on the line with this type of race being run appropriately.

[B]

Honestly, when you put it all together, kind of like a down payment on a small house, depends on where you live in the country. Maybe not Silicon Valley, but in places like that's the amount of money we're talking about. This is not like trail running, where you're in it for a cougar. This is like the entire, I think actually Broken Arrow has quite a large purse this year.

[A]

Nowhere close to this.

[B]

This we're talking like if you win, this is like the entire purse.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In terms of when you think about what happens with, you know, just the race, prize money, plus have that on

[A]

top of it and even beyond that, this is just what running's about for these athletes. Their entire life goes around it. And so first we'll describe the unfortunate situation and then the extremely disgraceful response to it. So it's a very hilly course. It has almost a thousand feet of elevation gain. And Jess McLean came in ready to race. So you know coach Jess for a long time now, maybe like the best person I've ever met outside of you, Megan.

[B]

And you knew it. You're like, Jess is crushing right now in training to the point that we talked about this on our Patreon episode on Friday. And I'm like, what are you doing? Get your ass to it, Atlanta. You need to go see her win in person.

[A]

It was obvious she was gonna win. Um, that's how good Jess is right now. She did a workout 10 days before the race. 5 by 3 minute hills, 5 by 45 second hills at 10K, 5K. And followed by a 3 mile threshold. She did the hills very, very fast. She's an incredible hill climber, as we're about to talk about. But then the threshold was a right around five minute pace and it's like, oh, that's automatic win. Like no one is competing with that. And honestly, you're putting yourself in contention for Olympic podiums at that point. If we can keep this momentum going. Uh, so, you know, very excited, but much more important than everyone who's ever met. Jess loves her. You'll see that in the outpouring of support where every pro runner and then just fans of the sport that have met her say, she's our queen. You know, she's been through the wringer. She quit running at one point, quit professional running and came back to it, much like Alicia Liu that we talked about last week. And she came back with this perspective that has lifted up so many other athletes.

[B]

I feel like everyone who knows her, like, she uplifts so many people within the community that there's probably a lot of people like me that's like, no, no, she's my queen. Jess is my queen. But I think there's probably like 60 per runners that would say that just because of, like, you know, how she interacts and makes the world better. But it's just so cool seeing her come into these strains, like seeing the hills on the course. This is a Jess race.

[A]

Oh, but it was so nerve wracking. So we woke up early to watch the live stream. Jess, when I asked to come, was like, they have a live stream. It sounds more convenient.

[B]

We're going to Boston, though.

[A]

Yeah, we are going to Boston.

[B]

Oh, my God, I'm so excited. We're planning the trip and you're like, megan, I'm gonna get us a nice hotel. I'm like, shoot, man.

[A]

The Jess McLean Revenge Tour. And also we're gonna have a hotel room.

[B]

It'll be a date weekend.

[A]

You promise? You promise? Gonna be a date weekend. We're working.

[B]

We're trying to sort out childcare right now. We're like, how can we put this together? But I think we can do it.

[A]

We can strap them to the top of the plate. Two bungee cords. They'll be fine.

[B]

They'll be prophylactically laughing up there. Yeah, exactly. Like our parents are silly.

[A]

So silly. So the race, you know, set off and it became a group of three, which is really significant because three athletes qualify for the World Championship. So it was Jess McLean, Emma Grace Hurley, who's from Atlanta and has trained on the course and was finished second at this race last year, which is going to be significant in a second, and Edna Kurgot. They had clearly showed that they were the class of the field. And in particular, Emma Grace Hurley was pushing it on the downs and running so fast. I've gotten to meet her in the past and I just want her to come to trail running. With how she was running those hills and downhills, it's amazing.

[B]

I was thinking the same thing, like, what would happen if her and Jess and Edna came to trail running? It's like, be scary.

[A]

So scary.

[B]

And they all look strong together in this pack of three. And sometime around mile 10, actually, both Edna and Emma Grace kind of pulled ahead a little bit from Jess, and we weren't sure at that point. We're like, oh, is she feeling it? Is she feeling worked? Or is she just kind of like, holding onto this reserve? And so we were screaming at that tv. She was, come on, Jess.

[A]

Pulling back the bow. Um, that was the race plan is it ended with uphills. And then Jess made her power move and got significant separation. Right away, it was clear that she was going on to win by a large amount. You can see this all on YouTube,

[B]

actually, around mile 11 and a half. And I love what you told Jess heading the race. You're like, jess, I either want you to finish first or sixth in the sense of, like, show, like, show up and go for it and take this chance to learn on a course that, like, suits her really well.

[A]

But the reason I was comfortable saying that is because I knew she was going to finish first. Like, when an athlete reaches that level, it's almost inconceivable as a coach where you're just like, every number. Everything about her personality and her approach was pointing to this moment. And this was going to be the moment that, you know, you have the breakthrough that establishes you not just as one of the best in the world, but, like, Olympic podium contender. And that's when the significant moment happened.

[B]

Well, I got chills watching this. So she's up 20 seconds around mile 11 and a half. And it's like, you know, you can see on her face, actually, that she knew she had this.

[A]

Yeah, it's even a little further along, actually. It's almost mile 12. It's right near the finish.

[B]

And the camera was following her this whole time. And you could just see her face. It was calm, it was composed. But you could see this look of, like, fierceness, but also joy registering. She's like, I got this.

[A]

She's not on Strava, but I get her GPS files, and she was running, like, 4:35 to 4:40 minutes per mile gap. Great adjusted pace at that point. So, like, we're talking an athlete that was going to win by substantial margin and set a pr. Um, and that's when the. All of a sudden you're watching the live stream and she turns around, like, just all, like, clearly confused about what's going on.

[B]

And this race had 25 turns in it. This is like a diabolical course in the sense of vert. And all of these different turns through Atlanta. And it's like, for a second I was like, what are they doing? Why are they having them turn around again? There's like multiple turnaround points. There's like, you know, all these different turns, like, within the context of the chorus. And I'm like, what kind of a course is this?

[A]

What is going on? And what happened is that an entire motorcade directed them the wrong way. So it was the lead officials, it was the camera, it was the police officers all around. It was a total, you know, shit show and a failure from the local organizing committee, which is amazing. We love Atlanta Track Club. Like, they've done great things for running, but it was just a humongous, humongous mistake.

[B]

And mistakes happen, but this is like a very unfortunate mistake.

[A]

So all of the athlete, those three athletes ran like 0.6, a kilometer too far, got back on the course and proceeded to run incredibly fast all the way to the finish, finishing between 9th and 12th in the order of Jess, Emma, Grace, Edna. Um, but obviously the most heartbreaking situation you could imagine, an athlete going to a life changing result, life changing amounts of money, and a US Team, which is significant for all three of them. Emma Grace last year finished second at this race, but they canceled the world championship, so she didn't actually get to go. Um, it was the goal of the early season for everybody.

[B]

This is also like, as an athlete at this level, you don't get many of these races at this, like, at this level, going for it in this way, like, this is in many ways, like outside of Boston, the crux of the training block. And it's like, you're not racing every weekend at this level. Like, as. As at Jess's level. It doesn't happen.

[A]

You don't get these opportunities. And so maybe one of the sadder moments of running that we can remember,

[B]

you had rage in a way that I've almost never seen you. You were throwing. Do you recognize that you threw something in the house?

[A]

Well, I went from. I mean, it was one of the best moments of my life. Not because I know Jessica as a coach, but because I know Jess is a human. Right. Like, sorry. Even now, it's just knowing what was going through her mind and what how that must have felt in a good way. And then to that next moment, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of other people that cried like I did, you know, and even now I'm remembering it means tard, you know? And that being said, she handled it beautifully. She crossed the finish line and she was clearly pissed and confused and unhappy.

[B]

I think I saw one F bomb come out of her mouth at one point, and she was just like, fuck this. Which rightfully so.

[A]

And Emma, Grace and Edna both got the short end of the stick. But, like, once it happened, you know, I talked to Jess almost immediately after, and you can imagine that she. She was upset. And I've never seen Jess anything but optimistic and joyful, even when she's gone through extremely low points outside of running. And, you know, she obviously, she's a real human, so she feels all of her feelings, but, like, she's not that. I mean, that was very jarring for me just to see. And so fast forward now it's a question of what happens next. These three are clearly separated themselves. For the world's team and for the top three and the prize person, all of that, it was a mistake totally outside of their control. And now we get to the biggest shit show in running history. From, like, one of the saddest moments to one of the worst responses that shows a level of incompetence at usatf, our governing body, that either needs to be addressed within the next few days, which will give them credit. Maybe this not incompetence, maybe it's just this happened on a Sunday. The higher ups weren't able to get involved, and this will all be changed by the time the podcast comes out.

[B]

I was gonna say, my hope is we're recording this on a Monday. My hope is this is not. It's an interesting conversation, but more of, like an irrelevant conversation come Tuesday. But I'm curious to see what happens here.

[A]

But if not, we're looking at an organization, a governing body that needs to be totally cleaned out. The entire leadership needs to change.

[B]

Well, that's because of this statement that they released. And I think this is, to me, I was like, after the race, I was hopeful. I was like, you know, as an athlete, there's a very special moment of, like, crossing the finish and that you dream about that. Like, when Jess is doing workouts. I'm sure in many ways she's visualizing this moment of the last mile at the US Champs, like, what it's like to cross the finish line, to break the tape. And she got robbed of those experiences fundamentally. But as I was like, you know, in the immediate aftermath of the race, I was like, oh, they're going to fix it from a financial standpoint, from a podium standpoint, from a monetary standpoint,

[A]

and from a world steam standpoint. Like, it seemed obvious at the time. And that's where USATF stepped in just a few hours later with maybe the most tone deaf, idiotic response, both from a PR perspective and a legal perspective I've ever seen.

[B]

And to be fair, I'm like, who crafted this statement? Yeah, like, I feel like this definitely. I mean, it came out so fast. And that's why I have a little bit of, like, maybe a very, very small smidge of compassion for usatf. I'm like, is this some kind of local official who's writing this statement and releasing it? And when you read it, you're like, was this actually written by a human?

[A]

I think always compassion for individuals until the accountability stops. Right? Like the buck stops somewhere. And whoever wrote this statement, I'm sure it's not the CEO. Like, we give them compassion. We give everybody at USATF compassion. But eventually you hit the CEO and if they don't rectify this, it has to burn down. And, you know, so that's what I'm going to get to as we talk about some of the legal ramifications of this. And this statement, which you're like, oh, maybe it was a local official. I'm like, maybe they programmed some sort of AI and just said, okay, now imagine you're really dumb, all right? And you're powerless and.

[B]

And you don't really care about empathy.

[A]

Yeah. And you don't care about hugh athletes at all. You're just trying to cash those sweet, sweet paychecks.

[B]

You're just trying to check the box that we made a statement.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna read this. It's three paragraphs. We're gonna start with the first paragraph and respond to each one. What do you think of that?

[B]

I like that. Put on your legal brain here, as you always do. And I would just love to hear, like, if you're sitting in a legal classroom and you're hearing this statement, where does your brain go? Perfect role play in a legal class.

[A]

Okay, here we go. And so I'll read the first paragraph and then we'll have our initial response. And the reason we want to do this is we don't want to put words in their mouth or, you know, intentions in their. In their brains, because this is important here. It is following the completion of the USATF Half Marathon Championships in Atlanta. A protest was filed by athletes in the women's field who followed a lead vehicle off course. Three vehicles, in fact. That's me. That protest was denied and an appeal to the protest was submitted. The jury of appeals found that, quote, the event did not meet USATF Rule 243 and that the course was not adequately marked at the point of misdirection. This violation contributed to the misdirection taken by the athletes within the top four at the time of misdirection. However, the jury of appeals finds no recourse within the USATF rulebook to alter the results order of finish. The results order of finish is posted and it is considered final.

[B]

Wow. Okay to start.

[A]

Well, first. First, I just want to say USATF Rule 243. We're all taught that in elementary school, like, do unto others as you would want to do unto you. And also, Rule 243 of USATF is law, by God.

[B]

But I'm also like, this is not the Constitution. They're treating it like this as a constitutional thing. I'm like, just write a better rulebook. This is certainly going to happen.

[A]

Again, legal brain on. This is a question.

[B]

You just, like, put a hat on, was it?

[A]

It was a really small little hat, but legal hat on. So you're saying that your rulebook, which is not a force of law, this isn't a system of regulations that is, you know, determining the financial industry or something, needs to anticipate every single case of gross negligence from the race organizers. That is such bullshit. Because the whole idea of a rulebook is that you set up a system that can then adapt to unforeseen situations. You couldn't foresee a number of different things that could happen in the race, right? Like, what if some medical emergency happened on the course? Like, obviously, then you should be allowed to do different courses at the last second. But more to the point, you can't even imagine the amounts of negligence that could happen during the race and how we have to accommodate that. So they're treating Rule 243 or whatever, which determines, like, their course structure as some law from God, when In fact Rule 243 is just a couple people being like, I don't know, maybe we write this. It clearly is not what should be governing, right? Like, these rules have their basis in equity, injustice, not in the, you know, unassailability of some random handbook that doesn't mean anything and no one's ever seen before.

[B]

I love. I can see your brain bubbling right now, and I absolutely love it, but it's infuriating. What I love about this too, though, is the admitted fault. Yes. Which I find hilarious. They're like, yeah, we fucked up, but we actually have this rulebook that's a little bit outdated and we can't do anything about it. But that leads me to believe, like, they might be sitting on quite a large lawsuit here. And like, oh, like I open you as ATF because you just admitted fault and then are like, oh, but we're not going to do anything about the equity of athletes. And to me, that's actually curious. I'm like, you guys might have really messed up in this statement, actually.

[A]

Absolutely. Which brings us to the next paragraph. This race was a selection event for the 2026 World Road Running Championships. That team is not officially selected until May. USATF will review the events from Atlanta carefully. While we understand athletes are eager to resolve the issue expeditiously. Oh, definitely. AI Our process will ensure an ultimate is in the best interest of all athletes involved. Hey, you clearly just admitted you do not care about the best interest of all athletes involved. You care about the sanctity of your precious, precious rule book. Like Gollum. Just like my rulebook, I wonder if

[B]

it's ever existed in book form or if it's just some random stack of paper somewhere in, like, a back office.

[A]

No, I went. I went back through it and you know, it's your classic handbook. There's an entire legal system in civil liability that talks about how these handbooks govern situations that have their basis in other parts of law. And the answer is they don't. They are not. They not supersede civil law. That is not the way it works. And in fact, the legal systems in general don't have rules that are this established. So they're admitting civil fault, which doesn't just apply to things like race earnings and potential lost income opportunities. Also applies to the amount of pain and suffering that athletes might experience and a number of other things. So good job really admitting some civil liability here.

[B]

Yeah, this was an interesting statement. Plus also the world's team, too. It's like, that's kind of a big deal for the US Like, I feel like my primary point, honestly at this point in our country of nationalism comes from these world's teams and, like, how they're performing. Oh, yeah.

[A]

We're proud of our running.

[B]

We're proud of our running. And it's like, at a time when

[A]

it's hard to be proud of everything, obviously. And we, you know, there's bigger issues, and maybe that's an important thing to recognize is, like, there are bigger issues in the world.

[B]

A lot has happened this week, but,

[A]

like, this is our issue, right? Like, and it's important to care about stuff and to care about people, and then that magnifies out into the broader political issues. But, like, in our little sphere, this matters because it shows, you know, do you care or do you not? And we're seeing a lot from USATF with their statement that finishes. Lead vehicles are provided and managed by the local organizing committee as per rule 243.2 C. Oh, 2, 43.

[B]

Oh, shit.

[A]

I love that. Play it again. Oh, my God. I just love when USATF talks dirty like that. Of the 2026 USATF competition rules. Any questions pertaining to the course in the vehicle should be directed to the local organizing committee. Atlanta Track Club.

[B]

So they're basically just throwing their contractor, Atlanta Track Club, under the bus here and being like, we contracted you guys, but yeah, you fucked up.

[A]

Hey, your house has some issues. You know who you should contact? The people that made just put on a little part of your roof. It's their fault. Bullfucking shit. Okay, so usatf, yes. Let's. Let's acknowledge that Atlanta Track Club made a big mistake here.

[B]

You know, and mistakes happen.

[A]

And contractors make mistakes.

[B]

Sub subcontractors, Everyone in life makes mistakes. And Atlanta Track Club, I think they've actually made a few mistakes in the sense of in 2025, their marathon course was actually short and it didn't enable people to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which is actually a big deal. Like, you know, I don't know if you've been there before, but, like, actually, I guess you have. We both made wrong turns in races on our own Accord Trail. Racing is a totally different context. And that hurts so bad in a random local half marathon. And, you know, as does, like, not qualifying for Boston. But, like, these things all, like, athletes carry them for a long time.

[A]

Carry them for a long time. And, you know, every athlete who would be in this situation would feel the same way that we feel right now.

[B]

Actually, it's kind of a fun time to be on the Internet because it's almost unanimous amongst pro athletes of, like, this is so clearly wrong that there's like, very little disagreement. I mean, like, there's always gonna be disagreement on some topic just because that's how the Internet works. But I feel like this is like 98% agreeance amongst pro athletes.

[A]

Well, it's A hundred percent amongst pro athletes thus far, I haven't seen a single one saying the other one. And of the very few people that I feel the need to shitpost to their dumb takes, their argument is goes like this. Well, it's a slippery slope when you violate rules and you act like the rulebook doesn't exist. So first point is why I said before that rules cannot accommodate every case of gross negligence. That's not the way systems work. Otherwise you'd be saying everyone who experiences a new bad situation is destined to be fucked. And so good luck, you're not protected. You're just going to have a rule named after you in the future. That's not the way any system works for a reason. But number two, they'll say something like, well, you know, the precedent sets and what will the athletes who finish behind them think and all that. It's like, well, the athletes who finish behind them do not want to be the winners in this way.

[B]

Oh, it is so tricky. In fact, you saw Molly Bourne who won, and she had an amazing race

[A]

and Molly Bourne crushed it.

[B]

Molly Bourne is awesome, as did the podium behind her. And it's like, I think the answer here is you have to celebrate all six athletes of like, you know, we can get to this in a second, but of like giving out prize money, of having two podiums, of, you know, making these, these like logistical decisions surrounding the worlds. But it doesn't take away from their awesome performance too, of the athletes, you know, who were directed correctly and finished the race.

[A]

Yeah. And the precedent we're really worried about is what happens if you don't care about athletes. Because that's why this is a USATF question. USATF's mission is to serve athletes right? And so if they are serving athletes, there is an obvious solution here. Every athlete agrees, including Molly Bourne, who's a so cool. I was messaging her last night just to say like, how much we appreciate her and how incredible she is. And I mean, her performance here was wild. She's had so such good marathon. She's going to be one of the best in the U.S. and she said to USCTF, make this right. She's saying the same thing. Literally everyone is. And so why isn't USATF making it right? And the answer is, are they standing with athletes or are they standing for themselves? And I think it's pretty clear based on this initial response that they're standing for themselves unless they make a change.

[B]

And I think the change has to come from the broader leadership. Like I could see this is happening on Sunday morning. This response got released like an hour after the race. They're not calling the board of directors together, the CEO. I don't even know if the CEO was involved in this decision, but I feel like when you have this much protest and lives are being impacted, and I might add, these are women being impacted. And I think this discussion would be entirely different if this was a top male American athlete.

[A]

What do you think would happen if it was Connor, man.

[B]

Oh, for sure. They would be like, you know, we'd find some way to rectify the podium. He would get prize money.

[A]

He'd go into Worlds.

[B]

He'd be going to Worlds for sure. Everyone would be like, connor, man's got to go to Worlds. And I feel like part of me is so sad because it's like I think the way this is happening shows a fundamental disrespect for women that I think if we ran this In a simulation 100 times for men, 98 out of 100 times would be rectified.

[A]

Absolutely. And I'm really proud of you for making that point because I'm a little hesitant to say that. But now that you do, I think it's absolutely obvious. Right.

[B]

Also, it's Women's History Month. March 1st. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What a way to start.

[A]

What a way to start saying that we care about rule books more than we care about women.

[B]

Yeah. Which, I mean.

[A]

Yeah, Historically.

[B]

Historically, like. Yeah. Scoreboard.

[A]

That's where the precedent really lies.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So let's allow justice be week because she wrote the most beautiful response last night. And you know, our anger and sadness about this, you know, she feels. But Jess is the best person, as we talked about. And here's what she said. I'm going to try my hardest to walk away from this weekend remembering the joy I felt in those moments where I thought I was on my way to becoming a national champion and finally make Team USA outright. And she provided so much compassion for everyone. Right. Like, this is the best person. She would never co sign, like, everything we're saying because that's just not who Jess is. But we have a very close relationship with Jess and she knows we have her back in ways that I think we want our supporters to have our back. So, Jess, we're very proud of you for that statement. But I think. And there's probably some machinations happening behind the scenes right now. So what happens next? That's the question. And what do you think happens in terms of what can we do with our platform? What can our listeners do?

[B]

Well, I Think in an ideal world, it's a combination of Atlanta Track Club and usatf. And actually Atlanta Track Club did come out with a beautiful statement acknowledging fault,

[A]

and they're going to try to make athletes whole.

[B]

That was their direct quote, which I think is a beautiful way to address this. It's like that statement has empathy and compassion, and I'm proud of them for doing it. I feel like that's the values within running that are important to hold up. I think what happens next, next is it's a combination, like, I think Atlantic Track Club, because it was their mistake, probably takes financial liability and pays out the athletes. I think USATF rectifies the podiums and has two podiums and then has some kind of arbitration process. Whether that's like a separate race or you're looking at other race results, or you're just looking at, like, how the race stood at mile 11 and a half. Boom. Right there. It was so obvious.

[A]

That's the thing.

[B]

It would have been different had it been a pack of eight women. This all would have been different. It was so there were three. Three women right there at mile a minute ahead, a minute ahead. Clearly going to take 1, 2, 3. And I think, like, you know, they also make the World Championships team. Right. But I think you also pay. You recognize, you know, Molly and the podium, and they still get their national championships and everything. And so I think that, to me is like, you make everyone whole in the situation.

[A]

It's an obvious solution that every athlete agrees with. That I've seen. I haven't seen a single. And maybe.

[B]

Well, there are people on the Internet that are like, it is an athlete, a pro athlete's responsibility to know the course. But I'm like, okay, take a step back.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

You are not. It's different in trail running. Obviously. It's different in oriented hearing. That's like the purpose of the sport

[A]

or your local 5K.

[B]

Yeah. In running, in a road race like this, when you are following officials in a race vehicle and you follow them like, you know, you don't all of a sudden be like, oh, I think this, like, 26th turn should go left.

[A]

Even if. Even if the markings tell you to, because what if they changed it?

[B]

They could deviate. They do this in cycling all the time. Like, you know, there's some kind of mass flood on the course or there's protests or there's like, someone's down or a car accident happened. And, like, you deviate the course. And so you. You follow race officials. And I think this is where every pro athlete that has raced on the roads gets this. Because they're like, in this situation, I would a thousand percent follow the race vehicle. Even if I knew this random left turn was different than I thought it was.

[A]

Absolutely. And we want to send our best team to usa, to the World Championships. The best USA US Team. And so the obvious solution, Atlanta Track Club is going to pay out the prize money. I think that will happen. And then everything else goes to usatf because they're the ones that award the national championship, which has such financial implications for all the athletes, plus the world's team spots. And those three athletes need to be on the podium and awarded with that as the athletes that cross the finish line. 1, 2, 3. They should not have that taken away.

[B]

Well, honestly, in some ways, this is a beautiful chance to celebrate six women instead of three.

[A]

Well, Women's history month.

[B]

Just do it. There's six. Double it up. We get two podium.

[A]

This is where the rules, like the people who just, like, masturbate to rules.

[B]

You just hand. Masturbate two hands. Have you ever done that to rules? You do that to systems, not rules.

[A]

I do that to equity and justice. This. And so, you know, the obvious solution here is celebrate everybody. There's. This is a place where you can get creative and think outside the box. So do that. And then that will help with the shoe. Shoe deals that these athletes have in their future opportunities. And then send the three women that had clearly separated themselves to Team USA A big separation.

[B]

And it's like, how convenient. Yeah, it would have been so tricky had it been a pack of four.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And now we have a pack of three. And it's like, you know, clearly they had distinguished themselves as the strongest women in the field. So.

[A]

And maybe the significant thing for the dumb people online that are ShitPosting is in second place was Emma Grace Hurley, who is from Atlanta, who has trained on the course for 10 days, who was second last year at this same race, knows the roads better than anyone could. And she also made the same turn because you follow the fucking official that's telling you where to go. Literally zero athletes in the entire world would have not made this turn. And so if you're saying that we're not going to rectify the situation when zero athletes would have made it, you're saying that too bad we don't care about you at all. We do not care about athletes. And that is not the purpose of usatf. It is not the purpose of our sport, and it's certainly not the purpose of having a national championships race. And so the good thing is all these rules are made up. We can just make up another one right now and apply it to this situation. It is so easy. And I'm hopeful that maybe even by the time we stop recording, this will all be solved.

[B]

How sweet will that be? Also, I have a background program in my brain right now that's just singing welcome to Elena with the playst play,

[A]

which is what Jess posted her video.

[B]

Oh, did she really?

[A]

On the warmup. So she did like a pre race post of like, oh, no. And it was her running set to that song. How great is Jess?

[B]

Oh, that's so fitting. Yeah.

[A]

And she played. She's a player that played. And it's just such an easy. So I'm hopeful this will all be kind of like old news by the time it comes out tomorrow.

[B]

But even though it's old news, this is still very irrelevant discussion because these athletes were put through the ringer the last few days. And it's like Jess should be there celebrating a national championship and what it feels like to cross the finish line and the emotions like, you know, this is something that you dream of for a lifetime. This is not just like a random race. And even if this gets like rectified and the situation is fixed, she is going to carry this emotional damage. So you should actually, I saw Ali Ostrander do a comment like, they should pay them double for emotional.

[A]

Well, they might have trauma. Yeah. If anyone wants to file a civil suit, I would love that. Actually, I'll drop everything.

[B]

Yeah, your one, your one law project.

[A]

Because legal.

[B]

Take the board in Colorado.

[A]

Yeah, I'll take the bar.

[B]

The board. The bar. Yeah, exactly.

[A]

The board's like your medicine. And so what does come next? I personally, I told Jess that, look, celebrate this, you know, no matter what happens, celebrate.

[B]

But then also her fitness.

[A]

Celebrate. Because you're going to be winning a national championship. It's just a question of when. And I think USATF will come around, but if they don't, we have the power. It's the consent of the governed.

[B]

The consent of the governed. Do we give them consent? I guess we did because we paid them for membership.

[A]

Yes, exactly. The participation in this system is participation in USATF's power structure. And so we hold the power. And this is not the US government where there's, you know, every situation at the end of the day will basically be 50, 50, no matter where you draw the line. And it really sucks because you can feel totally powerless even if the arc of history bends towards justice. Like, I hope that's true on that scale. But in this situation, the actual percentages so far that we have seen seem like 98 to 2 or so. And in that situation, if leadership does not step up, leadership goes. Which brings me to the post I did after USATF released a statement. Usctf, there's still time to change course. Every athlete who would want ever be in the situation would want you to provide the athletes with an additional podium in prize money and make this right. Tens of thousands of dollars are on the line along with the credibility of your entire organization. Do you stand for athletes or do you stand for yourselves? We're about to find out the answer to that question. If USATF fails to act on behalf of athletes, the leadership has to change what comes next. It's a Sunday as I wrote this and maybe this decision was made by a local official who just made a mistake. If action isn't taken, the athletes, coaches and fans must use our platforms to make sure the leadership changes. Make this right and we can all celebrate laughing at an unfortunate situation and uplifting an organization that stands with athletes.

[B]

That's so beautifully written, David. And I'm really proud of you because, like, you know, to write a post like this is not really your jam.

[A]

Like I think, well, I said I'm only going to be positive online.

[B]

This is positive. You're trying to bring about empathy and support for like a group of athletes who are wronged. But I just like, I'm proud of you as a coach. One to get Jess to this place where she's like quite frankly dominating in a US Half championship, that's so cool. But then to stand up for her on this behalf and to do it so eloquently and well while using your legal brain and your coaching brain and I'm just like, damn, son, thank you.

[A]

I mean, I hope I would do this for Emma, Grace or Edna if they were the ones that were pushing the pace or if Jess wasn't in this race at all. This just feels like are very in our very small world of running. You know, the. This isn't just about this one situation. It's about do our governing bodies represent us and care.

[B]

It's about tossing Rule 243 out the window.

[A]

Well, I mean you can keep rule

[B]

243, just add it, make it 243d,

[A]

not C. Maybe just don't like stick it up your butt. Like, that's all I'm asking. And so USCTF has a decision to make here and we'll see what happens. As of now, I want to give them, you know, carrot and stick. I want them to have the carrot of like, look, if they make the right decision, we celebrate you just talking

[B]

about carrot and stick after putting things up people's butts. Oh, this is a legal term, a carrot and stick.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. You talk about it all the time in law. It's all the time.

[B]

I'm sure lawyers really love that.

[A]

That's the point. Like, this shouldn't be a legal situation. This should be just a basic, you know, human empathy situation and understanding of running. And USATF makes that decision a little bit late, but that's okay. You know, the best time to make a decision that's right is now. And that goes for everybody. Hey, if you feel bad about something, just go make it right. Just say sorry, whatever it happens, and we'll celebrate that. If they do not, this ends with CEO. And how that happens is, well, one, there's a legal approach with the board of directors and CEO and how the membership can cause changes. Changes. But very simply, this outrage is not going to stop. And it will go next to canceling memberships. After that, it will go to going through official processes to make sure the leadership changes. We're talking a CEO who gets paid seven figures a year, who got $3.8 million in compensation in 2021.

[B]

That is bonkers. Me and USATF is a nonprofit.

[A]

We don't need to get into the legal details. Like, the point just being this is a CEO that's compensated very well to make tough decisions. This is not someone that is working part time, like maybe an official at a local race or, you know, someone that made a wrong turn in a league car. That sucks. I feel so bad for that person.

[B]

Oh, and that's like an honest mistake. We make mistakes like that all the time.

[A]

Yeah. The reason we go to leadership is that's why the leadership makes the big bucks, is to make the right decisions in hard times. And so if your leadership can't and your leadership demonstrates that they don't represent you, the athletes rise up and make a change. And we thankfully have a position where we can help orchestrate that. And we don't need to. Right. Like, this is not going to. We're not the ones that need to be the ones, but we will be there alongside athletes making that decision. And so usatf, your move. We'll see what happens here.

[B]

I curious, do you think they'll listen to this podcast?

[A]

Well, I'm going to be sharing it with them. I'm going through back channels to have. I'm having actual conversations. I'm going to try to. And if they listen to me, great. If not, not, they'll listen to what happens on social media.

[B]

I hope they put those butt jokes in their board meeting.

[A]

Yeah, and that's the thing. It's like, hey, there will be people at USATF that listen to this, right?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Hey, biggest running podcast us and nobody asked us. And I'm sure Des and Cara will have some fire too. And you know, like, if they don't listen, the board of directors has to go too. We're talking a full cleaning of house because the USC TS had a lot of problems for a long time.

[B]

Time.

[A]

And we have always tried to stand behind them because, look, it's hard to make the right decisions. Everyone is going to hate you at some point when you're in positions of leadership. But I always assumed at the end of the day, they just care a lot about athletes. And it's all like, it's just life's complicated and hard and we all make mistakes. Right. And you shouldn't be judged by them. But if you're just demonstrating that on a fundamental systems level, you're not set up to support athletes in an obvious situation, when even the person who benefited from this theoretically wants you to make a change, then what's your point? You need to be on the sidelines of this decision and we can put in people that actually care.

[B]

I love that. Also your eyes are blue and sparkly right now. You're like, I'm feeling it. My testosterone's going high. USATF better watch a lawyer with high testosterone. Also a coach.

[A]

So we love you guys and we'll keep you updated about next steps. And so there will be hopefully no next steps other than celebrating us ATF and maybe even donating a little bit of money. No. If they make good decisions. No, absolutely. We need to celebrate good decisions.

[B]

I mean, we should just donate money to Jess for her. For her emotional well being and her future home. I'm sure she has a house already. All right.

[A]

That was a long conversation.

[B]

That was fun. High five. Also a long conversation on episode 300.

[A]

Yeah. A long, cathartic conversation on episode 300.

[B]

Yeah. We've had 300 of these podcasts. Yeah, that's kind of wild. It's been a lot of weeks of things that we've showed up through, like, you know, having kids and health stuff. We've done this through stomach viruses. We've done this on low points and high points and Western states DNFs and talking about Jess.

[A]

Thanks for bringing that up. Any other failures of mine you'd like to bring up right now?

[B]

Our most listened to podcast.

[A]

Yeah, it's true. It is unfortunate. That's like crushing everything. So thank you all for being here for 300 episodes. It'd be bonkers if we went back in summer of 2020 and talked to ourselves about what it would become. Especially because at the beginning it was so unrefined and we had no idea what we were doing. And sound was bad.

[B]

30 minutes just talking into the computer together, like not even having a microphone, like, what are we doing?

[A]

And just your evolution in this process, Megan, has been the most beautiful thing.

[B]

I've gotten so much more chill, actually. I used to like, you know, I mean, I still do. It's every once in a while we release one of these podcasts and I'm just like, like, ah, what did we say?

[A]

You care, you care. But you, you're just so much more just compassionate to yourself and it's the most beautiful journey. Right?

[B]

Like, well, 300 podcasts will strip you of that. It like, it strips you of all of the judgment of yourself because you're like, at some point we just have to create and release. And I'm proud, like, I'm actually so proud of that evolution of like creating and releasing. If you told us in episode one that we would do this 300 straight weeks, weeks, I would have been like, no way. Surely we'd have had a break. I had no idea we were having kids. So we did this through that whole process.

[A]

Literally every week a new episode, including your heart issues, kids, all that.

[B]

Yeah, we've recorded in some wild circumstances and I'm proud of that. Not every episode I'm like, oh, shoot, that was a banger. But it's like it has to go out in the world. And thank you for sticking with us as we've learned and grown and tried different things.

[A]

So hey, if you like it, give it five stars, click follow.

[B]

We send it to a friend.

[A]

We don't say to do that much. And I think this is a good one to send because it shows us that our most passionate about running, like, we're very passionate about everything. But like this is a running podcast and so we just appreciate you so much. And let's get on to the full bulk of the episode. But first, promo for the feed 41

[B]

minutes into the podcast.

[A]

Sorry, the feed, the feed dot com. Swap. Swap. Just put in your email there and you get 40% off. Your first order and you're going to want a lot. So just do a really big order with that first one. And if you're a returning customer, you get $10 back for every $100 spent. Best deal on the market for stuff you're going to need anyway. So go there now.

[B]

Okay. This week I've been a big fan of striker gels. Okay.

[A]

This is a really game changing gel. I wish they were a little bit cheaper.

[B]

Yeah, they're $4 a pop, but it's

[A]

a little less if you buy 12 at a time.

[B]

True. But they're 50 grams of carbs, so you're getting more carbs. I like the weight distribution of that because when I bought, you know, 50 grams of carbs at first I was like, this is going to be a big honking gel and it's about the same size as a beta fuel. Yeah.

[A]

They would go, well being inserted.

[B]

I wanted to save you from the insertion. I was like, we'll just take carrot and stick and let people use their imagination here. But it's delicious. And

[A]

I don't know if that's an episode 300.

[B]

Like that wouldn't have happened in episode

[A]

one or if that's like a 16 years of marriage thing.

[B]

Actually, we were in a doctor's office this week and the nurse practitioner comes in and we were like talking with her for like six minutes and she's like, how long have you guys been together for? You really give off like old married couple vibes.

[A]

The doctor's appointment, that's a topic for another day.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, man.

[A]

Cross that bridge when we get there.

[B]

Do enough striker gel so we forget about that one. Yeah.

[A]

Enough carrots and sticks. But I was blown away. So it's a 1 to 0.8 ratio of glucose to fructose. Same as science and sport beta fuel, which is.

[B]

Which to me is important because I think when you're doing above 90 grams of carbs per hour, the transporter ratios actually kind of start to matter.

[A]

Yeah. And this could be a gel every 30 minutes, the ideal fueling. So Stryker to me seems like one of the next frontier gels because I heard science and sport is increasing their prices. So you might want to be going outside the box a little. Um, and then Enervit, we've gotten tons of feedback on.

[B]

Oh, it's so delicious.

[A]

Being obsessed with Enervit recently. Uh, and then just putting it out there. If you don't take first Endurance Multi Bio. It's a fantastic multivitamin. And we got a question from a listener about their kid just going to daycare. How do you improve your immunity? We don't know exactly because there's no good study on exactly how to do that.

[B]

And because we've been getting trucked ourselves. No, we haven't tried almost at all. Yeah, Leo has. I feel like we've actually. We get kind of like low level things. Like I feel like my immune system's slightly activated, but it's not like full blown.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, we've been so lucky so far. And I think it's mainly because Leo doesn't get that sick. Mainly because we don't give him baths.

[B]

He's just like digging. We actually like dug up our front yard this weekend and it was just, just pouring water in it and like playing in the dirt. And I was like, yeah, guess this is his microbiome.

[A]

If you're out there and your kids don't get many baths, just think this is improving immunity. If you give your kids too much hygiene might be a problem.

[B]

Well, the problem with bass with Leo is it is like such a fight to get him in the bath. And then once he's in the bath, it's like impossible to get him out. I'm like, this is like the biggest fight 15 minutes ago and now it's the biggest fight again to get you out.

[A]

Baths are overrated. But I think something like first endurance Multi V is just a good thing to take to improve your performance, but then also maybe to just give you some immune system benefits. And tons of pro athletes take it too. So go to the feed.com swap swap. So now we're already at 45 minutes into this episode. Um, let's rapid fire through some studies.

[B]

Yeah, I like these studies. These are actually this cycling study I thought was fascinating.

[A]

Yeah. So this one just came out and it's called Training characteristics of Male and female World Tour Professional Road cyclists. Before the competitive phase, the Data was from 16 male and 16 female World Tour cyclists in the 10 weeks before race season. So significant thing here is that when you're talking about World Tour cycling, you're talking about the cream of the crop, the very, very top of the very, very top. And these athletes are all competing in extremely long races that go, you know, six or seven hours long early season. So cycling, the longest races happen very shortly after your off season season. Um, we're talking about races like Milan San Remo where they're like seven or eight hours out there. So you think that you want the biggest base possible ready to go, ready to rock.

[B]

And we have a lot of studies about what male like top level cyclists are doing, but we actually have very few about female top level cyclists. And I feel like there's just been this evolution within female cycling to just like, I feel like it's grown a ton. That being said, that there are some fundamental differences in the facts that men's races are often longer, so they're not typically doing the same length of races. And even male stage races like the Tour de France for, for, for men is fundamentally longer than the Torto France for women.

[A]

But I think no matter which duration it is, you're seeing an aerobic saturation point.

[B]

Oh, of course, yeah.

[A]

This is the most aerobic event you could ever get. Um, is, is professional cycling at this level where 0.1% matters. So whatever we're seeing in the training, in this 10 week structure before season, where you consider the biggest training possible, the base season, whatever you're seeing is basically aerobic saturation and anything beyond that, that is probably excessive. So here are the findings. For men, they did 19 hours per week compared to 16.7 hours per week for women. So a little bit less for women. They both did six training sessions per week and then for the women there was slightly higher intensity such that the total training stress ended up being equal between men and women.

[B]

I thought that point was actually pretty fascinating because I think that tracks actually with how a lot of my female athletes train. And I feel like it's almost like, I don't know if it's, we're seeing something that's like physiological or psychological in the sense that like, if we evaluate both of our training, like I feel like I actually spend a lot more time in Z2 than you do. And probably some of that is because like, there's a mechanical difference for cycling in Watts where TADA is going to put out a lot more Z2 power than the average female rider. And for us in running, like you're running a lot faster in Z2 than I am. And so I feel like there's like a mechanical difference and I wonder if that kind of pushes it. Plus like female racing is often shorter and done at higher intensities and so maybe there's like some distribution there too.

[A]

Yeah, I see this too. I think it's probably partially the mechanical one and partially an aerobic one that in general, you know, you compare a female and a male cyclist, the female will have an higher LT1 relative to their VO2 max. Um, it's one of the reasons that we always say women are Natural fat oxidizers, usually. And something like low carb is especially bad for women because they don't need it. So you're not getting any benefits. You're only getting endocrine system impacts. Um, so if that's the case, you know, you can push a substantial amount more and not be risking that, you know, LT1 barrier. And so when you're talking about watts, you can push more watts in higher zone 2 relative to your functional threshold power. That's my guess for part of the reason we're seeing this.

[B]

Um, I think psychologically too, a lot of the female athletes I like, coach just sometimes like to push.

[A]

You just want to go hard.

[B]

That's a dangerous thing to say. But, like, sometimes women just want to go hard in the best of ways. Yeah, but sometimes you also hone that in. Like if you're a female out there, like, also think about your Z one time and like, also making sure that you're not consistently pushing up into those higher intensities.

[A]

It is very true, actually. So, you know, I've gotten a window now into elite athlete training at the very, very top level of both men and women for running. And at baseline when, when you are coaching an athlete, you're like, oh, so you know, you're talking to a female athlete. So your easy pace is 6:20. And then for the male athlete, it's usually like 7:30.

[B]

There's something there.

[A]

Yeah. Jess isn't like that, actually. No, interestingly, but it's.

[B]

I used to be like that. I've turned it around in time.

[A]

Dude, I have all these Jess Garmin files.

[B]

Oh yeah. You should just unleash them on the world and be like, look at them.

[A]

We should sell them for a GoFundMe

[B]

for a great idea, actually.

[A]

Yeah. Honestly, I'm, you know, I feel like someone should set up a GoFundMe.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

She wouldn't want.

[B]

Of all the things you see, GoFundMe swear this feels like a great use.

[A]

But, you know, with, with all of these situations, I think what we're seeing that's most significant here, here is that the volume might not be as high as you'd assume. Whenever we hear about pro cyclist training, I'm always here 25 to 30 hour weeks and all of this, it's like, no, you're looking at the max training and these athletes will do, like, training will decrease for these athletes from here.

[B]

Well, these are also, again, top level cyclists in. Cyclists inherently have larger aerobic training volume than runners, which is because, like, you know, mechanically you're not having pounding on the body.

[A]

And yeah, when you can go out on a bike and spin in at 100 watts, and that's training volume, whereas there's no equivalent in running. Like no runner is going out and you know, spinning at a hundred watts for them, like that would be like going out and walking. We don't count that to training volume. Um, so some of this volume isn't even real compared to running in the same way running is. So when you see trading systems that are arguing running runners need these huge hourly totals, it's like, well, we're seeing saturation points that are much lower in cycling. And these aren't intense training systems, these are pyramidal training. So most is in the very easy zones, some is in the moderate, very little is in the hard. Um, so the significant thing here is maybe you could be a little bit liberated from needing super duper high volumes. Um, yes, high volume helps to a certain point, but that certain point probably saturates pretty quickly. Like if I'm saying let's say 19 hours for men, I. If you're saying what is the exact correlation with running? Not even including impact, just including the aerobic strain of running, which is so much higher. Um, let's say that would be 14 hours or so. Like, uh, and then when you consider the amount that impact puts on that, you know, maybe we're talking 19 hours for a cyclist is equivalent to 10 to 12 hours for a male runner.

[B]

Agreed. Well, you do the math and it's like 120 miles a week would be like a 15 hour training week at 7:30 pace, you know, and that's like, that's a big training week, you know, that's a lot of mechanical stress when you think about that.

[A]

Yeah. And so I, I don't know, this is liberating to me. It makes me realize, you know, I don't need to try to increase training volume or anything. I'm probably good. Basically two hours a day of, of other activities to do like cross training and all that. You're going to saturate the fuck out of these systems. Like 25 or 30 hours. Like some of the people are pushing now. That's just excess. If it wasn't, these people would be doing it.

[B]

And when you say excess, it's like we're not just talking about from like an aerobic saturation point. We're talking about a risk of like negative hormonal cascades and reds. It's very hard to fuel the body like adequately. You need to eat like Your life has never depended upon it more. If you're like training at 20 or 30 hours a week.

[A]

That's one of my favorite genres of video right now are YouTube videos of professional cyclists. So they're all getting their own YouTube channels too. Kind of like we're seeing in running.

[B]

Yeah, there's an evolution of that.

[A]

It's fun, isn't it?

[B]

Do you think? I think you actually led some of that push, David. People are like, this could be fun.

[A]

Oh, no, I'm a follower.

[B]

Yeah, I'm a follower. No, no. They seem to director Cody in the.

[A]

It's a lot like high carb where I felt like I was a follower in high carb. I just screamed it from the rooftops kind of obnoxiously. The key has to be obnoxious and then people credit you as an originator of something that came before you.

[B]

So I know women's an originator, unfortunately.

[A]

Kind of true.

[B]

Yeah. It's like scream from the rooftop and it makes me uncomfortable, so. Oh, for sure you scream for me.

[A]

Sometimes people think I'm being self promoting and I'm like, no, actually I'm trying to get information out there and like have fun and all that. And I'm just loving these cyclist youtubes that basically just show them eating all day. It's my new pastime. So they'll wake up and they'll just eat the biggest plate of oats you've ever seen. We're talking. You would serve this to a horse and be like, oh no, this horse is going to be sick for days.

[B]

Stomach is gonna flip. But it's actually funny because I feel like there's actually some pushback against like what I eat in a day videos in like, you know, athletes recovering from eating disorders and disordered eating, like within that culture. But I feel like these cyclists are actually doing it, otherwise they would be so fucked.

[A]

Oh, yeah. And just getting this information out there is so helpful, I think, to let people know what is causing athletes to be monsters nowadays.

[B]

And it is legitimately what's causing it.

[A]

It's bonkers. I mean, this weekend we shot the next YouTube video and I went out and ran 18 miles on my healing foot.

[B]

How's it feeling?

[A]

I was trying to do a stupid human trick, which is, can you run 18 miles having barely run outdoors?

[B]

There's a scene in the YouTube where I'm just evaluating your heel after and I'm like, is this inflamed?

[A]

Probably a little bit.

[B]

Your feet will be on YouTube.

[A]

I deserve it. I deserve everything. That's coming for me. But the reason is I wanted to demonstrate. Look, if you do high carb, the body's able to do bonkers things. What we thought was an endurance limitation was actually a fueling one. And even with high carb, we're seeing, you know, the parabola of training, like, peak at these levels. That's a really good sign, I think, that we're on the right track with training theory, that it's not about saturating the aerobic system more and more and more, because eventually it just becomes too much stress and you're not gonna adapt. Like, you reach a saturation point, and at that point, more isn't more. More just overflows the bucket. And like an overflowing bucket, fine. Like, a lot of athletes have success at 25 hours a week, but it's not because of their 25 hours a week week. They just think it is, um, the overflowing bucket. They're just lucky that their endocrine systems can manage it.

[B]

That's such a great point. And I think the other point too, about training theory is that I feel like this study did a great job of countering how tapers can be so tricky for athletes. Um, and so one of the primary findings here was that the male athletes in before their first week, coming off of this base block, dropped from 19 hours per week to 17 hours per week. So before their first race, whereas for the women, it was so much more. It was 16.7 hours per week down to 11.2 hours. And that's a pretty substantial taper for these female athletes. And I feel like it gets the idea of, like, how training theory right now, I feel like, doesn't have. And I think it's because individual physiology is so different, and everyone responds to taper so differently is like, you know, is there some kind of gender difference here? Like, what are we seeing?

[A]

I think probably gender difference for the same reason that I mentioned before. So women are naturally, usually much better fat oxidizers, and thus they can drop training volume substantially.

[B]

They're also dropping intensity, too, and not

[A]

have fat oxidation hit that hard. Um, and male athletes in general, if you drop training volume enough, like, you don't lose fitness, but you do lose that initial fat oxidation curve. Like, you. You get less efficient. You'll burn glucose and glycogen more readily. And that's not a problem because, as we always say, the fat oxidation is not a game that you need to worry about outside of just making sure you're training enough. If you're Training enough, you'll be fine on that as long as you're not like having 120 grams of carbs on your 40 minute easy run. Um, so for the male athletes, they don't probably don't increase that, decrease that much because you want to maintain your status on that curve which comes from training. And so, yeah, I mean, more and more I've gotten away from big tapers for male athletes, but for female athletes, you know, pretty solid volume tapers still, um, though just didn't taper too much for the half because we're training for Boston.

[B]

I feel like it's so individual and I feel like athletes actually, like, this is an area where I often listen to an athlete quite a bit as to, like how they feel. And I ask them readily, I'm like, how do you feel off of this taper compared to this taper compared to this taper? And athlete feedback in this process to me goes a long ways.

[A]

I think I tapered way too much for western states because I was fried and I needed it.

[B]

Well, also because you were trying to replicate your Leadville taper that you did the year before coming off food poisoning. So.

[A]

Yeah, because you try to learn from good tapers and the problem is sometimes you're actually seeing confounding variables you can't replicate and don't know you're not replicating. Uh, then for Leadville this year and for javelina did much less taper and both races felt like metabolically the king.

[B]

Granted, before javelina, actually it was after javelina, you're like, I think I should do a little bit more of a taper.

[A]

Yeah. But in retrospect, I had a torn plantar fascia tendon.

[B]

True. Actually, that was limiting output.

[A]

But the idea being that, like, I didn't feel great about that race physically because my foot really hurts. It really hurts.

[B]

It's also probably really hard to put out power on that.

[A]

I don't think the power thing, I think I would have finished right finish, no matter what. I mean, more, you know, if you come away from a race with an injury, it does color the experience, you know, I mean, I wasn't taken off course by like a bike or whatever.

[B]

God, can you imagine how tragic that would be?

[A]

Can you imagine every single athlete in the world, if they don't rectify this situation, is going to have stress dreams for the rest of their life?

[B]

No, I legitimately, I have made a few wrong turns that have been my own bonker. Like, in turning, it is actually your responsibility to know the Course, like there's no lead vehicles out there. You should understand the markings. And even sometimes there's discrepancies between like what your GPS watch says and how the course is marked. And that's just like a tricky part of TR running. But I have made some boneheaded moves before that I still wake up and think about in the middle of the night on like, you know, this course has this like, race had no consequences, like, you know, no prize money, just, you know, random trophies and it's kind of wild.

[A]

Yeah. I look back, I think it was the Uhari Mountain Trail race when it was La Sportiva Mountain cup throwback North Carolina race. North Carolina, big national race at the time. Had a thousand dollars to the winner, which was life changing money for me. Like, I didn't have any money. I was negative, as you know, because.

[B]

Yeah, I was paying for your avocados.

[A]

Yeah. I was asking for 50 cents here and there to be able to get some gas in my car and I was having the race of my life. Didn't feel an ounce.

[B]

Didn't feel at all. Oh, my God, David.

[A]

The. The world was different back then.

[B]

Any hydration?

[A]

No hydration either. I just sent it. I sent it so well and then made a wrong turn and came back onto the course and my lights were out. Just physiologically, you know, I can't imagine. I don't know how Jess finished this race so well.

[B]

That's the thing is like oftentimes wrong turns I've seen in athletes, it causes like an adrenaline spike that then sometimes it. That you can like thrive off of that then. But I do feel like oftentimes it does cause this just like, you know, lights go out situation.

[A]

So it was a few miles from the finish. I got to finish in fifth or whatever and it was going to be my opportunity. Right. I was a nobody in North Carolina. I wasn't going to get another chance to do a national race. And you know, I don't think about it anymore. But at the time it was so traumatic. Like, so. Because it shows how much we care. Right? Like that's the idea. We care. You want to care. Even if, like no matter what it is, like there's athletes that didn't get the Boston qualifier last year at Atlanta Marathon because of the mismeasured course. They. That's the same feeling just without the money for them or for me. Actually a thousand dollars for me is probably similar back then. So. Yeah. Other thing. Actually one more note on that.

[B]

Yeah. I want to mention. Yeah.

[A]

Is a lot of the dumb fucks on the Internet.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

A lot of the morons are saying, like, oh, it's the athlete's responsibility to narrat of the course. Imagine you're dropped in a random city. And, you know, every city has thousands of roads, and a course has 30 turns. You're given no GPS and you're said, follow this. And hey, you can't trust the markings. And, hey, there's a vehicle telling you to go the wrong direction. Who would go any other direction?

[B]

And you're in zone four.

[A]

Yeah. Zone five. At that time, at the very end of the race, like, you know, she is maxed. Like, I have her heart rate data. It was, you know, as high as it could. Could be. And it's just the most. Like, I actually wonder, are people being intentionally trollish when they make those comments or.

[B]

No, I think they actually fundamentally misunderstand. Like, I could see if you are a trail runner and you've never done a road race before, maybe you've never raced at the top level, you've never followed.

[A]

It's also road racers and triathletes.

[B]

I mean, at that point, like, I feel like you've never been in the lead of a race.

[A]

Maybe. But couldn't they have enough empathy to understand?

[B]

I mean, this is the Internet, man.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess. I guess IQ follows the bell curve.

[B]

Yeah. Like, IQ follows rule 243.

[A]

Some people have 243 divided by 10 up there. And sometimes when that happens, it's not their fault.

[B]

It's just got to give compassion.

[A]

Just got to give compassion for everyone. And maybe they're all USATF officials. Hey, ushf, you make the right decision, I promise, no more jokes. But jokes aren't. Shouldn't be what you're worried about. Um, okay, Next up is an optimism study. Before we do that quick promo for Patreon. So much fun going down there. Patreon.com swap swap. Might talk about some of Jess's workouts before the half that made me realize she was ready to win, just because it gives you an idea of, oh, what are the hardest sessions that show you an athlete is, like, at the very top? Because a lot of these sessions are identical to the ones that are in our training plans.

[B]

Well, I was just gonna say that it's like, you know, we have training plans out there for beginner athletes, athletes and the range all the way up to athletes that are true, like, really, really going for it at the top pro level. And I feel like a lot of Jess's like training methodology of how you've used to bring her to this point are like captured within those training.

[A]

Yeah, the advanced marathon training plan. 12 week marathon plan. Basically. Jess McLean with some modifications, but mostly the same exact type of approach. Last week we did a beginner plan for 50k to 50 miles. And this is talking about beginner being like, I run one or two times per week, three times per week, but I'm not training. So like we even have those levels. But then everything else too, actually you

[B]

put that together and I thought it was a really cool use of training theory, how you structured that in terms of like the long run build of having athletes work into like moderate back to back long runs before stepping up into like quite big long runs.

[A]

And we're talking about starting at six miles for the first couple weeks for your long run. So for athletes, there's a lot of athletes listening that might be at that point, or maybe you're a cyclist that's like going to try to dabble in running. Maybe a really good option here to know that you could do an ultra. Like everybody can do an ultra. We talk about that all the time. And you'll learn so much about yourself and your body and like existence and it's a good place to start. So patreon.com swap and also at the $10 tier, we'll do heart rate zones and all of that. And as always, if you can't get it for free, let us know. And you got a spot.

[B]

What podcast number are we on Patreon? 186, I think.

[A]

Oh, yeah, it's something like that. It's in the 180s.

[B]

Yeah, there's 180 podcast episodes on there of varying lengths, varying vibes and discussion.

[A]

And those are all questions and training theory. And hey, if you want to know about the doctor's appointment, go check that one out.

[B]

We had a spicy one this week.

[A]

Vibes on that one. Okay, so let's go on to the optimism study. This one is from 2019. I don't know exactly how I came across it, but I saw it and I thought, huh, for episode 300, this might be an interesting way to get a little weird.

[B]

Yeah, I'm about to get a little weird and poke some holes. No, I know, I'm sorry, but this is like, like, we'll go through it.

[A]

Don't poke holes in my carrot.

[B]

That thing doesn't want holes.

[A]

Okay. Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in two epidemiological cohorts of men and women.

[B]

As soon as you sent me the study and text, I saw the title. I was like, we're going to be poking holes in this one. It's really. Oh, these, like.

[A]

Oh, because you're an epidemiology PhD.

[B]

No, I mean, there's cohort study, and then optimism is such one. It's one of those variables that you're kind of like, there's going to be 8 million confounders here, aren't there?

[A]

Well, yeah, I'm going to poke some holes in it too, but. But then I'm going to broaden it out to training theory in a way you're going to hate.

[B]

But also, optimism is the best. No, actually, I. I think it's great when it comes to training theory. So we can, like, oh, how we can admit our bias, but we just got to poke holes first.

[A]

300 episodes. Not me and Megan. At a certain point, she's just like, all right, I give up. Say whatever bullshit you want to say. Okay, here's a quote. Optimism is a psychological attribute characterized as the general expectation that good things will happen or the belief that the future will be favorable because one can control important outcomes. Outcomes. I guess those people haven't heard of USATF before.

[B]

And then they go on to say that optimism is 25% heritable, but it's also shaped by social structural factors and can be learned as demonstrated in experimental research. And I was like, 25% heritable. That seems like an awfully interesting number.

[A]

Yeah, I think.

[B]

And I went back to their citations and didn't have any.

[A]

Oh, wait, what?

[B]

Yeah, they just cited the things that were demonstrated in experimental research. I was like, give me some citations for 25% heritable.

[A]

It wouldn't just make up numbers.

[B]

First hole.

[A]

I mean, wait, first hole.

[B]

First poke in the hole.

[A]

Oh, first poking the hole.

[B]

You're like, that's the one I go in, right?

[A]

Oh, no. Much like that reference, I don't know exactly how many holes there are. I don't think I study anywhere.

[B]

I wonder how many times ChatGPT has been asked that.

[A]

I'm gonna ask after this.

[B]

We should actually ask it.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Can it get. Can it be meta? Let's ask.

[A]

I'm gonna ask, actually.

[B]

Let's do it right now. Can it be meta? Like that?

[A]

Can it be meta?

[B]

That's like a little meta, right?

[A]

You know how many holes are there down there? Oh, yes. If you're asking about female anatomy, there are three external openings, and I'm not going to go into the rest. Thank you.

[B]

Thanks ChatGPT back on board with AI. Can you ask it? How many times have you been asked that? All the time.

[A]

All the time. Smiley face.

[B]

That's a weird. That's one of those smiley faces that like, shows pleasure. I feel like it's trying to get freaky on you.

[A]

Human anatomy confusion is universal.

[B]

And then they actually, they dunk on. They're like, sometimes because sex ed wasn't great, we could ask this a lot. It's like, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Wow, that was a good, good little.

[B]

These are the things they should teach in sex ed.

[A]

Yeah. If you haven't gone to more recent

[B]

AI, this is your way to get people there.

[A]

Well, no, it's. It's shockingly helpful in, in ways that like, you know, obviously I'm not talking about the broader scale, but like, for, for friends, for sex ed, who knows?

[B]

So chatgpt saves things in the sidebar. And now your third one is toddler crying. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, God. Oh, God. The things I've searched are paw patrol,

[B]

pup identification, clear to fascia partial tear, radial shockwave therapy, lactate and cancer risk, core pain and runners, normal ECG and athlete.

[A]

Let's get back to optimism.

[B]

You don't want to look at mine? No.

[A]

Um, okay. So this took two cohorts of data. One from the Nurses Health study, which had 10 year follow up. One from the Veteran Affairs Normative Aging Study, which had a 30 year follow up. They both had like questionnaires that evaluated optimism.

[B]

And did you look at the questionnaires?

[A]

I did not.

[B]

These are like 10. So they used a life orientation test which they revised. And this is basically just like a 10 question survey that asks like people. I was gonna say athletes. It's like my default. But ask these people within the cohort to rank on a score of 0 to 4 how much they strongly disagree or agree with points. And I feel like mine would change, like, often based off of daily life experiences. Like, think about, like, it might change a lot based off of, like when I've had bicarb, when I've done a workout, how good my Strava title was Sex. Like any. How many holes like ChatGPT has answered, like, you know, I think you're just revealing that mine changes a lot.

[A]

You got that Katy Perry. You're hot, then you're cold, you're. Yes, then you're. No to the optimism questions.

[B]

No. I mean, I feel like, okay, here's the thing. I feel like at baseline I'm like in the 90th percentile of optimism. Take away running from Me, like, which happened last week. And this is topical. I feel like my optimism dropped to like the 60th percentile, maybe even the 40th.

[A]

You said 40th last time I talked to you about this.

[B]

Maybe the 80th. It's higher now. In retrospect.

[A]

Here's the thing. Anytime you say here's the thing, I know the craziest things about to come out of your mouth.

[B]

You're like, bitch, be crazy.

[A]

Know something that we should definitely record and ask ChatGPT about is coming. No, I, I, I totally validate where you're coming from.

[B]

So people are taking this at a single time point and it's like, that depends on so many things. Like 10 questions. Like, so subjective.

[A]

But you have a very large cohort. You average it out and you cannot invalidate qualitative research design that is often shaped like this based on uncertainty in individual data points.

[B]

No, agreed. Yes.

[A]

We're not talking about individual optimism being the determinant factor. We're saying that when you average it across the population, you're probably seeing some trends.

[B]

Agreed. I just want, like, maybe we can have some stronger optimism measures.

[A]

You want some, like, like brain scan?

[B]

No, I don't. I just want some more surveys given at more time points to define optimism.

[A]

You're still going to run into the same survey problem.

[B]

I know you still are, but it's going to be slightly better. But it's just all to say that, like, optimism is like, how much has your optimism varied?

[A]

I mean, I hope not too much. I mean, I, I, I mean, okay,

[B]

go back to Western States episode.

[A]

I mean, even at that point, though, like, it's a way of viewing the world, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Through, through, through terrible times. Like, that's the whole point of optimism. And even if you look at like, how this affects people, you're not saying these people have good lives, I don't think. No, you're saying these people have some sort of, like, view of the world because anything else is really fucking sad, right? Because, like, we all are dying. Like, I talk about this shit all the I talk about. What do I talk about all the time?

[B]

The abyss.

[A]

The abyss.

[B]

I knew it.

[A]

Sixteen years old, married couple.

[B]

And it's because, like, the abyss gives you optimism. You're like, we're all going to the abyss, so why not be optimistic?

[A]

I think genetically I probably trend towards depression and anxiety more than most. Right. Like, you know, it's what runs in my family, like the entire family. And like, I get it. Like, I felt it, it and so it's not something of like, oh, you know, I would answer this. Well all the time. Maybe it's more. I want to answer it one way. And eventually what you want becomes a little bit more of who you are.

[B]

Yeah, man, but what I want and who I am are two fundamental differences. I would have been pretty low on this last week.

[A]

You want to want to win on my. That's for our millennial listeners. Okay, so excessional longevity in the study was defined as 85 years or older. And the primary analyses did lots of different statistical, like, rigmarole. I feel 100% confident with some of their statistical like approaches because they were kind of complicated.

[B]

Okay. What I didn't feel confident was, so they adjusted. Obviously, you can think of a lot of different confounding variables that relate to one's optimism. Like, you think about baseline health, you think about mental health, you think about socioeconomic status, a lot of different things. They adjusted for a lot of these. But the problem was when they adjusted for a lot of these, it became significantly attenuated how optimism related to longevity. And my point is, like, there's probably just other confounders we're missing if we're seeing that attenuation.

[A]

Absolutely. Definitely confounders. We're probably seeing some association, though. Unless the researchers themselves were insanely biased.

[B]

No. And we probably are seeing some association. I'm just like, you know, these are all wishy. These are things that are hard to measure and relate to a lot of other things.

[A]

I think that's three holes. I think we can stop there. I think we can stop there.

[B]

There's like the three body problem and it's like, no, there's a three hole problem.

[A]

Okay, so the results here, there was a dose dependent relationship between optimism and exceptional longevity for women. A 14.9% or sent longer lifespan was found in the highest quartile of optimism versus the lowest quartile. So not even outliers, just like high quartiles. Um, and then the highest optimism levels had 1.5 times and 1.7 times greater odds of surviving to 85. So that was women and men. So pretty substantial. And now, like, obviously you've already poked the holes. We understand. And I think the. The whole I want to poke is that obviously someone that tends towards optimism later in life, this probably isn't a choice. This is probably informed by your life circumstances.

[B]

And even just how you feel on a cellular level, which also probably informs

[A]

chronic pain, would obviously affect this. Right. If you have chronic pain, you can't really, you know, there's no choice being made. Life's just hard. And so those are all noted. Um, but maybe there is a little bit of causality mixed with correlation, even if it's 1%. And so that brings to the broader point of, like, well, if optimism is just deciding, like, I see all the terrible shit and want to see a little bit more good in it, maybe it's worth it. And it's because, like, and I do

[B]

think it's worth it. That's the thing. This is my bias is I'm done poking holes at this point. We'll move on. Is I actually totally agree. And I think, like, whatever your set point is, if you can move that and nudge that even just the slightest bit, like, yeah, feel your feelings, things like there are times of grief. I was not optimistic at all last week. And, like, I'm like, slowly rallying the horses to get on back, and that is, like, so valuable.

[A]

Yeah. And, you know, it all is just so colored by your experiences. Right. And that's one reason that I feel so much compassion for people as they go through life, because I go back to my own experiences and my dad is the most optimistic human I've ever met. About me.

[B]

Yeah, it's actually kind of wild and about, like, every.

[A]

Everyone.

[B]

Well, when I like, like, think about race performances, I'm kind of like, what would grandpa think? And grandpa would think he believed in this the whole time.

[A]

Oh, no, Grandpa, when Anna had the Olympics, he's just like, David, you know, one, he said some nice stuff about Anna. But then, David, I'm so proud of you. This is the best thing I've ever seen. I can't believe it. I'm so, like, hyped. Like, you're the best coach in the world. Like my dad saying that, right? And I lived with that my entire life, which is why I set the record at Leadville. Because, you know, he believe, like, optimism and belief are so interlinked because you cannot believe without being slightly optimistic about an uncertain future. Like, and because belief is so obvious in sports, optimism probably should be too. And a lot of athletes don't let themselves experience it.

[B]

But I also think surround yourself with people who are optimistic and who hold that belief too, because it's like, you know, that, I think was fundamental in your upbringing. I think as parents, it's like, you know, we toe that line between talking about emotions and feelings, but also being incredibly optimistic and holding that belief. But I think that can be like, a partner too, or a friend or whoever. It is like there's been times that you've held, held optimism for me in times that I can't. And like that happens a lot. And it's so helpful. Even if, like I only believe it 1%. Like that goes a long ways.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you listen to the Patreon episode for how much Megan liked my optimism last week. No, no, we don't need to get into it.

[B]

We don't need to get to it. It was, it was, that was a

[A]

couple moments, basically how her, our dirty talk involved. Like, you can do the Coco Donut

[B]

250, you can do the Triple Crown of 200. And I was like, we just needed hope last week.

[A]

It was a very hard week in our house. And so, you know, longer term, are there any big conclusions? I think a lot of this probably does just tend toward your upbringing, but we can.

[B]

Which then, if you think about it, I think upbringing actually determines a lot that's related to longevity, including like, you know, socioeconomic status and all of these different things. And so thus it's all confounded.

[A]

But you come from an optimistic lineage, essentially. Maybe you're coming from people that are not dealing with health issues as much. So essentially you're just seeing like health or mental health, like as confounders here.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And that we're not measuring, but okay. In athletics, even independent of this, I think it matters so much how you feel about yourself to determine how you adapt to the training. And so this isn't a purely mental thing. This is a way that the body will translate chemical signals from the endocrine system. And then just the other week we talked about out a mouse study that found adaptation happens within the brain. So if you turn off certain brain receptors, you're going to lose the adaptive response. Um, so maybe we can influence that just a little bit. And if that's influenced just a little bit, maybe you'll be helped. And in very, very specific way, if you're doing that five by three minute hill workout I talked about with Jess, maybe if she's optimistic about herself and believes in herself a little bit more, she gets one second further. And what one second is, you know, under 2% or under 0.2%. And but at that level, you stack up enough 0.1 percents and eventually you have what separates, you know, winning from finishing sixth or for all of us, like over a long term you might totally rethink what you're capable of. And it's all coming from your psychological approach to yourself that like the compassion to Say I'm hopeful for a good tomorrow, and I'm going to assume that I'm doing good now.

[B]

And I think that all translates in how you walk to the starting line, like, how you carry yourself, the confidence that you have to go for it. And it's like. I think it's like. It's like kind of the butterfly effect of, like, everything stacking from those little points, and I think it translates. Yeah.

[A]

But also, sometimes shit sucks, and, yeah, we're all gonna die.

[B]

Sometimes you go out into the world and just rage your feelings.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Actually, last week I was in Whole Foods and just, you know, having a rough week. I've been crying, and a guy was like. Like, he saw me wearing ultrafly twos, which are bright orange. And I feel like whenever I wear Ultrafly 2, someone's like, are you a pro athlete? Something about the shoes. I feel like looks very pro. And a feed hat. He's like, are you a pro athlete? And I was like, yes. I'm also buying a slice of pizza right now and a comfort stuff frog.

[A]

You did buy a comfort stuff frog for myself.

[B]

Yeah. Sometimes you need that tlc. So. Yeah, sometimes you buy your stuffed frogs and move on.

[A]

So much love for y'. All. Hey, if you want love, message us too, and we'll be optimistic on your behalf.

[B]

Maybe we'll buy you a stuff frog.

[A]

Yeah. Because sometimes. Yeah. Looking at the news is hard. So I have one more message I want to deliver to all of our listeners on this, and you're actually going to be the one that delivers it.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So I want you to read the.

[B]

So, Megan, I knew something good was coming.

[A]

So on the. The, like, tabs of my computer, I'm on the podcast tab now, but on the other one it has.

[B]

Which is the only one you have.

[A]

Open my chatgpt tab. So, Megan, what's the message to all of our listeners? Just read it it. And read it dramatically.

[B]

This is what it says. Anatomy hole count.

[A]

Anatomy hole count.

[B]

Remember that tap hanging out on David's computer? It could be worse.

[A]

Okay, on to Q and A. Anything to talk about before we get there?

[B]

No, that was fun.

[A]

I think we're good.

[B]

Yeah. How many Q and A's are we gonna get to?

[A]

No, it's already one. It's late in the podcast. Yeah, let's just move on.

[B]

We're gonna move on.

[A]

No, I think we just go to listener corner.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

What do you think? Or do we read, like, a couple?

[B]

Let's do. Let's do two.

[A]

Let's do Random ones.

[B]

Okay, these are ones. Actually, these are ones I haven't read, so this is great. You can just surprise me.

[A]

Hot take. The introduction of the quote gravel or quote road to trail shoe category will lead to the trail shoe innovation you want to see. I think opening this new market for shoes will give some shoemakers the confidence to introduce true super shoes to the trail world. They can take a good road super shoe, swap the outsole to something with a bit more grip, and sell it as a gravel shoe. The customer base that is looking for the heavy, overbuilt shoes will avoid it and the company will avoid the criticism. It's not that it's not a real trail shoe. Basically, this new category will open space for innovation that might be currently stuck, stifled by the consumer and manufacturer precedent that trail shoes must be able to handle all of the gnarliest trails in the worst conditions.

[B]

I actually agree with this hot take.

[A]

That's a great one.

[B]

You know, I think the best trail shoe on gravel roads right now is the alphafly. And I don't think. I actually don't even know if we need trail shoes, like gravel shoes beyond alphafly and like the current super shoes we have out there. But, like, if someone tried to do it, I think that would be great because it's like, just put a little lug in the alpha fly, make it a little bit more stable, and we got a great troll shoe.

[A]

This gives me so much hope.

[B]

Yeah, it really does.

[A]

This gives me so much hope.

[B]

Do you think gravel running is going to be a thing?

[A]

Well, no, I don't. I think it's very strange that it's becoming a term.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, just take any road marathoner and they'd instantly be the best on gravel running. I'm a little confused by it.

[A]

And also just the idea. It's like, this is just running that

[B]

we're talking about, just on gravel roads. Actually. It's funny as I'm thinking about this, I basically never run on a road road, but I was like, we're surrounded by gravel roads where we are. And I'm just like, that's just like my normal road running.

[A]

I respect it, though, because I feel like this is if you want a manifestation of what capitalism looks like.

[B]

Yeah, it's creating problems.

[A]

It's creating a new category just for the sake of, like, like, I don't know, bamboozling people into buying a few more shoes. And that being said, the shoes that they're creating I think will be great on the worst trails possible.

[B]

Agreed. But I Feel like we've always had this. Like there have been shoes. Like if like the Pegasus was this for Nike and there was a Hoko equivalent of what was the HOKA equivalent that was like the road to trail shoe or trail to road shoe.

[A]

Like the atr. The Challenger atr.

[B]

The Challenger atr. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we've had shoes that have like tried to approximate this, but like haven't really done it.

[A]

Yeah, it's because we're not sending our best and brightest. Just kidding. I mean they're, you know, I, I think the trail shoe world just, it's getting better and better, but it needs so much more improvement. Just give. Look at the road shoes. They're so good. Why can't we make anything like that? Makes me sad.

[B]

Yeah, agreed, Agreed.

[A]

So love this hot take and gives us hope for the future. Uh, last one night bicarb question for you. What have you heard about taking bicarb the night before? The gossip in town, I don't know which town this is. Is that Connor Mance and Nils Vanderpoel do that when they train or race first thing in the morning. Does that track from a scientific standpoint.

[B]

Ooh, bicarb at night. Sounds like it's scandalous, huh? So, no, they used to do this actually. So back before, like, you know, Martin was able to deliver bicarb in a way that bypassed like, like causing GI GI assist. They actually used to do like 24 hour bicarb loads because you could like microdose it and have it like stack up in the body without necessarily having some of the GI ramifications of taking it right before. And so I wonder if this is kind of like antiquated in the sense that like. Yeah, you know, they're thinking about old methodology before bicarb cost. It just doesn't make sense.

[A]

When are you not waking up? 90 minutes before your race?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I guess they're saying maybe they need more time. I don't understand this. Maybe we're missing the point.

[B]

Maybe they're taking it the night of. In the morning before. Who knows?

[A]

Yeah, maybe they're just taking bicarb all the time. I don't know. I don't know. Or maybe they are taking it for other things.

[B]

Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah, that would. I actually, I think there's some association there.

[A]

You think so?

[B]

Yeah, I think, I think there's. I actually think there's a stronger association between. I've said this before. Of like know me or than bicarb.

[A]

Meghan, talk about confounders. You're just saying.

[B]

I know, I know. I'm the ultimate confounder.

[A]

If something makes you feel good, I've

[B]

already had a good.

[A]

There's more association with other things. Hey, another reason that all the science we talk about, about making yourself feel better.

[B]

Yeah, it's good. It applies to light.

[A]

It applies to everything. But should you take bicarbonate? Probably not. Jury's out. Though. I will research more as we hear more, but I can't see a reason.

[B]

Yeah, I can't either. Besides just like adopting antiquated. Good advice for when we didn't have this tech.

[A]

Yeah. And that's actually another thing I think people always assume is that the pros know exactly what they're doing.

[B]

Actually, there's so many pros out there that are not taking bicarb and I'm like, what are you doing?

[A]

Yeah. Especially in running. In cycling, they have people that do know what they're talking about, advising them.

[B]

Well, I feel like cycling is so team based and there's so much scientific protocol within teams that I'm actually like, tell us what you're doing.

[A]

But running, there's so much room for progress because basically a lot of the science stuff is slow adoption, which is great. I mean, it's a huge advantage when you're slightly ahead of the curve. And we know some curves that might be coming, but we can't talk about them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I just. I'm teasing. The. This is the biggest tease in the world.

[B]

Are you allowed to do that?

[A]

Yeah, you can t. You can say something that gives zero detail.

[B]

Yeah. Well, sport.

[A]

Just wait. Things are about to change a lot in very cool ways. Maybe. Or maybe not. We'll see.

[B]

It kind of makes me scared, though, about, like, a paid sport and thinking about, like, starting to add up, like bicarb and Gnomeo and super shoes and all these different things that are coming into, like, endurance sports. And it makes me a little scared. Yeah. Am I just being a little piece of shit?

[A]

No, I mean, I get it. I think there is an initial period where things are overpriced, which is one reason that we advise for cutting your bicarb and doing all these other things to get some of the benefit without as much of the cost. Same goes for gels. Right? Like, I think a gel is going to come in the market that undercuts things much better than the current system. Um, but most of this stuff will be democratized over time, and I don't think there's ever such a big advantage Outside of the shoes, that it matters at the initially, you know, and that's why the shoes were such a revelation, is when they first came out, only some athletes had them. And now the tech is basically, you know, expanded everywhere. And the shoes aren't that much more pricey than everyone else.

[B]

And we talked about them last week. Like, super shoes are for everyone, too.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, you want to go into listener corner?

[B]

Let's do it. But first, Janji. Janji, did you see that the spring collection? Dropped?

[A]

Dropped.

[B]

It is so good.

[A]

They should probably pick it back up.

[B]

It's like me dropping gels. It has landed. Is that better?

[A]

No. Drop is actually the correct term. I'm just being an asshole. J a n j I.com there. Join their John G. Collective. Tell them we sent you whatever you want to do. I don't think it really matters.

[B]

Tell them how cute the spring colors are.

[A]

Yeah. And there's huge discounts when you sign up for their stuff. Like 15 to 20%.

[B]

The Janji Collective. Okay, but did you see the colors of the sports brawls?

[A]

No, what colors?

[B]

Okay, we'll do this on live air right now. It's pink and blue. They even have a coral color. That is a design.

[A]

Oh, John. I like that. John G. 26 refresh. You should go to their website. Just check it out.

[B]

Spring refresh. Well, I went there and things sell out.

[A]

Oh, I love these colors. Oh, my goodness.

[B]

This is the first time David has commented on colors. I'm going to be wearing those.

[A]

Oh, my goodness gracious. Man.

[B]

The pink, the blue.

[A]

That looks like a.

[B]

The coral hostage photo. What?

[A]

Look at her.

[B]

She is so happy to be in that long bra.

[A]

Why didn't she. She should be so happy. The colors are great.

[B]

I'm. Well, I am happy on that long bra. Okay. Those colors are amazing.

[A]

Yeah. No, the. I really like what they're doing with spring.

[B]

Yeah. Did you.

[A]

Well, can you go to the men's, see if there. See if there's anything you haven't.

[B]

I look at this all the time.

[A]

I should do it more often.

[B]

Oh, I look at it all the time for you. You see the men's colors.

[A]

You're on women's still as the filter. I think Megan's computer just has it permanently on women's. And you're doing it again. Just go to all men's. Just go to all men's.

[B]

It's coming. It's coming.

[A]

Okay. You did it.

[B]

I did it. I told you it was my computer's fault.

[A]

Beast. Okay. I like the Earthy tones.

[B]

Oh, I like the blue pink shorts.

[A]

Oh, my goodness. I look like a salmon heading up string to lay my eggs and die.

[B]

I have a pair of salmon pants.

[A]

And I'm like, I've made that joke before.

[B]

You made that joke like eight times. And I'm like, these are sexy pants. I'm not a salmon going upstream to die.

[A]

Thomas, the first time I made that

[B]

joke, you laughed so hard time, I was like, I like these pants.

[A]

I love hands.

[B]

You look great. Telling you that.

[A]

You look so good in them. So go to john.com j.

[B]

Look at that muscle tank. The run all day tank. I like that.

[A]

Oh, it all looks incredible. Oh, I like the wildflowers.

[B]

The wildflower is the one I got. That one sells out fast. So go get it now.

[A]

Okay, go back to our outline because we have a listener corner here. And here it is. Hello, David and Megan. I contacted you guys a couple of years ago now to help my on how to help myself and my team and have more fun in the process. So I think this was a college runner. As my college career comes to an end soon, I wanted to write to you guys and tell you how thankful I am. Um, listening to your podcast and reading your book has changed my life. I found so much joy in the process. Oh, my gosh. Reading our book should not. But actually it's the same ideas of basically the optimism discussion. You know, it's every runner has the same finish line. Death. How do you deal with that? Okay. Your book reminded me that the times I run aren't that deep and I'm enough no matter how fast I run. You guys helped me get through the first semester of school when things were really hard. Um, I didn't want to continue running, but every week I had a reminder to dream big and shoot my shot with love and kindness. Um, I went on to have the best season of my life. Not only have you changed my outlook on racing, in the process, you have changed how I look at training. Um, not gonna read that part.

[B]

I'm gonna read that part. That's. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I need to read that part. That is so funny. This is fully anonymous.

[A]

I don't know, Megan.

[B]

It's fully anonymous.

[A]

No, no, don't do it. Don't do it. It's not worth it.

[B]

Okay. They call their coach some kind of word. Yeah, it was very funny.

[A]

But we have.

[B]

We do uplift all coaches except for this doo doo head coach. I just like that some coaches out there are doo doo heads.

[A]

But Some athletes think we're doo doo heads.

[B]

I mean, we are doo doo heads.

[A]

That's true. We're all doo doo heads.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How can you make it? How can you get out Air freshener. That's the big question of the podcast. Um, okay. Blah, blah, blah. I'm trying not to read anything that could be slightly identifying here. I'm so excited to graduate. Use your training plans, experiment, and learn. Thank you so much for being yourselves. I probably would be graduating like a lot of my teammates, with all my joy for running gone and never wanting to do it again. If not for you.

[B]

You de identified that so hard.

[A]

I very much value someone opening up their soul to us.

[B]

Yeah, we can't identify this mystery dude,

[A]

but these messages mean so much.

[B]

Oh, it means so much. But also, like, man, I'm really glad you read this message because college running is such a hard time, and I think, like, you know, being able to find. Find some light and some optimism and keeping health and speed at the forefront and carbs, please. Every college team. I wish I could just give a presentation and start with a giant piece of bread and be like, eat this every single day. But being in college, it's like, my heart just goes out to you because those programs and teams can be so tricky. Yeah.

[A]

And I think the hardest part might be that you're in a system, in a setup that is just so inherently objectively competitive that it's really hard to, like, separate your own value, your personal value from your, like, competitive value, which is being told to you all the time in these various systems. And with running, like, our whole mission statement is to just constantly be on that mission, that your personal value is inherent to you, no matter what. Right. Like, yes, I joked about shitposting earlier, but, like, hopefully those people would know that I would say to them, I love you, you know, and I was trying to be public with my support here that I thought was important if you're trying to, you know, comment like this on a public post, because I don't want people to think that there's any sort of disagreement. But, you know, your. Your value is so inherent to you, and that goes beyond, like, anything you do and especially any mistake you might make. And so, you know, as we. We open this talking about a lot of mistakes, and that makes us uncomfortable. And, like, to everybody out there who is involved in this, like, like, we love you too. You know, it's. It's totally hard to make these decisions. And all we're asking with our USATF thing, for example, is Just that there's accountability at the very top. Top, because you know, that's a place that affects so many more people in their long term mental health. But short of that, dude, just have fun. Money doesn't matter that much, but it can help you find a little bit more of that value that already exists within you.

[B]

And if you're looking for the light at the college under the tunnel, trails can do that. Like for me, I only ran for a year and a half in college and by the end of the year and a half I was like, get me out of here. And like quickly found my way to trails and it was just such a, like rebirth of, of running and what it means and just like being out in nature and it was the best.

[A]

Yeah, that's a really good point. And it brings up a thought that I had, which is anatomy whole counts in nature. In nature sometimes there are those trees.

[B]

I know. Yeah. That you're like, uh huh. They definitely got three.

[A]

It's like.

[B]

Or a plus one. You don't know.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, yeah, maybe.

[B]

Maybe the ascent trees, when they're yellow and looking real good, they're not wearing salmon pants. Pants.

[A]

Depends how many. How much bicarb I've had. Okay. We love you all.