301. What To Do Pre-Race, How Metabolism Works For Athletes, Training Races, Colon Health for Runners, and a Great US Half Marathon Update!

Summary

Some Work, All Play – Episode 301 Summary

Episode Title: What To Do Pre-Race, How Metabolism Works For Athletes, Training Races, Colon Health for Runners, and a Great US Half Marathon Update!
Hosts: David Roche and Megan Roche, M.D.
Date: March 10, 2026

Episode Overview

This packed and emotionally rich episode covers a sweeping range of topics for athletes—especially runners—including the science and practicalities of pre-race sessions, cutting-edge research on athlete metabolism and fueling, the benefits and psychology of training races, health issues unique to runners (from hot tubs to colonoscopies), and an inspiring update following the controversial USATF Half Marathon Championships. The hosts continue their signature mix of warmth, humor, vulnerability, and deep science to uplift and empower every listener, athlete or not.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Hot Tubs, Heat Training, and Athlete Safety

• David recounts experimental strategies for hotter hot tubs and the safety risks involved (00:51–04:41).
  • They humorously discuss neck floaties and hot tub science, urging listeners not to "try this at home."
  • Notable Quote:
    “Don’t do this. Please don’t, please don’t. ... There’s a reason that it’s capped at 104 [°F].” —David (01:50)
  • Hot water immersion studies (including one from Spain) suggest hot water post-muscle injury aids recovery (02:54–03:20).

2. Uphill Treadmill Workouts and Neuromuscular Adaptation

• David describes faster-than-expected running economy gains after a challenging uphill treadmill workout (06:06–08:34).
• Megan points out the importance of stimulating the neuromuscular system and how bike training may cross-prime the body for running.
• Insight:
  Short, hard stimuli (like uphill treadmill intervals) can “flip physiological switches” with rapid adaptation, more so than standard theories suggest.
• Notable Quote:
  “The nervous system can be a one-day adaptation. ... We view the body as a black box that stops at the brain and I think there’s connections ... that might have relevance for pre-race sessions.” —David (07:13–08:09)

3. Canyons 100K, Athlete Health, and Identity

• Megan reveals ongoing heart issues (pericarditis) mean likely skipping Canyons despite being as fit as ever (11:10–15:12).
  • The emotional toll is explored candidly, including how hope and identity intertwine with health and sport.
• Notable Quotes:
  “...probably not being able to do Canyons at this point. It just doesn’t make sense. It feels like my heart is linked to training and racing...” —Megan (12:13)
  “My heart stuff came back ... and it was just such a hard context. I think, quite frankly, I’m the fittest I’ve ever been.” —Megan (11:23)
  • David plans to attempt a challenging comeback and is deeply moved by Megan’s resilience.

4. USATF Half Marathon Championships – Resolution & Athlete Advocacy

• Celebrates the positive resolution after runners were led off-course:
  • Second podium awarded, affected athletes (like Jess McLean) recognized, and the likelihood of world’s team selection is high (22:52–26:28).
• Advocacy & Protest:
  • David and Megan discuss the necessity of raising voices for athlete justice (“the ruckus is the thing that causes the legal change”) (25:14).
• Communication Critique:
  • USATF’s communication style described as overly formal and lacking in celebration (27:11–28:30).
• Notable Quote:
  “...the only way people have a voice in systems is to scream from the rooftops, is to cause a ruckus. ... the legal change doesn’t just happen naturally.” —David (25:14)

5. Participation Trophies, Race Outcomes, and the Value of Effort

• Discussion on participation awards and running event modifications (30:34–36:38).
  • The hosts champion celebrating effort over outcome and dismantle the myth that “participation trophies” create weaker athletes.
• Notable Quote:
  “Being told you are enough no matter what makes you a stronger and more resilient person.” —David (34:05)
• Psychology Angle:
  Megan wonders if finish-line flexibility (medals at mile 18 in a marathon) helps more people complete tough events (35:02–35:24).

6. Pre-Race Sessions: Do Hard Efforts Help?

• Draws from cycling and running tradition (38:33–41:45)
  • Cyclists often do sprints/hard efforts day before, which may help runners too (track/road, and possibly ultras).
  • Typical Protocol Suggested: 4–6 x 20–30s hard hill strides pre-race.
  • Individualization is key—responses can vary.
• Notable Quotes:
  “This is just a vote for doing your 4–6 by 20–30 second strides the day before race. I like them on uphills ... just because it’s lower injury risk.” —David (41:26)
  “It matches cycling and track racing ... the faster ultras get, the more we’re going to be pushing in that direction.” —Megan (41:26–41:45)

7. The Science of Athlete Metabolism: "Constrained Energy Expenditure"

• Discussion of Herman Pontzer’s model:
  • For every 100 calories burned, less than 100 may need replacing; body adapts (46:42–49:06).
  • Chronic underfueling (Low Energy Availability/LEA) causes metabolic compensation and health risks (downregulated hormones, reduced basal metabolic rate, etc.).
• Research Nuance:
  • Within-day energy deficits are especially harmful, not just net daily intake (52:37–54:07).
  • Short-term studies show measurable negative metabolic/hormonal effects within days (59:14–61:32).
• Practical Takeaway:
  • Even short bouts of underfueling can have acute negative effects; “fuel the fire” is both figurative and literal.
• Notable Quote:
  “If you underfuel your energy expenditure ... your body just starts downregulating, turning down the fire, the thermostat goes down. And when the thermostat goes down, bad things are waiting on the other end.” —David (53:52)
• Biomarkers for RED-S:
  • Free T3, estradiol, testosterone, insulin, IGF1, with supporting bloodwork for monitoring (57:18–57:32).

8. Colon Health in Runners

• Listener shares how the podcast inspired them to get a colonoscopy, leading to important proactive health outcomes (67:42–69:03).
• Advice: If experiencing symptoms like blood in stool or persistent GI issues, don’t assume it’s “normal runner stuff”—see a doctor.
• Notable Moment:
  Hosts discuss the reluctance and logistics of getting proper screening and urge others to act early if there are red flags (69:03–71:00).

9. Training Races—How to Use Them

• Should you double up? (72:24–73:50)
  • Guidance: Pick one to “race hard,” not both; don't dilute the training effect.
  • Stage races can help with pre-race nerves but serve a different purpose than prep races.

10. Outdoor Risks: Ticks, Poison Ivy, and Anxiety

• Listener asks about mitigating risks of ticks and poison ivy (77:27–78:11):
  • Light layers, prompt showering, and tick checks advised—but also, don’t let anxiety take over.
  • Broader insight into how childhood experiences and baseline genetics shape risk perception and behaviors outdoors (78:31–88:47).
• Parenting/Upbringing Reflection:
  Megan and David discuss how their differing anxieties affect their parenting styles and children's experiences with risk (83:53–86:48).

11. Listener Corner: Fueling, Failure, and Compassion—Messages for Young Athletes

• Message from a high school runner who’s thriving on better fueling and learning from the podcast to embrace “failure” and support their peers (92:22–93:20).
• Advice for Young Athletes:
  • Value the journey and the team, not just results.
  • Let effort, self-compassion, and authenticity guide you (93:28–96:49).
• Notable Quotes:
  “Everything at the moment felt so self-important. ... But when you take steps back, … having friends at track meets and so many things surrounding it … is what I remember most.” —Megan (93:43–94:16)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “[Hot water immersion] got all the way to 42C … The hot water group had less indicators of muscle damage afterward and higher rates of healing …” —David (02:54)
• “You gotta probe the dumb bitch limits.” —David (10:44)
• “The ruckus is the thing that causes the legal change on the other end. The legal change doesn’t just happen naturally.” —David (25:14)
• “Being told you are enough no matter what makes you a stronger and more resilient person.” —David (34:05)
• “The nervous system can be a one day adaptation … there’s connections there that we need to be thinking about all the time that might have relevance for the pre-race session discussion we’re going to get to.” —David (07:13–08:09)
• “If people are softer now, it’s because there is a coddling outside of that that … is not because people are told that they are enough.” —David (34:05)
• “If you underfuel … your body just starts downregulating, turning down the fire, the thermostat goes down. And when the thermostat goes down, bad things are waiting…” —David (53:52)
• “Take it so seriously that you’re going to grow from it, because if you don’t, … it’s no different than every other day.” —David (73:01)

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Notable Timestamps for Segments

| Segment | Timestamp (MM:SS) | |------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------| | Hot tubs/heat training anecdotes and research | 00:51–04:41 | | Strange workout responses, neuromuscular adaptation | 06:06–10:33 | | Canyons 100K and Megan’s heart health | 11:03–17:33 | | USATF Half Marathon update and advocacy | 22:52–28:56 | | Participation trophies, race psychology | 30:34–36:38 | | Pre-race sessions and hard efforts | 38:33–41:26, 45:01–45:45 | | Constrained metabolism, fueling, and RED-S research | 46:42–53:52 | | Colon health and runners | 67:42–71:00 | | Training races and using them effectively | 72:24–74:17 | | Outdoor risks (ticks, poison ivy, anxiety, parenting) | 77:27–88:47 | | Listener corner, advice for high schoolers | 92:22–96:49 |

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

• Tone: Warm, nerdy, relatable, at times hilarious, at times profoundly moving, deeply honest and compassionate.
• Key Takeaways:
  • Respect your limits, physically and emotionally; “probe the dumb bitch limits” with knowledge and compassion.
  • Fueling well is foundational for performance and long-term health; underfueling is more dangerous and complex than most assume.
  • Pre-race neuromuscular activation may offer real, immediate benefits—experiment and individualize.
  • Celebrate every finish, every attempt; show up for yourself and each other, regardless of outcome.
  • Athlete advocacy matters—change requires courage and collective voice.
  • Listen to your body and don't ignore atypical symptoms—health comes first.
  • Let love, hope, and humor carry you through setbacks and uncertainty.

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Closing Thoughts

In this episode, David and Megan reaffirm that science, sport, and health are rarely linear, but together—with compassion, curiosity, and boldness—athletes (and everyone) can navigate setbacks, advocate for fairness, fuel the fire, and savor the journey.

Transcript

[A]

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

[B]

Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday and we're getting our floaties on. On this Tuesday. Do you know what that's referring to?

[A]

Oh my gosh. I know very, very well.

[B]

I saw your Amazon Prime. You were looking at those kids donut shaped floaties and then I did the math and I was like, I know where this is going.

[A]

Okay. Not only is it kids floaties, it's kids neck floaties that you put around your neck so that theoretically if I pass out in the hot tub, my head won't go underwater.

[B]

Do you think the floatie is strong enough because you've got like a 99th percentile head. Your head barely. And hats or bucket hats. Do you think it's going to overpower the floaty?

[A]

I think it's going to go around my neck. So unless my neck is also that size and I feel like kids sometimes have quite large necks. So I'm probably a 99th percentile. Two year old is very similar to me when it comes to neck size.

[B]

True. But I feel like we need to run some tests on this first before we truly put it into action.

[A]

I don't think I should trust. I think my general plan should be not to pass out in the hot tub. But where this comes from is last week on the Patreon bonus episode we were talking about a method we used to to get our hot tub hotter. So hot tubs in the US at least are capped at 104 degrees Fahrenheit or 40 degrees Celsius. And we have seen in the research that often they go up to 41 or 42. And because we're so research driven and because I like my hot tub time, we've been on a quest to figure out different methods to do this. I initially brought bought something where you would just submerge it in the hot tub and get it hotter. And heard from a number of listeners. Don't do that. That sometimes electrocutes horses.

[B]

Yeah. And you did not electrocute yourself in this process.

[A]

No.

[B]

I'm impressed.

[A]

Theoretically a safe way to do it. We're not going to talk about how probably not our place. And so I've been using it. It seems to work very well.

[B]

It's about 4 degrees hotter. So that's kind of interesting. So it's set at 104, but truly it's 108.

[A]

But I don't let it get that hot. To be clear, it's just putting It a little bit over the temperature.

[B]

So you're at 107.

[A]

No, no.

[B]

Do you know, do you even have

[A]

a. I'm trying to be vague. We got to be safe with this. No one, no one out there do this. You might die. Like, please. There's a reason that it's capped at 104, but you know, to go along with the research. You want to do this. But as I thought about it, I'm like, well, in all those research studies, people aren't doing this at home. They're doing it with researchers next to them with a number of different safety mechanisms.

[B]

They have fans on them, they have cooling devices. Yeah. Which makes it a lot easier, actually.

[A]

I monitor my heart rate and I'm being safe, but you never know. And that would be the most tragic and honestly deserved method to go out would be just passing out in the hot tub while I'm trying to do a dumb version of heat training.

[B]

Well, I was just going to devote computer time to being outside and sitting next to you. It's working alongside you. But it's been cold here, so I would have to do that in the snow in a puffy coat and I feel like that's just not entirely realistic.

[A]

So neck floaties are where it's at. That's, that's my solution. And interestingly this morning, while we were searching, another study we're going to talk about happened to find a study I hadn't heard that was trying to simulate injuries in athletes so it would essentially electrocute their muscles.

[B]

Kind of cool, actually. I wonder what the IRB was the athlete signed to be like, we're just going to simulate injury in you.

[A]

I think this study was done in Spain, so I don't think it was a US based study. Maybe slightly different protocols. And they after that did water immersion and cold temperatures, room temperature and hot water immersion. Hot water immersion got all the way to 42C, so quite hot. And the hot water immersion group had less indicators of muscle damage afterward and higher rates of healing in the way the study was looking at it. And that's not the details of the study.

[B]

But you're like, I'm going to put this on the aftermath form. You're like, there was a reason behind this. So.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. On the tombstone it will said for science.

[B]

Not putting on a life insurance though. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, gosh, maybe we shouldn't have talked about that. Don't do this. Please don't, please don't. It's it. I'm trying to be as safe as I possibly can. But, you know, as I was searching for the studies, interestingly, an article I wrote in 2020 came up that said science says take hot baths. So I've always been ahead of the science. Megan.

[B]

Yeah. You're gonna have to put some citations on that grave. It's gonna be like poor science. 14, comma, 15. Look at these two studies. Maybe, though, you come back really fast.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like from your footstep and I wonder.

[A]

Not from the grave.

[B]

Not from the grave. Yeah, that would be. That would be truly impressive. Do you think it's worth it?

[A]

Do I think it's worth it? No. No. Because I was also doing cooler hot tub at that time. I do think hot water immersion is helpful. The question is, what are the limits? And I don't want to be the one that pushes it. I've only been staying in 15 minutes and I'm not going to push it beyond that.

[B]

You've been staying in 15 minutes and your heart rate got up to 125. 118. No, no, no.

[A]

That's when I get out, when it's more reactive. So when I'm in there, it stays around 110, which is safety zone.

[B]

Pretty high, though.

[A]

But if I stayed in for 30 minutes like I was doing at lower temperatures, I actually would be unsafe. Whereas some of the study protocols, they're staying in for how long? Like 40 minutes.

[B]

40 minutes.

[A]

So I think I'm safe.

[B]

I think so. Okay. I think so.

[A]

That was a long pause.

[B]

I had a long pause. I really had to think about it. But you know what? Four science. I'll respect it. I'll respect the hustle.

[A]

Okay, we have the best episode for today. We're going to start by talking about strange responses to uphill treadmill workouts. Then some canyon's 100k thoughts. A fun USATF half marathon update after last week's episode. And some other news. A thought on pre race sessions, like what you do the day before races. A discussion on the constrained tonal energy expenditure model.

[B]

Okay, I love this one. This was science from Herman Poncer, who's a great researcher and actually delivers science in an effective way. And I was going through his Twitter this morning and I was like, he's communicating this well.

[A]

Yeah, he's such a good communicator. But as we researched, we also found people that disagree with him vehemently. And we have some thoughts on that because I think there's a missing link of interdisciplinary science on low energy availability that confirms Herman Ponzner's theories. But we'll get to that. Then a review study on short term impacts of low, low energy availability. Plus the Q and A on tons of fun topics. Who knows how many we'll get to? Maybe colon health, training races, inflammation and more.

[B]

I liked. I was going through the Q and A part of our outline and you outlined like 30 questions. I was like, that is so optimistic.

[A]

The problem is we've built up many over the course of weeks because we always are optimistic and have like eight on there and get to two. So after a while you build up a lot. Maybe we just need to do a Patreon episode dump of all of these at some point.

[B]

That would be so fun. We should actually do rapid fire and be like, we're committed. We're going to set the timer and

[A]

see what happens and then get through two questions.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so before getting to the usatf, follow up very quickly. Just an interesting training theory idea here. So on Friday of last week, I did my first very challenging uphill treadmill threshold workout. We've talked about these a lot. Megan did a YouTube video on it. Um, I did nine by five minutes. Megan very famously does 12 by five minutes. I'm getting there. It took me a lot of effort. But very interestingly, after I did that session, the next day, my running economy improved by about 5%, which is anomalous. And I'm not exactly sure what happened.

[B]

What are you using? Are using pace to heart rate ratio to quantify that?

[A]

Yeah, pace to heart rate, but then also just correlating that with feel. So, you know, the next day I was finally able to run like myself all of a sudden. I mean, do you have any ideas why that might happen?

[B]

I think it's just turning your neuromuscular system back on. So that's like a, that's a big stimulus, doing it at 8%. And I think, you know, you've been so fit in terms of your Zwift power numbers, like your Zwift numbers on the bike have been better than ever. Yeah, it's just a matter of translating that to running. And oftentimes I feel like you need a few neuromuscular stimuli to kind of like remind the brain of what it's like to put out power in running. And the upper treadmill is nice because sometimes I feel like when you do that, you're kind of shelled the next day. But uphill treadmill plus high carb fueling and it's like you come back the next day and you're like, I feel good.

[A]

Good. If I did 9 by 5 minutes at equivalent effort outside. I'd be wrecked for many, many days. Not just a single one. Yeah, I mean, the neuromuscular comment is fascinating when we think about how adaptation occurs. And I think so often when we talk about adaptation models, it's over weeks and months. And yes, that does apply brick stacking and all that, but what it misses is that the nervous system can be a one day adaptation. It can happen so fast and something like uphill treadmill, you're harnessing a level of work that is quite large, and you can see how perhaps that changes how the brain signals neuromuscularly. Like, I was a fundamentally different athlete on Thursday than I was on Saturday, and I have so much data. And it's not just like my psychological part of my head. It's clearly something physiological. And I think sometimes we just miss the nervous system. We view the body as like a black box that stops at the brain. And I think there's connections there that we need to be thinking about all the time that might have relevance for the pre race session discussion we're going to get to.

[B]

That's exactly where my brain was going is sometimes we just got to turn the neuromuscular system on and do that again and again and again. And I also kind of wonder you've been focusing on high cadence on the bike if that primed you. So, like, you needed a little bit less neuromuscular stimuli to be able to then access what you've had within running in the past. So curious there. But then you followed it up and did a gold hill with Drew. Yes, our boy Drew. And you ran really well without having done vert hill climbing or really much running.

[A]

It was more vert than I've done in four months at Javelina 100 when I tore my plantar fascia tendon.

[B]

Actually, my favorite thing. He showed up in super shoes. And Drew gets out of the car and looks at you and he's just like, God damn it.

[A]

No, my fitness is still trash, but it's working there. Yeah, My legs right now are immensely sore and it's probably just gonna get worse. I'm gonna be sore for five days. So I'm in that neuromuscular adaptation phase now where everything is leading to quick progress. And that's pretty fun. Um, but I. I think a vote for uphill treadmill because, you know, if you can stack these sessions, I think one of the most magical parts about it is that it turns on switches of your physiology that go far beyond what we can measure in a lab very simply. Like we mentioned the brain and the nervous system. The other one that we've talked about before are epigenetic signals. So I've been thinking a lot about evolution and epigenetics because I've been reading Project Hail Mary again.

[B]

I feel like at 2am your brain is just like epigenetics. I'm going to dream about this. It's like your favorite word these days.

[A]

So I don't want to give a spoiler about Project Hail Mary, but it has a lot of discussion about why certain evolutionary pathways are taken. And so when you think about that with adaptation to training, like, you can imagine why a lot of this ends up happening in the body. But the way that happens is like, our, you know, genetic code is programmed in such a way that running is something we can do, but it's not something we do naturally, like, if you just don't train it. But once you train it, you're turning on certain parts that lie dormant within the genetics. And I think what's so cool about Upbell Treadmill is that you can basically turn every aerobic switch on the same day. And sometimes when you do that, weird things happen on the other end, but

[B]

you're also hitting a lot of switches at once, like you're trying to rapidly turn back on. And I feel like, yes, that's a good idea in your context where you're 37. You're trying to rapidly come back here and do things that are kind of unthinkable given the context of your mri. But I feel like also too, you're taking knowing risks, like with the hot tub, with training, with uphill treadmill, with going out and doing Gold Hill without having done vert on a foot that was like relatively recently within a boot. And so give me a little teaser. I found a new emoji.

[A]

I thought that was Megan's. Hey, David, you're a dumb bitch. Corner.

[B]

No, I mean, maybe there's like a little bit of like, what's happening over there, but I feel like you got to probe the dumb bitch limits every so often.

[A]

You got to probe the dumb bitch limits. Honestly. That's the message of Project Hail Mary too. Yeah. Which I recommend to everyone. Such a good audio buck. Yeah. So that brings to the final point of this intro, which is we are kind of pivoting as we think about the canyons 100k. So you were going to do it. You are registered. We purchased an entry for you.

[B]

Yeah. $450 later. Yeah, 400 I'm registered.

[A]

So I think the most important question is, where are you at?

[B]

Oh, man. I really wanted to re skate dancing. Q. It's like, Megan, can I get through this without crying? Baby, I love you so much, Megan. So now you need to speak.

[A]

I can speak. It's one thing I can do a lot.

[B]

I recover myself. Okay, Breathe, Megan. I'm recovered. Yeah, My heart stuff came back a few weeks ago. I had heart issues after quad dipsy, which was a couple months ago. And then after doing the ALP and did a hard effort on the alp, had heart issues again three days later in the form of pericarditis. Just having that chest pain and some of PVCs, which are kind of abnormal feeling beats within the heart come back and it was just such a hard context. I think quite frankly, I'm the fittest I've ever been. And it made me more sad actually to think about that and to think about probably not being able to do canyons at this point. It just doesn't make sense. It feels like my heart is linked to training and racing right now of these hard efforts and then getting pericarditis a few days later. And to show up at a hard, fast, competitive, a hundred K just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

[A]

Well, I'm so proud of you both for opening up here and just how you've navigated this process. Like, I don't want to make you cry. We had enough tears in our house.

[B]

I've had enough tears that I feel like it's been a core workout.

[A]

Yeah, no, same.

[B]

I mean, it's an effective core workout.

[A]

You know, I've been. It's just so hard. And the way you're wearing this on this on your sleeve is beautiful because I think everybody out there has these things they're going through that our limitations. I mean, who knows, Maybe this does end your running career eventually. But you're saying not today and you're moving forward with hope even as you're facing basically the scariest thing a runner can face.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's so trick. I've been able to ease back in a little bit now just to like Z1 running. And it's funny how you go through that gratitude station of like, at first I was so sad about canyons and honestly, like, when I think about canyons, I maybe shouldn't tell this to you. I was more excited about a competitive Hunter K. I was like, I want to show up and race and race a really competitive race than the actual course Itself.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I feel like I'm not actually that suited to the canyons course. And so at the end of the day, I'm like, yeah, maybe not the course for me, but I just wanted to race a really fast 100k.

[A]

You're just going to where the enemies are.

[B]

Yeah. I'm like, I just want to put myself in fire.

[A]

You don't need. You don't need good terrain for this battle. You're attacking uphill into the wind.

[B]

Uphill into the wind would be perfect. Instead we got downhill, many miles with a tailwind. And I'm like, I'd rather go uphill into the wind. Yeah. So. But part of me is just like, you know, even though it maybe wasn't the course that I wanted it to be, is still I think just losing that shot and losing that chance to race a really competitive race when I am and I know I am this fit. It's just a hard thing to swallow.

[A]

Yeah, it's so hard. And I mean, I've noticed your identity has shifted a lot more on this one. Where in the past, every time it happens, you're like, okay, I'm going to get over this and then not think about it again. Meanwhile, I'm here every day, like, how's your heart for three years? Right? Because it is so scary. And anybody who knows about this knows how scary it is. How are you feeling about that?

[B]

Well, I have a short memory, which is a blessing and a curse sometimes. And I feel like for a year and a half I didn't have these issues. And I got to the point that I was like, I'm good, I'm fine. I don't even have a heart issue. I'm totally great. And having it come back now and to see it linked to training and racing, it's like a little bit of a mind fuck, honestly, in a sense of like. In some ways I felt like I've done this to myself and it just makes me scared. Like, I think part of my skills as a runner is turning myself inside out and, like, being able to push myself so hard. And I probably won't have fear when I step on a starting line because that's just who I am. But I think I'll have fear heading in and just thinking about that and like, okay, what happens now? In the aftermath of like, putting myself in this position again, But I still wanna do it.

[A]

That's so beautiful.

[B]

When I'm like actively having chest pain. It's one of those times when I'm just like, oh, like, I Am a runner with heart issues. And then when the chest pain goes away, sometimes I'm like, let's Send it Canyon 50K. And so it's kind of a hard place to like, balance that mind fuck of being in both spots.

[A]

Yeah, I've run her with heart issues. You know, that's. That's the way it is. And you know, as Jimmy Chin said in Miru, which I was watching on the treadmill, if you haven't seen Miro, it's incredible. It's on Netflix now. Um, the best alpinists have the worst memories.

[B]

Yeah. My memory is so short.

[A]

Your memory is short. And it's amazing because, like, I feel as if we all need to be realistic and grounded in what we're dealing with and the nature of the world and how shitty reality is sometimes. But also that's a really tough place to live and move forward with hope. So, you know, seeing you get hope relatively quickly is amazing as I like, you know, wake up at midnight, panicked about this and so just so proud of you, Megan. It's incredibly inspiring.

[B]

Well, you've been so supportive, but now you get to show up to Canyon's 100K and, well, I mean, who knows? Yeah, we got seven weeks.

[A]

We got seven weeks.

[B]

You did Gold Hill. You're sticking yourself in a very hot hot tub with an inflatable neck pillow. I think you can do it.

[A]

How unimportant does it feel when you know the bigger picture about, like, hard issues and stuff, you know, but that's

[B]

the thing is like this. Maybe I'm just a little cray, but I see the heart issues and I'm just like, well, canyons is just as important. It's how much I love it and how much. How much I care about it.

[A]

That gets back to my thesis last week. That whenever you say, here's the thing or that's the thing, it's like, oh, my gosh, watch out, something's coming.

[B]

We were on a hike and you actually asked me a question. You're like, megan, if you had a disease that you knew was activated by ultra running and it had some percentage of mortality associated with it, what would that percentage be? That you would still continue to do it. And I should not even say my answer to that question on this podcast because my parents listen. Sorry, Mom. And. But that also framed it to me, like, how much I love this and how much it is a thing. And obviously I'm not gonna take risks and be. I wanna be super cautious of my heart. But like, at the same this sport is special and I love it.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. We all have a diagnosis that has pretty bad outcomes in the end if you zoom out long enough. Right. And that answer was interesting to me.

[B]

Yeah. Well, you actually asked the cardiologist, you're like, what is, you know, what are the chances of having like a sudden death issue associated with this? And he's like, david, we all have sudden death at some point in life. I appreciated that answer.

[A]

Yeah. That's so good. So, yeah, theoretically, I'm going to be trying to get to Canyons, but it's a really short turnaround. It'll be an interesting training experiment and the whole time I'm just going to be motivated by you and inspired by you. And it brings us to a poem written by a listener after we referred to this on the Patreon episode. They said, my heart is a cracked eggshell, empty of all but hope. And I'm going to be taking that in empty of all but hope.

[B]

That's so beautiful. They also said I've been experiencing involuntary poetry writing and I love that. Involuntary poetry writing. What a great thing in life. Maybe I should take that up. That's beautiful though.

[A]

Yeah. And also I, I crack eggshells into the eggs all the time and just leave them in because I've heard that they're pretty good nutrition.

[B]

Yeah. You're like, I do, I do.

[A]

It's amazing. You should research it. It's great calcium.

[B]

It's awesome. I'm surprised they're not swimming in your protein shakes at this point. You have protein and collagen to start adding eggshells in there.

[A]

Hey, I'm trying to turn it around for Canyons real fast here. I'll just eat them raw if I have to. Okay, let's get on to the episode. Before we do that quick promo for the feed, go to thefeed.com swap swap. The big thing I want to point out is I've gotten back on the train with the feed lab whey protein. I love the chocolate flavor. I think this is the best protein out there. Like you can go get this sight unseen and trust that this stuff fricking rocks. It mixes almost like more of a water, like a hydration drink. So I can have it right after running or right after a double. And it helps my adaptation so much. Like I've noticed a huge improvement in just the week. I've gone back to my mid afternoon protein shake.

[B]

It is so delicious. Okay. And recently my favorite thing has been striker gels.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

They are 50 grams of carbs and a 1 to 0.8 ratio, which for me is ideal. Doing higher carb fueling. And I haven't taken gels in two weeks just because, you know, coming back from this hard stuff for sure. And I took one on Sunday and I was like, I'm back.

[A]

You're back.

[B]

I have one gel. I, like, strangely, love taking gels.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is that a weird thing?

[A]

No, no, it's like, makes you feel good. Eventually your brain gets the association that this stuff is rocket fuel, not just for how you perform, but how you feel in the rest of life. Like, that's the magic of it. I am shouting high carb from the rooftops even more now because I think now the mo. The momentum is high enough across the top end of the sport and, you know, people that are performing that we can get the message to people who don't care about performance as much, who are just, you know, doing athletics for life, who might go on a, you know, 90 minute bike ride or whatever, and they're going to get so much healthier if we can get this message out to them. So if you listen to these messages, oh, well, that's not for me. Go get maybe not a striker gel. 50 grams is a lot, but the Enervit gels are the ones that we've been pushing a lot. They're so good. Unfortunately, science and sport raised their prices.

[B]

Yeah, man.

[A]

Why, that's unfortunate.

[B]

What was your Strava title the other day about that?

[A]

Oh, the. In parentheses. Science and sport raised their prices and then cut my life into pieces.

[B]

This is my last resort.

[A]

Papa roach. So relevant here. Um, and then finally a reference for currency. So this supplement is one of those that I had heard about pro athletes taking forever. We've talked about this in detail on the podcast before, so we don't need to get into it. But a systematic review and meta analysis just came out that found that currency, for some reason that they're still relatively unsure about, improves fat oxidation. So it increases fat oxidation across all of the studies and decreases carbohydrate hydrate oxidation, which is kind of the aerobic holy grail. Um, and it's just black currant extract. So one of those things that probably is beneficial for health if it's doing this type of adaptation too.

[B]

And this was done from a systematic review and meta analysis and they put a lot of studies, they put 263 black currant extracts studies.

[A]

Wait, 263 studies?

[B]

I know, isn't that nuts? I'm like, how do we have so many black currant extract studies.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's funded by Big currency, maybe.

[A]

No, no. Actually, in their message to me, they did message me about this study. They said that only one was funded by Kernz. I didn't check them on that. No way of the final studies that made it. So that might be cool. But either way, it's one of those supplements that I'm recommending to pro athletes because I do think it helps with performance. And hey, if you have the money to try, it might be interesting to give an experiment.

[B]

I think it's variable. So they narrowed this down from 263 studies to 15 studies. And they also like a lot of variation based off of training status, sex, dosage, duration of intake. But I feel like if you try it and like it, it's one of those things that might be worth experimenting with.

[A]

How is it for sex?

[B]

Yeah, actually probably great.

[A]

I mean, anything that makes you feel good.

[B]

Yeah. That's the thing is all of these things. I'm like, bicarb, Gnomeo, currency. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just too optimistic.

[A]

There's another thing. You said, that's the thing. And then the craziest thing comes.

[B]

On the other hand, we should just have. We just have a compilation of all Megan's. That's the thing.

[A]

Or just have a that's the thing episode.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where we both go back and forth. Here's the thing.

[B]

I feel like we could put this on SNL or something. Be like, that's the thing.

[A]

Okay. First thing to talk about here in the news rundown is the USATF breakdown. So, last week we talked in a great deal of emotional fury about the aftermath of the USATF Half Marathon Championships where the lead women were directed off course. We gave some pathways for how this might unfold, and we have great news to report is that basically everything we pointed out has happened so far. So the second podium was awarded. Jess McLean is a National champion. Now, Atlanta Track Club gave all the prize money. Hopefully bonuses come from all the shoe companies and things like that. And the world's team spots are still up in the air. But from inside conversations, it seems like that's just a matter of time before the top three athletes who were directed off course have the option to represent

[B]

Team USA and obviously a lot of emotional damage to the athletes. Like, this is a long week for all the athletes going through this, but at the end of the day, we get to celebrate six athletes.

[A]

Hell, yeah.

[B]

More athletes on the podium. And I, love you, wrote this in an Instagram post, but something along the lines of, like, in 10 years, we're not going to remember a national championship, but we probably will remember this year's national championship and all the chaos that

[A]

unfolded and also how the women represented themselves. Like, every single one of the people affected just showed up in such a beautiful and also fierce way. Like, you know, people weren't being passive in this, including the, you know, Molly Bourne who crossed the finish line first. She's like, USATF, step up. Do this. You know Jess McLean, who wrote one of the most, like, awesome Instagram posts right before the announcement was made? It's just so perfect for the start of, like, you know, Women's Month in March in International Women's Day. It's like, hell, yeah.

[B]

And you're gonna hate this, David. But I'm also so proud of you in this process, too, for standing up for your athlete, Jess. And I think, like, realistically, at the end of the day, I don't think USATF would have responded unless there was this amount of protest and pressure on them. And I think this is a fascinating example where I think it's actually really important to put pressure on a system and a governing body as opposed to doing. Like, you worked with amazing individuals at USATF in this process to make them aware of it. But I feel like largely like, you know, your vocal nature on this was actually quite helpful.

[A]

Thank you. I always want to start International Women. Yeah.

[B]

With it being like, I'm proud of you, David.

[A]

I mean, it wasn't me. I think, you know, you played a huge role in this. Because if I'm just screaming from the rooftop, it doesn't mean much, I think.

[B]

But you give me confidence. I can't scream from the rooftops first. Well, like, that's gotta be you. And then I gotta echo.

[A]

Yeah. Well, it's an interesting discussion that's happening after the fact. So I've gotten a number of comments, often from accounts with zero posts or followers. Not sure what that's about.

[B]

You should just block them and be like, bye, Felicia.

[A]

I usually do. You can usually tell if they mean well or not. But if you have 0 posts in whatever, like, you're probably not engaging in this from a perfectly intellectually honest place for whatever reason. But I've gotten a number of those comments saying, oh, you just jumped the gun. This was a really mean thing to do, to go out there and scream from the rooftops like that. And part of me understands that argument that after the fact, whenever anything changes, you're like, well, wasn't always going to be that way. And then part of me, the lawyer that worked in community organizing in small communities, realizes that the only way people have a voice in systems is to scream from the rooftops, is to cause a ruckus. Like the ruckus is the thing that causes the legal change on the other end. The legal change doesn't just happen naturally. And so I'm a little bit torn in that.

[B]

And I think it's different to have ruckus towards a system or an organization than an individual. And I think like usctf, it's like to me, that was totally the right call. And also too, when you take a step back, there's a lot of financial stake on the line and stake for athletes. And this is just, we're talking about like athlete well being here. This is not just like your local 5 gay, where this would also royally suck too, but it's just a different context.

[A]

Yeah. And long story short, I think it's okay to scream really loudly about things that matter to you.

[B]

Oh, yeah, of course. As long as it's done. You did it with love. I mean, you were nuanced. You did it with love.

[A]

Yeah, I did it with love for the individuals, for sure. And as I worked with usatf, a little bit amazing people there, you know, especially a shout out to Jay Holder and Kim Conley. Kim Conley was just so cool. She's on the long distance committee and the whole time, like, they wanted to make things right and they're working so hard for it and they probably didn't get any sleep last week. And so you feel guilty because if you know the individuals behind something, it's always a question of, oh, well, they mean well. And there were some arguments about that online too, from, from really good sources outside posted an article that said, you know, slow down, compassion, all that. And I'm just like, yeah, I get it, I get it, I get it. But like, all of us are busy, all of us have things on our plate and the only way sometimes change happens is to just fucking send it,

[B]

is to go for it.

[A]

So I don't know, I'm so a little conflicted. But that being said, we can celebrate that this outcome, I think turned out about as well as it could have with the unfortunate situation that was no one's fault. Right. Like, there's always contingencies that could be in place to prevent this. But it was an officer that got, you know, hit by a car nearby that caused a diversion. And then, you know, that officer is okay from Everything I'm hearing, but it's totally understandable how this could happen. That being said, it was the response after that was the thing that really concerned us.

[B]

Did you read the entirety of the USATF statement? They wrote basically a Game of Thrones novel. And I was reading it kind of like I started to read Game of Thrones where I was like, okay, I'll just swipe here. I'll swipe here. I get the general dress, read a few names, look for some.

[A]

Yeah, you look for brothers and sisters. Fucking.

[B]

Yeah, I was going to say that. And then I was like, feels weird in reference.

[A]

Yeah. So that is actually maybe the final point on this, USATF's communication throughout the process. Maybe just needs, like, a little bit of work because obviously the initial response was terrible. We talked about that last week, and that was no one's fault. It was more of just probably how the system is set up, which is wildly pushed against the system. But then the CEO wrote a letter on, I believe, Thursday.

[B]

And was it a letter or was it a novel?

[A]

Maybe it's like one of those, gosh, what are the kind of erotic wizard type novels that you tried to read?

[B]

Oh, A Court of Thorn and Roses. Oh, yeah, yeah, I tried to. I didn't. I didn't make it through.

[A]

Maybe it was a Court of Thorn and Roses fan fiction.

[B]

Yeah, it was very smutty.

[A]

You get spammed. But as you're reading that, there's so little, like, celebratory language that it's almost like the initial response is, this isn't enough. It just feels like it's strange. They should have immediately just said, look, great news. Things are going awesome.

[B]

We got. We got six people on the podium. Jess is a national champion. I actually, it took me like, four minutes to realize that Jess is a national champion. So, I mean, it didn't help. I was reading it. I always get carsick when I read things. And I was trying to read it as you're, like, going around a parking garage. I was like, these words are all swirling together.

[A]

But great news. And, hey, maybe we played a part, maybe we didn't. I know we did. Behind the scenes. I don't know whether the podcast did or not, but. But yeah, thank you all for putting your voices out there, too, because I think that is what did. Cause the difference is just the upswell of support for doing the right thing. And it took some creativity by usatf, but sometimes just breaking the mold requires some pressure.

[B]

It's also been wrong turn month. I feel like it's Women's History Month and also Wrong Turn Month. We saw a wrong turn at Strade

[A]

Bianche, which is a major bike race. It's kind of known as an informal monument which is one of the biggest bike races in the world. A lot of the best women in the world were directed off course near the end of that race. Super strange that it happens on the same week.

[B]

They look so sad when they got to the end and they're like, where are we? And then wrong turn at the LA Marathon that changed the final result.

[A]

And granted the one in shot of Bianchi seemed like it was the lead Moto's fault. And similarly in that sport, they say the athletes should know the course. Seems like bullshit to me.

[B]

Oh, there's a lot of turns on those courses. Yeah.

[A]

The problem is they were in the second group. They probably weren't going to catch. So there's really no recourse there. It's not like the first group was the one that did it. Um, and then in the LA Marathon, the leader was not really directed off course. It was more just a woman interfered that was carrying a flag and it kind of led him to going slightly to the right and he just went to the wrong side of a divider for a little bit. But then he lost by.01 seconds or whatever at the very end getting passed. And so clearly that would have made the difference.

[B]

What's going so tricky. Directions are hard. This is how I feel when I'm driving around. I'm like, oh my God. Yeah. When I'm driving around and I'm walking around and I'm running around like it happens at the pro level too.

[A]

Okay, one more piece of news. This is a message from a listener. Hi guys. Just an idea for something that might be a good convo topic for the pod or bonus episodes. I just ran the Los Angeles Marathon. As you're more than likely saw, there was a lot of drama because organizers often option for people to finish at mile 18 and get a medal. I was a pacer, so privy to a bit more of the discussion behind the scenes decision. It boiled down to heat, how LA attracts less serious runners who may not be as conditioned to heat and related concerns about health. I was a little surprised by how nasty and judgmental many online commenters were about this. And then it goes on. So essentially asking for our take on the option to stop at mile 18 in these hot conditions and get a medal. What do you think?

[B]

First hot take. Where was this? At Forest Hill.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

I Would have been so golden.

[B]

It's about the same equivalent, you know? Oh.

[A]

You know how. What would be out there? What if I dnf at Forest Hill again? At Canyons?

[B]

No, at canyons, which is 50k of the canyon's 100k. I was a step ahead of you. I was thinking western states this year. My favorite emoji, they actually have a ticket, like a golden ticket emoji. And it is my new favorite emoji that I just sent to you in random times as little belief.

[A]

Realistically, what do you think the chances are I get a golden ticket? Not from knowing me or being hopeful or being my wife. From an outside observer perspective, knowing that this race is probably going to be immensely stacked.

[B]

It is already immensely stacked.

[A]

And my first outdoor run was 13 days ago.

[B]

You know what?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is nuts. 70%.

[A]

What the hell? You're such a bullshit artist.

[B]

I'm not. I. I'm the ultimate skeptic.

[A]

You also said that you'd be the number that you said for your mortal mortality diagnosis. Maybe I should be a little careful.

[B]

How did my mortality diagnosis compare to your mortality diagnosis? Was yours lower or higher?

[A]

So much lower. Yeah, so much lower. Which is beautiful. You love running so much.

[B]

Well, I actually asked. I was like, I. Is it cycling, too? Because if it was just running, I'd be like, I'd be so happy in endurance sports. Granted, now that I'm a few days removed, I'm like, I'd be happy to. Just being a mom.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just going to birthday parties and doing arts and crafts.

[A]

No, no, it's beautiful. Loving and caring about things is the point of life.

[B]

I shall say my number. Should I say my number?

[A]

No, no, no, don't.

[B]

You're like, don't do that. It's also gonna, like, invalidate my 70% comment, but I do think it's 70%.

[A]

No, no, not at all. I mean, realistically, I would say 5 or 10%, maybe. I'm so far behind right now.

[B]

I mean. But your fitness is the same. All you need to do is just harden up those legs, you know?

[A]

Yeah, but Megan, I'm getting doms from runs with, like, a few hundred feet

[B]

of vert we got. I mean, that's you, like, all the time.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You're always walking around like, oh, ah,

[A]

well, I love your hope and optimism. Am I going to talk about it this time, or is this the last time we talked about canyons?

[B]

I think you should, actually.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I think you should just. I mean, I think it's different when it is an uncertain outcome. Like you're trying to do something that you're coming from a boot relatively recently to Canyon's 100k and doing so very knowingly. And that's a cool story.

[A]

Yeah. And maybe the lesson is so last year I wore the Journey on my sleeve and obviously that was hilarious.

[B]

But you don't have to wear the Journey in the same way. Get a different sleeve.

[A]

Different sleeve. But I think it is kind of cool if the lesson from that is not, don't do that again. If the lesson from that is, fuck it, we ball.

[B]

Again, fuck it, we ball. But just be like, I don't know, Jenkins. Well, it's funny because on my YouTube, I was very comfortable being like, I'm racing canyons also. I don't know.

[A]

Oops.

[B]

Oops. So then I got punked two weeks later and I was just like, jesus Christ.

[A]

But we kind of knew that was gonna happen, similar to how we kind of know it might happen for me, you know?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Well, if only there was a DNF option in for us still.

[B]

Yeah. Then you get a medal.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you'd have gotten a chance back to Western states.

[A]

Exactly. I was still top down at that point. So what do we think? I personally fucking love this. This is awesome. One, for health. But two, I think the idea that results are put on this wildly high pedestal is. Is terrible. And the way this manifests a lot in popular culture, in discussions, is how people talk diversely about participation trophies, where they're like, this is a generation raised on participation trophies. And this is why people are, whatever, soft. And I think that is the most bullshit thing of all time. Like, if people are softer now, it's because there is a coddling outside of that that might just go to. People aren't allowed to, you know, take as many risks and they're just essentially given, you know, kind of anxious generation argument. It is not because people are told that they are enough. Being told you are enough no matter what makes you a stronger and more resilient person. Like, I was told that after my failure and now I'm going and putting myself in a place where I'm not going to get a participation trophy, where I'm going to be facing the best athletes in the world and probably I'm going to fail. And it's all because I saw on the other end that, look, love and celebration is waiting no matter what happens. And so. So being able to tell people that you are not your results and that, hey, we're actually going to celebrate this as if it's the same as 26 miles when it's 18. That's the coolest thing and will just make people more likely to take risks in the future. And risk taking people are tougher. And this is what we want. We want participation trophies that celebrate people no matter what.

[B]

Okay. Psychologically, do you think that having this award option at mile 18 actually led to more finishers at 26? That by getting people to 18 with that, like, you know, thinking about a medal and validating how epic this was, allowed people then to go on the extra eight?

[A]

I love that theory.

[B]

Do you think, like, if you could have gotten a medal at Forest Chill, you'd be like, okay, now I'm just gonna. Now I'm just gonna enjoy my frolic into the finish?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I love that point. I think it's a really good one also. I really went on a screed there. Yeah. This is one of the things that bothers me the most, dude.

[B]

I love your brain right now is one of those emojis with the head coming off, dude.

[A]

I'm gonna start a social media rage fest against people that say participation trophies are a bad thing. We want people to step into the fucking ring. You want to be in the arena. And the reason people are scared to get in the arena is they're scared of failure. Let people get celebrated no matter what, and they will do cooler things.

[B]

Okay. Why is your rage so attractive?

[A]

It's so fresh. It's always people that don't understand, right. That don't get true performance. Like, as we're talking about the Winter Olympics, like Norway performing, so many of the explanations are, oh, well, we don't have results when they're kids. We just let people participate and it makes them these outstanding performers. It's like, no. Oh, shit. Of course, if you look at performance psychology, then when people become adults, you have all these influencers online saying, like, participation trophies are dragging people down. It's like, no, actually, that's the reason people succeed. And the reason you're probably commenting like this on the Internet is because you didn't have enough love. And so, yeah, I want to give you a hug, but I also want to say on the record that you're being an idiot. And that is not how it works.

[B]

Okay? This is like David Hoggins, but in David Roach voice. I love it.

[A]

Everybody deserves a hug.

[B]

Everyone deserves a hug and a man. You need to do a participation medal, Hawkins.

[A]

Oh, yes. Okay. Maybe that'll be the next one.

[B]

Yeah, maybe soon. Because this is topical. Like this is an online, heated online discussion right now.

[A]

So I personally love this back and forth. I've also been thinking of David Hoggins about canyons. I might do my race announcement with the Dave Hawgins.

[B]

What are you gonna say?

[A]

I mean, I don't. You think you've seen failure? You ain't seen anything yet. Panic attack? Been there. What about a gopher attack? A tornado? A dementia from Harry Potter makes me really scared.

[B]

Oh, that's the real one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A dementia from Harry Potter giving you your water at the aid station.

[A]

Exactly. So. Okay, that was a lot. Sorry. Let's go on to the actual discussions on the podcast. We have other news that we can talk about in future weeks. What do you think?

[B]

Let's get to science.

[A]

Maybe science or I think we should do very quickly. Let's do it pre race sessions. Okay, so this relates. I've been wanting to incorporate more from cycling into our running theory discussion because as I've been focusing on cycling, you know, I'm always trying to derive swap training theory from cycling in particular because biking is the place where all theories are being tested at the top level. And one of the things that cyclists do that especially long distance runners might not as much is the day before races. Cyclists will always do hard efforts. Um, sometimes before, you know, really hard bike races, you'll see athletes going out on a climb that's within the race, like a four or five minute climb, and sending it it at, you know, above threshold and often doing very hard sprints on these efforts. And I always thought that was curious and was wondering about that for runners and then for myself, I accidentally stumbled into this as a cyclist. Like for me, I'm always like, well, sprints make me too tired. I shouldn't do that before I'm gonna do a hard effort. But on a Wednesday, I did my normal ride, which included going for Zwift jerseys where they give you a little green jersey if you get at the top of the sprint leaderboard.

[B]

It's so motivating.

[A]

So motivating. I'll do anything for a fake virtual jersey.

[B]

I really will. Yeah.

[A]

Why do they not have like some award if you get a jersey, like long term, like they should give you some big medal that you can carry around and wear the rest of your life.

[B]

Well, you accumulate points and like quote like money on Zwift so you can buy bike related things. They should give that associated with the jerseys.

[A]

Yeah, but you should just get to wear something that says like, hey, I've gotten A jersey, even if I don't have it now, I've gotten one before. That's what I want. That's my participation.

[B]

You want, like a closet of jerseys.

[A]

You're motivated by that too, right?

[B]

I'm so motivated by it. I'd be in pregnancy and just like getting a contraction, and I'd be like, oops, still going for the. Still going for this jersey.

[A]

This baby's gonna come out, but I'm gonna have a polka dot jersey at the top of this hill. But in that process, that was on a Wednesday, on the Thursday after, that's when I set my all time power PR and did the effort up the ALP, the same place that Megan had her heart.

[B]

Okay. 345 watts up the ALP. Dude, that's crazy.

[A]

I mean, it is a lot for me, you know, it's obviously not a lot for today. Who was above 345 watts for the entirety of Strada Bianchi, which. Which is just bonkers.

[B]

But you're also like a runner boy.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, no, I get it, I get it. But like, so are triathletes, and they're way faster than me in running. But the idea being it's pretty good for me, and I think it ties directly back to the day before I did these hard openers that I would program for a cyclist, but I might not necessarily see in long distance running training theory as much. And I think that there's probably a place for it. What do you think?

[B]

I agree. And this is where I feel like before road marathons, road halfs, 10ks, I often do have athletes do like, like, relatively strong power hill strides the day before. And I think the tricky thing here is you're in a taper often, you've been traveling, you don't want to cause an injury within, like some of those weird taper circumstances the day before the race. But I feel like it could be interesting to experiment with it for ultras too.

[A]

And in track racing, you see the same thing.

[B]

Oh, you see fast strides to do

[A]

before racing, and that's a really interesting parallel. It's like always when you look at cycling training theory, you want to see some inklings of it in running, and then you can start to maybe broaden out, out the theory a little bit. And so fast track runners are almost always doing not just strides, but often quite hard strides the day before race, especially if they're racing something like a 5K. And marathoners will also do strides like, you know, obviously Jess McLean and people like that are doing Strides the day before their race. And so does that apply to ultras? Who knows? Um, I personally include it before almost every race. Something like four or five by 32nd hills. I always do them before my races. I think it helps and I think the mechanisms are probably one neuromuscular getting to the brain interface that we talked about before, but the other being cardiac in that these short efforts rapidly improve cardiac output. And if a taper might reduce cardiac output a bit, these could improve it. And so this is just a vote for doing your 4 to 6 by 20 to 30 second strides the day before race. I like them on uphills like you said, just because it's lower injury risk

[B]

and it's a vote. But I don't think we're ever gonna get any clear evidence of this. Like I feel like an ultra running there's so many variables that throwing in four to six by 20 to 30 second strides at the end of the day is gonna be be so hard to measure and figure out. But I do like the vibes of it. Like to me it matches cycling and track racing. And it's like I think the faster ultras get, the more we're gonna be pushing in that direction.

[A]

I would love to study, actually have a study on this because I feel like you could have some sort of control and then intervention study where in the control study you just have someone do easy training all race week before some hard effort that is approximating velocity at lactate threshold to right. So something that's pretty hard but not all out in c time to exhaustion relative to someone that does like you know, four to six by 32nd hills the day before a race. Like seeing if there's any variance there on subsequent performance.

[B]

I think the hard part though is that tapers are also so individual too. Like I have athletes that respond really well to purely aerobic big dial back tapers. Usually those are female athletes. Very similar actually to what we saw in the cycling study last week where female athletes on and whole at the pro level were dialing back more this week than male athletes. And so I just feel like there's gender differences. I feel like there's individual differences, there's like you know, fast twitch versus slow twitch differences. So and founders for days we're just

[A]

looking at feel at the end of the day more than anything. It's like what makes you feel better and just do that. A complicating study that I saw but didn't put in our outline was in fact this was on our big text messages thread Our texts are essentially studies going back and forth every single day.

[B]

Study, study, study, study, studies. Our kid is vomiting. Studies, studies, studies, studies, studies.

[A]

We are operating on low sleep right now.

[B]

Low sleep, high bleach.

[A]

A lot of bleach in the middle of the night. I was swallowing it is what happened.

[B]

You came back into the room and you're like, I should just put this in my hair, down my throat.

[A]

Every parent knows that feeling. It's like, that looks tasty right now. I'm sorry. Just joking, though. I did make that joke in the middle of the night. Pretty proud of that. But, yeah. What was I saying? Oh, man, I'm. Study, study, study. Study is a study looked at the validity of time to exhaustion tests at different effort levels. So, like, VO2LT2, like I mentioned. And the conclusion of the study was great. These are very valid in individual response rates across time. But then you look at the details and it says, yeah, they're. They're totally valid. Maybe 4% difference from day to day. And I'm like, oh, well, that overwhelms any training intervention. How much should we actually care about this? Yes, maybe it's. If you pull enough of them, you smooth away that variance. But generally it points out why we don't look at studies for rationale for training interventions. Because it's like every inter. Every measurement we're doing has more margin of error on an individual basis than the effect size for an individual. So if you have a big enough study table, maybe you can then find signal in that noise. But whenever I hear someone online, there's been a huge debate about this recently about, like, well, what study proves that? I'm like, well, what study is ever gonna prove it? And probably the studies you're looking at don't say the things you think they

[B]

say anyway, it is so tricky. And case in point, too. Like, you're probably not gonna give me these strides before racing an ultra.

[A]

No.

[B]

Yeah, see, I think it's highly individual,

[A]

but if you were doing a bike race, I would.

[B]

Yeah, bike racing. So different, though.

[A]

Yeah. And it's more because autoimmune context, physical response might be a little bit riskier for, like, inflammation. So. Yeah. Hey, why'd you have to do that to me?

[B]

Sorry, I'm a little.

[A]

You scared and punked my whole theory.

[B]

You need to put bleach in my turd in the punch bowl. Get rid of this.

[A]

Yeah, well, here's a vote for, you know, 4 to 6 by 20 to 32nd hills. If you have not seen that, like, your Race day performance is as good as you might expect. I think it could be the type of thing that gives you a little nudge, particularly within the taper.

[B]

And I actually am going to start giving this to athletes more often. Just not. Not all athletes.

[A]

Yeah. And I think if you find something that works that's not this, then do that thing. Um, and it could vary and it doesn't have to be 4 to 6 by 20 to 30 seconds. Like, one thing I've done for some top roadrunners is much more like cycling, where we'll do 3 minutes at threshold to 10k effort when we find that their race performances might not align with their training performances.

[B]

It's kind of wild. I do the same thing too. Oh, and we haven't really talked about this, huh? Yeah.

[A]

Convergent evolution.

[B]

Yeah, we have a lot of convergent evolution in our household. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, the coolest thing, like are

[B]

basically brother and sister over here. Came a throne style this later in the novel.

[A]

Yeah. Usat. I might have to read a statement about that one. Okay, now let's get on to the main discussion of the podcast. Before we do that, go to patreon.com swap swap. Even if you can't pay for it, there's a lot of free content there. Probably dozens and dozens of articles. You can get a taste. Whether it's for you. The training plans aren't free, but we have training plans for every single distance. We're getting so many messages about all those. Uh, last week there was a big article on low energy availability which is referent relevant for the studies we have coming up here. And heart rate zones at the $10 tier. So much fun going down.

[B]

And lots of podcasts with different weirder somehow vibes than this.

[A]

Yeah. So patreon.com swap swap and now the constrained total energy expenditure discussion. All hinging on a study called the Evidence for Constrained Total Energy Expenditure in Humans and Other Animals. It's a big research review by Herman

[B]

Pine and he's a researcher at Duke and he's been doing this research for a long time looking at using different models and different groups of humans to be able to study this. And I love Herman Ponzner as a researcher, as I mentioned, like in the outline is I feel like he. The way he communicates information is very effective and straightforward and to the point. And I'm like, what a good guy.

[A]

Is that a downside though? Because if someone is a really effective communicator, they might be influencing us to side with them because there is a debate in this field, there are researchers that, quote, tweet everything from Herman Ponzner and basically say, nah, bitch. And I hate it. It makes me feel gross and icky. And I agree with Herman.

[B]

Same. I just think he's a good enough researcher that he has enough, like, enough followers that someone statistically is gonna be like, nah, bitch.

[A]

Yeah, these are top researchers, too. But I probably shouldn't be calling him Herman. I should probably be calling him Dr. Fonzer. I feel close to him.

[B]

I do too.

[A]

I like his communication.

[B]

I like his communication. And I also. So there's kind of two schools of thought here, and I agree with his school of thought, and I think that's just our bias. Seeing athletes go through low energy availability and high physical activity and how the two of those intersect.

[A]

Yeah. And I believe he has a book coming out later this month called Adaptable.

[B]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[A]

Yeah. So I'm excited to read. He has another book that came out before. So he's a great communicator, great at books. Maybe he's trying to sell us books and maybe we're doing it for him because he's so good, but he deserves it. Okay, so the main argument of the constrained total energy expenditure model is essentially, very simply that for every hundred calories burned by physical activity, it is not a one to one replacement ratio across the population. So it might be 100 calories burned. You need 90 or 50 or 10, depending on activity levels. And there's a lot of variables that go into that. But this has been proven from his research with the Hasda tribe. That's the basis for a lot of this thought. But then we're also seeing it in athletes who might burn, you know, 6,000 calories in a Tour de France stage. They're unable to replace that total amount, but it ends up when you measure with the doubly labeled water effect, that maybe they don't need to replace everything. And so that's a tricky message because on one side you could hear, oh, well, I burn a lot of calories. I don't need to eat as much as I would assume. But on the flip side, what we're trying to say is you burn a lot of calories. The more you consume, the less you're going to constrain your energy expenditure and the healthier you're going to be. So that's where the low energy availability discussion might be partially missed in these total energy constraint models.

[B]

And that's how we say fuel the fire is because my brain legitimately thinks about it as a fire in terms of what are the compensatory mechanisms that are happening when you take low energy availability and combine that with exercise. And it's very similar to some of these models that he's looking at where they're doing controlled experiments with supervised exercise. And so they're able to measure the physical activity. And what they're finding is that, you know, when they pair that physical activity with, with dietary interventions that simulate low energy availability, we're seeing these drops in basal metabolic rate and other compensations that are causing the body to have pretty low total energy expenditure when compared to physical activity that has replete replenishment.

[A]

Yeah, no, that figure in the discussion I think is the most striking and the one that people that are in the athletics field would probably see if we combine it with other areas of research. So essentially, um, it's a schematic that shows a zero constraint model would be just kind of like a linear sloped curve, you know, just a one to one slope, just straight up into the right. Um, a constrained model would be somewhere under that where you're not cons, you know, burning as much or you're burning that much, but you're not seeing that in what athletes actually need to consume. But then the other part of the chart is that if an athlete also has dietary interventions at the same time as burning, their metabolic rates rate might be as low or lower than sedentary individuals. Which gets back to some of the Hasda tribe research which found that these hunter gatherer tribes who were doing a lot of steps a day, were burning the same amount as sedentary populations in the West. When you measure this, and that's what we also see in athletes, is that if you downregulate the fire, it's not a calories in, calories out framework. You're causing the body to reduce metabolic rate. And that alone isn't a huge concern. Right. This is an evolutionary response like we've talked about before. It makes sense that you're essentially preventing your body from going into famine conditions whenever you do hard training. But not only would famine conditions cause this down regulation of metabolic rate, they would also cause a downregulation of the endocrine system, nervous systems, and subsequently other systems. And that's a place where the research doesn't always take the leap to, but maybe is the most important part of it.

[B]

And they were hypothesizing as to what these compensations were that were causing this downregulation in the endocrine system. And Seeing it in lower basal metabolic rates. Seeing it in actually what I found really fascinating was the sleeping metabolic rate often times compensated even more. So that was turned down quite low in individuals not getting enough energy when paired with physical activity. And that's kind of wild to think about. But then we see that downstream in the sense of like, you know, now we have the ability to like compile reds panels of blood work, of looking at, you know, hormone markers like Free T3 and Estradiol and testosterone and seeing what happens when those get downregulated further downstream. And it's like that is where you're starting to talk about lasting negative consequences.

[A]

Yeah. And the counter argument here was all laid out in a study called physical activity is directly associated with total energy expenditure without evidence of constraint or compensation. Which is basically saying in the title of your scientific paper, go fuck yourself.

[B]

Nah, bitch, hey, you're wrong.

[A]

It's a direct response essentially. And they argued against it. And you look at their study design and it's like, I can see what you're saying, but you're just actually not getting into enough nuance here.

[B]

Well, I'll say maybe not getting enough physical activity and enough dietary constraint because it's like on some level, yes, we start to see this happen, but once you start putting enough, you know, energy, low energy availability on this, that's when you really start seeing the constraint.

[A]

And I think the most striking counter argument that directly aligns with Herman Ponzner's view is the within day energy deficit study landscape. So there were two studies that came out, one in 2017 on women, one in 2018 on men, that looked at total energy intake and expenditure across multiple data days. And so across multiple days, the athletes were all the same. The only difference was looking at specific four, three or four hour windows depending on the study. And the athletes that within day had bigger deficits. So it's not avoiding all deficits, it's trying to avoid the biggest ones for the longest periods of time. The more that athletes had deficits, the more their cortisol went up, their testosterone went down and overall their body showed worse health outcomes, which for women and meant loss of menstrual cycle and things like that. And so what we're seeing there is not only does this act across multiple days, like overnight, this acts on very short timescales that if you under fuel your energy expenditure, which might not be one to one, but it's something trying to get towards that, your body just starts downregulating, turning down the fire, the thermostat goes down. And when the thermostat goes down, bad things are waiting on the other end. And I think if this research looks specifically at athletes, like advanced athletes, it would be so, so obvious that the constrained energy model is the right one.

[B]

And I think what happens with the constrained energy model in terms of body composition is often paradoxical, is we start seeing weight gain as the basal metabolic rate goes down and the body starts compensating. And that can be what is so tricky and confusing for both athletes and practitioners is starting to tease apart what is what.

[A]

And it can also cause thyroid issues which interact with this in a really complex way too. So you put it all together and I think the lesson from this one, it's really cool scientifically that metabolically humans have adapted this famine response essentially where it makes sense. We didn't have three square meals forever. And sometimes not only would you have that, you would go multiple days with high levels of physical activity without proper fuel. And that's why humans were able to do remarkable things, evolutionary and research reach the top of the food chain. It's a really cool thing. But just like in ultra running and in long distance running, low carb proponents are like, this is a sign we should harness this. It's actually a sign that we should try to avoid this, to use it to our advantage so we can perform aerobically but not apply it in such ways that cause our endocrine system, our thyroid, all of that to get fucked and put us in a famine state when we don't need to be.

[B]

And I think my question is not whether this exists. Like to me, I've so clearly seen this within athletics of, you know, athletes, athletes that are over training, under fueling and then their body has these, you know, downgrades hormones, downgrades basal metabolic rate and becomes a very tricky situation. But in fact, how do you recover from that? And that is hard. And that's where sometimes you actually have to overshoot the other direction to start turning on the body and these bodily systems. And that can be like very uncomfortable for athletes actually in the sense of like you know, potentially gaining more weight, potentially, you know, eating more food than they are comfortable with. And that process of turning these systems back on can be some of the most challenging within athletics and sports. Lots of switches, I'm turning the switches, I'm like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, get this back on.

[A]

But that's exactly right, I think. And that's where your satisfaction bomb framework, which I think is maybe the most game changing nutrition framework I've ever heard for these types of athletes that are facing this, which is basically all athletes who are. Are competing seriously or, or like pushing their bodies and. And burning a substantial amount of calories is a satisfaction bomb is the key. It's not even how many calories you get throughout the day. It's certainly not snacking or whatever. Like, it's getting meals that are just like, boom, we found a new burger place here in Boulder.

[B]

Oh, it's so delicious.

[A]

It's where our current satisfaction bomb, CP Burger. It's so good down on Pearl street, so visit it when you come to Boulder. And that framework, like milkshakes, stuff like that does go a long way. And that is why our nutrition discussions are so informed by this type of framing. I think sometimes people that disagree with us are like the opposite view frame framework of, you know, the physical health as it relates to total energy expenditure. And it's like, nah, actually we just need to figure out ways to turn the fire up high enough that you don't have the negative health outcomes on the other end. And if so, that burn rate will solve the problems that might be seen in other parts of research on sedentary populations.

[B]

And when you're looking at the study, you're like, okay, well we should just measure BMR basal metabolic rate or resting metabolic rate, rmr. And it's actually kind of tricky to do that. Like, basal beta molecule is a very controlled laboratory measurement. RMR depends on so many different things, including including treating and context and can vary depending upon when you measure it. And I think this is where we are so lucky to start having some of these reds panels of blood biomarkers that start to get at approximating. This is like, okay, what is the system doing? And this is where like working with healthcare practitioner to measure these biomarkers can be so helpful.

[A]

Are you comfortable saying what those are on the podcast?

[B]

Yeah, I'll just listen.

[A]

I'm just putting you on the spot.

[B]

Sorry, we're just gonna wrap these off. Free T3 I think is one of the most important ones. Estradiol, testosterone, insulin, IGF1, I think those are the ones.

[A]

Sorry to put you on the spot that that is. And then also just a full blood panel because if you start to see like hemoglobin being off and iron and all these other things, like, you know, you might be seeing some signals there. And it varies. But just gosh, we keep harping on this because it's one of the weirdest and coolest parts of human physiology. That metabolism is adapted so that calories in, calories out is not at all the way it works for athletes. Maybe for sedentary individuals it kind of of this. And if you play that game, if you start to do math in your head, stop. Because you remember that your body doesn't play that game. And if you start to play that game, what you might end up doing is causing your body to go on the wrong side of that schematic curve that Dr. Herman Pon devised. So we're taking it a step beyond the research to say this. Like this isn't what his study is saying, I want to be clear on that. But a really interesting sub finding in his study was that in weight training interventions they saw negative compensation. So in other words, total energy expenditure was below what athletes actually needed, the opposite direction. Um, and so for athletes that might be on the other side you can think about, all right, maybe weightlifting is a way to get at this. Maybe you know, thinking about your body in a more anabolic sense. So building muscle might be a way to think about this. So it's very strange and we do not exactly understand why that would be, but it aligns with what theory you've heard forever, which is like, you know, if you do maybe some of this harder work, you might elevate your metabolic rate above what is expected. So cool. Weird stuff.

[B]

The human body is wild.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I feel like understand this because I think the challenging part is digging out of this can take months and sometimes years in severe cases. And so like you want to understand this as soon as possible just so that you prevent that like long term process.

[A]

Yes. And should we talk very briefly about the short term LEA study? Oh yeah, it's kind of of unnecessary after that last one, but relevant perhaps. So here it is. Biochemical responses to experimentally induced short term low energy availability in athlete athletes. A systematic review I found 13 studies with 145 participants and interestingly had them induce en low energy availability. Which is pretty fascinating, a little bit ethically gray area sometimes because you don't always get great research in this area. Because if you go in and say hey, say do this to your body often you're seeing inadvertent low energy availability in these studies because you know, it's kind of messed up to have someone do that to themselves.

[B]

That's why it's hard to measure. But they did this on relatively short time scales and they had a mix of athletes that was like endurance athletes, strength athletes, team based athletes and a range of athletes abilities. And then what they were doing was they were looking at outcomes of biomarkers of bone metabolism, calcium metabolism, energy regulation, inflammation, iron, sex, hormones, thyroid function, a lot of different things. And a lot of these are already part of like a classic reds panel.

[A]

Yeah. And long story short, they found some changes in those variables over very short time horizons, which makes sense. We talked about the within day energy deficits. If that can cause it, probably anything can. But it's not just like your broader systematic process. It's also very specific things like bone turnover that might have relevance for things like stress fractures.

[B]

Well, interestingly, the markers that they found that were relevant on very short time horizons are ones that I actually don't have athletes measure. So it was leptin, which is a hormone that, that's responsible in appetite and metabolism and is involved in like, the body's satiety feeling. But that changes on such short timescales that it can be impacted by things like training. And it's also impacted at baseline by like, like body fat percentage. And they're looking at markers of bone turnover also impacted by other things too. And I'm like, it's interesting that they found those, but they're often not the clinically most useful because they're so noisy.

[A]

Yeah, but the noise might be relevant for an athlete because if there is some change in bone turnover mechanism, for example, you could see how, well, maybe just a few days of this and then sending it on a long downhill can cause a stress injury to start that over time becomes a stress fracture. If you run through it. Who knows? Um, so even over short time, hor horizons, this matters. And just we're harping on our normal message, you know, eat enough always. And yes, there are conversations that are more complicated than that. In the article that I wrote on Patreon gets into some of those, those of saying, okay, well, if an athlete has body composition concerns, maybe then they can work with a professional who can help them navigate this tricky location. Because it's not as simple as, okay, now you reduce your calories when you're training because it might lead to the opposite response that you're looking for. Um, but there are things you can do, just not things that we're gonna talk about because we're not like experts on the subject.

[B]

And RDs are incredible. I feel like work with one to understand like, you know, to get some of this, like, blood work done and to have it analyzed to understand where you might fall, even just like, honestly, it's an emotional support too. Like, I've seen that be so Helpful for athletes.

[A]

Yeah. In the conclusion of the study, very quickly, here's a quote. Short term, experimentally induced low energy availability elicits early endocrine metabolic adaptations, particularly affecting bone remodeling, leptin, and testosterone. So testosterone also dropped In, I think, 50% of people. So that's significant for everyone out there. And you can think about how, how. All right, you string these together a little bit longer term, and some bad things can happen.

[B]

Well, I was excited because coming back here for my heart stuff, I've been trying just to make sure my body is firing on all cylinders, and there's nothing going on that could be causing these heart issues that I'm in control of. And I feel like that's the hardest part right now is it just feels so random and uncertain, and I just wake up with chest pain, and it's like, that's weird that happened. But I got a red span because I was like, I just want to make sure I'm fueling my body. And I've never had one. Like, I've had a consistent period and, like, eat a fuck ton of mozzarella sticks, quite frankly. And so I was like, I don't need one.

[A]

And the funny part is, how long did the study results take to get back?

[B]

Like, a week and a half.

[A]

Yeah. And the whole time you were. I could tell you were a little,

[B]

like, nervous about nervous. I was just like, I don't want to be, like, you know, contributing in some way to, like, these mystery health issues that I've had. And, well, the whole time, I'm just

[A]

like, megan, I promise you're fine. If you're not fine, there's no hope for me. I'm like, I am in a severe red state.

[B]

If you are, you're like, megan, if those labs come back weird, no runner is safe from red, which is the

[A]

biggest compliment I could ever give a person. Like, I have seen what you do to the plates of fries and burgers and milkshakes. And I'm like, you know, that is remarkable. And it is what has framed my entire discussion around this topic is seeing you do it. And is. I think one of the reasons I've taken my leaps forward is you've helped me change the way I approach things. Like satisfaction bonds, which I was never comfortable with, because, honestly, I'm a little bit fucked mentally by all this shit. Right? Oh, it's so tricky from when I was young and just didn't understand and got all these messages, which is why I'm screaming the opposite direction now. But I'm still fucked mentally. And now you've gotten me to the point that I'm like, all right, performance. This is performance.

[B]

And I think that's leveled up your performance. But what I do to those plates of fries was reflected in the blood work, which was great. My free T3 was beautiful, and everything was beautiful. Yeah. Estradiol testosterone. Yeah.

[A]

I was so impressed. Yeah.

[B]

It was nice to see. I was like. It gave me a smile, you know, just dealing with all these random heart stuff. So I was like, I get a smile as I go through this, like, not fun process.

[A]

Take the wins. You can get

[B]

the wins and the fries. That's what I'm here for.

[A]

How's your heart feeling now as you record?

[B]

Actually, good, 100%. I'm optimistic.

[A]

Okay. The podcast is a lot of energy, so I want to make sure.

[B]

Canyon sifting,

[A]

you did say to me yesterday, it's like, maybe canyons isn't off the table. I was like, no, bad dog.

[B]

Don't do that.

[A]

It's. I believe in you so much, but no.

[B]

Well, that's why I want you to be there so bad, because it's like. I mean, honestly, I want to be

[A]

triggering, though, for you to be there.

[B]

I mean, no, I wasn't planning to take. If I got a golden ticket. I think I knew that western states was gonna be so much cardiac stress on me at this point in time, and I think, like, it hopefully won't be at future points in time, but I don't think I would have actually taken it. And you should actually take the ticket.

[A]

Yeah, no, this time I'm taking it.

[B]

Oh, this.

[A]

Sorry. This whole athlete. It's not going down anywhere. It is stopping if I ever get another one. One. I learned my lesson. Yeah. It's just so incredible. I mean, you know, I. I think about just obstacles that we face, and last week, we had a discussion on optimism, you know, and hope and things like that. And it's just you keep showing up, you know, when, honestly, I don't know how many people would. And it's like, well, if you can do that. I feel like I can do anything outside of athletics and. And, you know, I've dealt with, like, mental health struggles and things like that, and whenever I come back, I'm just like, God damn, you know, if you can do it, I can do it. Um, and if you show up, if you keep showing up with, like, optimism and hope through that, then I can do it so well.

[B]

It kind of reset my dopamine, like, the first three Days that I had to take off of, like, fully no exercise. I was pretty sad.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it gives me compassion for anyone struggling through mental health issues. It's like, I feel like I got that very acutely. And that was. That was plenty of. That was a lot.

[A]

You. Microdose depression.

[B]

Yeah, don't recommend it.

[A]

Don't recommend it. Hey, if you're dealing with that out there, we are here, and we love you.

[B]

We see those microdosing, and it's like, fuck, man, that's hard.

[A]

We got a beautiful message, which is not here because it was a little too personal, but about an athlete that had to stop listening to the podcast last year because they were going through depression, and it was hard to listen to, like, positivity in the face of that. And. And I felt like, dude. And I said, like, I totally love and respect that. And also.

[B]

Also, Megan's sleeping with a lot of stuffed animals at night. Yep.

[A]

You can. We have a depression index, which is how many stuffed animals Megan has at night. How often David is just sitting there on the Lazy Boy going, just me. August of last year. How many stuffed animals we got right now? Where's the index?

[B]

Actually, only two, but it's three, actually. Three.

[A]

Three?

[B]

Yeah. One of them is from when I was like, two or three, and the other two have been recent.

[A]

So when should we start having more

[B]

serious, like, more serious discussions about stuffed animals?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Depends on my iud. Yeah, I could probably take that out myself and acquire a teddy bear.

[A]

Like, oh, if you say that we have a third kid, that's. That's the depression. Oh, after last night, I feel like we should probably table that discussion. I say we skipped the biking in hot water one. That's interesting scientifically, but not necessarily the most fun. What do you want to get onto? Maybe a Q and A?

[B]

Yeah, let's do the training race one.

[A]

No, let's do the colon.

[B]

Oh, man.

[A]

Why do you want to not talk about colon?

[B]

Actually, we should talk about the colon. Agree.

[A]

This is a message that we've gotten similar versions of multiple times a week for the last six weeks or so. So here it is. I'm a listener of the pod, and after hearing you guys talk in the fall about the, quote, questionable study on colon issues in young runners, I scheduled a colonoscopy. I'm under 30, so wasn't very worried, but had a lot of the red flag symptoms y' all brought up, which things like blood and stool issues over time, things like that. I've had those issues for years and thought they were normal runner stuff. Turns out they weren't. I had a large polyp room removed that I'll get pathology on results soon. Regardless of what the report says, I had a real. I feel good. God, in this chills tonight, maybe I feel good in this chills.

[B]

It says God in the Chili's.

[A]

In the Chili's.

[B]

That's a restaurant. Maybe.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I feel like this was probably written very quickly, but I always see God in Chili's.

[B]

We love. We actually had a moment once. We were maybe we were like a year into our relationship, and my mom was like, you guys should go out on a fancy date. And we're like, oh, yeah, we're gonna do it. And we got all dressed up and looked real cute. And then as we were driving, we're like, we should just go to Chili's.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do you remember that?

[A]

I do.

[B]

I will never forget. So fun.

[A]

And they had that moment thinking about the SWAT podcast and how it stopped them from ignoring a potentially serious medical situation and letting it progress. This is not the first time you and Megan have personally impacted my health outcomes. And I want to thank you both for always being such strong public health advocates for the community. Community. I am so, so glad I listen.

[B]

I'm so glad they got this done. And thank you. And thank you for sharing this and for sharing this message. And. Yeah, man, it's like.

[A]

And this is layered on top of so many messages like this. And who knows? Obviously, colonoscopy is finding polyps or adenomas and things like that. I don't know the exact rate because we're not seeing these done in younger people very often, which was part of the issue that we had with this study.

[B]

And the study, to me, was very questionable just because of, like, the population size, how it was analyzed, how they were recruited. And I think at the same time, too, it places running. To me, it placed running as, like, a causal link for this stuff. And to me, there's like, we need so much more information before we get there. But at the end of the day, yes. I think if you're experiencing symptoms, early colonoscopies can be incredible.

[A]

Yeah. And, you know, I think it was 15% versus 2% in the study, if I remember the numbers correctly. Oh.

[B]

But when you're looking at the actual numbers, it was a. Megan, I. Stop, Stop. Don't give me percentages. Give me raw numbers.

[A]

Stop being the scary tool stool in the punch bowl. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm getting. Doing cologuard currently. Um, we have the box in our house, and I'm a little bit scared to do it.

[B]

You just been staring at the box. Maybe you got Pepto Bismol on Saturday after your first, longer, faster run, and you're like, I'm back, baby.

[A]

Yeah, Pepto Bismo Ultra. When that comes out, you know, I'm training well, and that should probably be a sign that I need a colonoscopy, but I'll start with Colegard. And so just a recommendation. If you've had, you know, abnormal stomach issues and abnormal not being like Forerunner, abnormal being for a person. Like, if you told someone about your stomach issues, would that be considered, like, a scary thing? Someone that loves you? It might be worth considering or at least talking to your doctor. It's complicated to get insurance to cover this, and there's a long road often. But the number of messages we've gotten recently is a huge signal. Like, this is not just noise at this point. It is seeing something. And so pay attention here. I think it's worth. And you know, I need to do this, too. Like, this is a message for myself most of all.

[B]

Do you think you're going to overflow the bucket? I think it's like a relatively small bucket that they give you for color guard. Yeah, just fill it to.

[A]

That's disgusting. How dare you. How dare you bring that type of disgusting conversation onto the swap podcast. Megan, this is a formal affair. This is an affair made for Chili's.

[B]

Only the finest.

[A]

Only the finest. Okay, next one on training races. Hi, David and Megan. It had many eyes and I just elbowed my computer. Let's see. Everything is still online, still going. Love you both so much. Thank you for everything you're doing. It's also helpful. I have a question that is kind of fun and silly. I'm training for a spring marathon. And so as you talked about on this week's bonus episode, I wanted to run a half marathon before the marathon, around a month before. We love half marathons before marathon races. Hence, like, just McLean doing Atlanta before Boston. Uh, I didn't think the one I picked would fill so fast, so I kind of forgot to register. When I finally got around to it, the race was full. I was on the wait list, and it said 99 people were ahead of me. So I looked for another half and found a second race not far away for the day after my first race. Perfect. I registered for the other half. Then a couple of weeks later, I got an email that I was in. In from the wait list of the first race, which was 99 people deep when I saw. So now I'm signed up for a half marathon on Saturday and Sunday. Thoughts? I have to run them both, right? What would Megan do?

[B]

I like that they specifically asked that

[A]

go all out for Saturday recovery race Sunday. What do you think?

[B]

I think they're trying to bias this. They're like, Megan wants me to send it. Yeah, she knows it in her veins. Honestly though, I think just raise one of them fast and race one of them hard. This is an area where sometimes I have athletes that are like, I'm gonna do 100k and then a 50k the next day and it's gonna be great training. And it's like, nah, we should just send that 100k really fast. And same go with half marathon. It's like run it fast, enjoy it, celebrate it after, recover and adapt. Rather than running one fast and then one, quite frankly, probably subpar half marathon the next day and risking injury and lack of adaptation.

[A]

And I think just viewing races as a special thing is part of the training idea of it. So the training race is being like, oh, I'm gonna get nervous for this one and then I have nothing coming the next day. And so, you know, I just want to do well. And then maybe I, I suck and shit the bed and fail and DNF at first hill or whatever the equivalent is. But then you learn from that and grow from that in ways that if you have some sort of defense mechanism built in by your race schedule, it might not be the impact you want it to be. So if you're doing a training race, treat it just as seriously. Maybe you don't taper for two weeks, just taper for a few days, rest for a day or two after. Um, but let it be super fucking serious. I think that's the key. Take it so seriously that you're going to grow from it because if you don't, you don't, then it's no different than every other day. And the key is you want it to be something that gets butterflies in your stomach. Even if it's like the local 5K where you're racing 8 year olds, like that's what you want and it's such

[B]

a good thing to practice. Here's my hot take though is I think stage races can actually be great for athletes that have some fear surrounding racing. Oh yeah, it's because like, you know, five days into Trans Rockies or whatever stage race, run the rocks, three days, whatever stage race it is, by the time you get to the starting line, you're like, I'm just here. I'm existing. We're doing this thing. This is Groundhog Day at this point. And I think it's actually great to practice that. And I think the body kind of gets desensitized to that pretty rapidly within time. And that's where showing up at multiple start lines in the context of a stage race can be helpful.

[A]

Stage race or. I mean, just getting out there as much as you can. Right. Local races overall. Because a stage race is just letting you race a lot. And, yes, you're going to be sore as shit, not feeling great. And so eventually you're just like, I don't care anymore.

[B]

I actually don't love stage races because I'm like, I just want to send it hard and then not think about racing the next day.

[A]

You know what it reminds me of? What? Two days?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In sports, where, like, you had these in field high hockey, you know, you're seeing three days. What?

[B]

Yeah. Preseason was low.

[A]

Cause, like, some of the Kenyan training camps that I've heard about, um, and actually Japanese athletes do that too. I've started coaching some elite Japanese athletes who are like, triples. I'm like, perhaps not, but. But yeah. I mean, in those contexts, like, I remember you get so sore after a while that whatever nerves you have, eventually you're just on autopilot and you're like, I just want to survive this. And it makes you tougher, suffer mentally. That's a really good thing. But then, you know, over time, it does help you become on autopilot and just be like, okay, this is what I do. Did you ever get that with field hockey?

[B]

Oh, my God. I would get so sore. Especially because the field hockey motion, quite frankly, is dumb. You're, like, squatting and, like, kind of bent over, and there's. It's really hard to simulate that outside of playing field hockey. And so. And you also lose that relatively fast. Like, if you go a week or two without playing field hockey and then you hop into a game, you're like, I'm so sore.

[A]

You know what you should do? What? Ride brooms.

[B]

Quidditch.

[A]

I have my first experience with Harry Potter after, you know, I'm reading it to Leo, and I'm just like. Instead of that field hockey motion, the broom motion seems really, like, comfortable.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's kind of like up there, kind of like humping a broom.

[B]

I know. I'm like, why would you swing a stick when you can ride one? Doing it wrong my whole life.

[A]

We should get sponsored by a field hockey Company. That is a great tagline. This is the best tagline I've ever heard.

[B]

That'd be so, so sore. And you just kind of show up. It like kind of just beats the crap out of you. And you're like I'm just here to exist. We're going to another three day day.

[A]

Absolutely. Okay, more questions.

[B]

Let's do one more.

[A]

One more.

[B]

Do you do one the outdoors? You can shorten it.

[A]

Okay, very simple. Here it was. And I scrolled past it like an idiot. Hey Megan and David. I just wanted to toss a question in the mix. I haven't heard you address. I'm a newish runner and even newer trail runner and I love it. Getting out nature aspect is so great. However, for my whole adult life I've always been highly concerned about the downsides of being in nature. Specifically poison ivy and ticks. I know that my concerns about these things are more than the average person, but I don't think they are irrational. I've had really bad poison ivy a few times and we see ticks a lot. I had a bite once or twice too. Obviously the horrors of Lyme disease and other tick borne illnesses are so terrible. So my question is how do you two in the community deal with quote protecting yourself out on the trail? I know it all always becomes more of a thing in the summertime when you have more exposed skin. And of course more of the threats are out there, more ticks, poison ivy plants have bigger leaves, et cetera. The obvious answer is just be very diligent about showering within a few hours of being in the woods and do regular tick checks. But I guess that's where the question lies. If you're going out for a really long trail run that's a few hours from home or whatever, it might be six to eight hours. Long enough for a reaction to start in a sensitive individual before you get to the shower with your dawn dish. Super tight technew. And maybe you've got a tick on you all day or you've got poison ivy on your hands and rubbing in your eyes and ah. I kind of just added the ah there. Um, you got the idea.

[B]

Well we have privilege. We're immune to poison ivy.

[A]

Yes, that is privilege.

[B]

We could actually probably just roll in it and nothing would happen.

[A]

Maybe brother and sister is right.

[B]

I know. Isn't that weird?

[A]

That is weird.

[B]

It's kind of weird. I mean that's not a super common thing and we're both immune so. Yeah, actually, which is relevant because Canyons has a ton of poison ivy. Every year, athletes are racing canyons and then trying to do a rapid turnaround in terms of poison iv, iv, IV recovery for getting back to western states.

[A]

Yeah, and I should be fine.

[B]

Yeah, you should be good.

[A]

I might have terrible issues for other

[B]

reasons, but I do think, like, tech new is amazing, and sometimes with a race like canyons, you just kind of have to be like, well, we're here, we're doing it, we're sending it, we're going to tech new as best we can. And at the end of the day, you know, when you're spending, you know, a number of hours out there on the course, that's just kind of the reality of this.

[A]

And that's a race for training. Having some light layer over your legs would make a lot of sense. Sense where, you know, you might rub against these plants if you're highly sensitive. But the fact that they're worried about poison ivy in ticks and you can kind of sense in this that there's broader anxiety about nature overall. I think it's a time to just be like, you're gonna be okay.

[B]

Just be like, you are one with nature.

[A]

You're one with nature. And I think often this stems to upbringing where a kid who is raised outside is probably not going to be worried about this stuff, even if they are also subject to the same reason risks. Because you view it as a rational risk to take, much like you were talking about with heart stuff, right? Like, you love it so much that you do the thing. And I think that that probably ties more generally to a view of the world and a feeling on anxiety where athletics can give you a path through it by. Yes, you do. Precautions that make some sense. So, you know, you might wear long pants, or if you're running early morning hours in California, you might have a bell on yourself just to, you know, make animals aware of you. Like, that way they can hunt you better.

[B]

Or my way. I have.

[A]

Sorry, you missed my joke.

[B]

I was going to Beyonce. I played Beyonce out loud. But that was actually a better joke. Sorry I didn't honor you appropriately.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Yeah, I was proud of that one.

[A]

But. But, like, you know, seriously small precautions like that one, but not letting it overcome you is probably key. And you can see these types of anxiety in places where, you know, you might not have them, and that's where it makes the most sense. So, like, to someone with a phobia of flying, you know, that fear is so real and hard that it just is almost impossible to deal with unless they get help. And figure out ways to expose themselves to and work through it over time. Some people will never fly again because it's so hard to deal with. And it makes total sense. But if you don't have a fear of flying and you see these phobias, you're just, just like, oh, well, you know, just work through this. And similarly, this is a place where there are options to grow through it, but it requires talking about it and understanding the origin points. Therapy is amazing for this. And if you're not going to do that, just understand, all right, where am I? History might this lie. Give yourself some pop psychology, help yourself work through it and be like, look, this is the me that I want to see in the world. And so I'm going to help myself work through this in various means, means taking the lightest precautions, but without letting anxiety make decisions for me.

[B]

And I think sometimes it's helpful for me. Maybe this is just a me thing to understand the scope of the risk too. Like, I think tics much bigger deal if you live in the northeast or somewhere on the east Coast. Whereas, like, I've had athletes in Colorado be really afraid of tics. And it's like less of a big deal here. And so I think that's where like educating yourself too. And we've discussed a lot with like animal education or.

[A]

Yeah, if you educate yourself. There's so many people on, like the most vocal people, people online are the people with the anxieties that are justified in their anxieties for whatever reason.

[B]

Well, don't go to Reddit.

[A]

Well, that's where the information is. Like all information nowadays online is this big smorgasbord. It's never like a doctor saying, hey, you know, here's a very well reasoned take that will never get social media traction. It's like either on one side you're gonna do this and die, or on the other side like, you're fine, toughen

[B]

up, just go roll around and poison ivy and check your immune status or whatever, you know.

[A]

And thus I think it is kind of about finding the middle ground of like the type of person you want to see in the world. And nature is not a thing to be afraid of. That being said, I'm deathly afraid of the ocean.

[B]

Perhaps that's fair. The ocean is dark, it's scary. You can't see the bottom. I hate. I was like, I was out there boogie boarding in like the Atlantic Ocean in Jersey and I was like, what about sharks? And like statistical. That's so low.

[A]

Yeah, Snooki could be under there.

[B]

Yeah. Snooki. Way worse than a shark.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The situation, Jim Tan Laundry.

[A]

But I mean, I'm somewhat serious in that. Like I wouldn't want to be, you know, treading water in the ocean.

[B]

And I'm. For me, it's snakes. And I was talking to an Australian athlete and she was describing the snake situation on the trails down there and I was like, nope, nope, wouldn't do it. You know, I see that like statistic about a disease that causes mortality within running and then I see snakes and I'm like, interesting to put the two side by side.

[A]

Yeah, I'm just like one of those people that drives everywhere as opposed to taking planes. I'm like, I don't need to really fuck with the ocean. It's not something. But if I love the ocean, like if I was a major boater, let's say that's maybe the equivalent of trail running or an open water swimmer, perhaps open water swimming may be best. I would want to work through that with people that could help me and evolve through that because it stems to my childhood and I haven't talked to my therapist about this but. But I very specifically remember being six years old at like Rehoboth beach in Delaware and looking out and just imagining a big wall of water coming.

[B]

Yeah. You've always had a fear of tsunamis?

[A]

Well, not anymore. I don't have an active fear, but

[B]

I feel like now actually that fear has translated into intense interest.

[A]

Oh, yes, yes. Well, I mean, just all you have

[B]

so many dad facts about tsunamis.

[A]

Everything that a six year old boy is interested in is a major interest for me other than cars like dinosaurs, tsunamis, space. Yeah, that is my shit. But that clearly programmed me in such a way that it never went away. Not necessarily just the tsunami thing, but like other experiences that you've had in water. And I've never had to deal with that. Thus I'm almost certain this athlete could look at experiences they have had when young that might not even be tied to nature, that could be tied toward risk profiles generally, how you were raised and you see that manifest in the present day and how you think about risk. And it's tricky, right? Like we think about that with our kids a lot. And this is a way for me to compliment you, Megan, and let you off the hook.

[B]

This is our playground experience. Last night Leo fell from like four feet.

[A]

It was much higher than four feet.

[B]

You think? Ah, yeah, maybe it was like chin level. Yeah, maybe it's like five at least.

[A]

And yeah, so you were playing with him? I was pushing Ollie on the swing over there. All I hear is a scream.

[B]

It's like, ah.

[A]

I'm not sure if it was you or Leo.

[B]

It was Leo.

[A]

And he's been pretty hard this morning.

[B]

Yeah, I was, I asked him twice. I was like, leo, this is high. You need help. And he's like, I'm gonna send it. And then he send it right, right, right to the ground.

[A]

And you know, part of the initial reaction is, I mean, I don't know. Did you feel at all like, oh, I wish I had helped him?

[B]

No.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah. Terrible.

[A]

You didn't need to be right off the hook here. A kid might have just broken his leg.

[B]

No, I know, but like, there's a part of me that's like, this is free play. Like, he had confidence in himself and so I gotta have confidence in him too. And he's gonna learn. He's not gonna go back and do the same thing.

[A]

What if he has confidence that he can use like the oven or something?

[B]

Well, I mean, I mean this was calculated risk in a way that like he was jumping from one log to another. And he's done it a lot of times. He actually did it the other day and did fall.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. The second time he's fallen on the same part of the playground.

[B]

But he, his brain took him back there.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You know, he fell the first time and some part of his brain was like, I'm going to go back and do this. And so I got to let him.

[A]

Okay. We're seeing a lot about you in this conversation. I've given you a chance to feel contrition.

[B]

I'm so sad apologist.

[A]

You could have used your iPhone notes app and written a note about how

[B]

sorry you are USATF style.

[A]

And then like, yeah, yeah, six pages.

[B]

Here's a whole six page report.

[A]

And. But to be serious, if I were in the same circumstances as you, I would have been holding his hand in that jump because, you know, one, I've seen the. But you can see how my inclination there to protect him from some more risk than you might lead down past in the future where he's not comfortable with heights.

[B]

Well, I think you have a broader, like, I think you have a broader background of anxiety than I do and that probably translates. You were probably already thinking about him falling. Meanwhile, I was thinking about, about the jump he was going to make and the growth he was going to have

[A]

and yeah, yeah, a little less growth when your leg is split into two pieces. Next I'm Going to. I'm going to come home tomorrow and he's just going to be on the roof changing some of the tiles.

[B]

Well, we actually got him. We got him a bike that actually has pedals on it. And his first request, he's like, can I go down? And he points to the steepest hill in the park. He's like, can I go down that hill?

[A]

He said yes.

[B]

I said no. I mean, I told him he had to learn. I mean, he's pedaling at like, 1 RPM right now. He needs to learn how to pedal better.

[A]

Okay. He is just turning three, so perhaps a little soon. But the point is, I respect that because you. You magnify that out and you can see how that might change trajectories in a way that's no fault of a parent.

[B]

Well, I think it's a healthy balance. You have slightly higher anxiety than I do, and I feel like we find that, like, common middle ground.

[A]

We should lock the hot tub.

[B]

Oh, we should. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Yes. We have a key. I just, I'm having my anxiety right now. Thankfully, he's. He's at school with his broken leg or whatever. He'll be taking him to get X rays after the pod. But, no, I admire it so much. Right. Like the. That nature is probably really relevant and has much more to do with the participation trophy discussion than anything to do with participation trophies. Like, Leo knows he's loved no matter what and never has to finish a race for that. And you're giving him the tools to be confident in himself and be tough and work ways that maybe I am less prone to, even though I'm trying, Like, because I understand the research. And my guess is this listener, if they could delve back into their childhood, has a very, like, you know, a background that maybe they didn't get some of those experiences or had a negative one, which could also happen. Right. It's like you. You have that openness and then you have a bad experience that colors your future understanding of it as you grow. Maybe a good example of that is athletes that can't burp. Often, if an athlete can't burp, it stems to traumatic experiences when they're a child child related to vomiting. And it's wild to think how our physiology and our stress responses can change from very small things when we're young. And thus working through them is much more complicated than making a decision about just wearing long pants or wearing a bell. So the mountain lion knows exactly where you are and how to attack or

[B]

even on a more baseline level, Again,

[A]

what is going on?

[B]

The way you're doing that joke, it's like. It's like you're trailing off the sentence, and you're like, the mountain lion gonna attack.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Megan, it's weak.

[A]

No excuses.

[B]

It's weak.

[A]

No excuses.

[B]

It's so weak. You could have been like, in the mountain lions attacking, and I'd have been like.

[A]

I'm. I'm ashamed, personally. Finish your point. Finish your.

[B]

I think there's also baseline genetics that push you in directions like this, too, that are even beyond childhood experiences. And I think raising kids has given me so much compassion for that. Like, Leo and Ollie are fundamentally different from each other. And that's like, you know, same learning environment, same growth environment, and so different. And I just, like, I have a lot of compassion for myself.

[A]

Absolutely. Okay. On the listener corner.

[B]

Let's do it.

[A]

What do we do before that?

[B]

John John Promo their stuff. Their spring collection is so good.

[A]

Yeah. So J A N J I dot com. You can use code swap there or just sign up for their John G Collective. I forget how they do it.

[B]

The John G Collective. Better.

[A]

Better.

[B]

You get 15% off.

[A]

Just make sure you go, it's 15% off no matter what. What do you want to promo?

[B]

The long bra is great. They got. Spring collection has beautiful colors. I love the pink and blue and the multi short. You can stuff a lot of things in the pockets. And I like the split on it. Makes my quads feel a little free.

[A]

The tights are amazing. They have. I've been. I wore them for the YouTube video that's coming out on high carb fueling.

[B]

Yeah, you went full hog,

[A]

half mast. But I. I wore the tights. I'm not a tight sky. And I loved them. They were so good. The trail tight. They had an amazing pocket. I carried a lot of my gels. That's where I carried all my empty raptors. So I didn't just, like, glitter on Magnolia Road. The long bra you're wearing every single day. Day. So fantastic. So go check out these. These out now. Um. I know you're wearing the long bar, like, every single day.

[B]

It holds my phone and a gel, which is amazing. And it's like I. It's kind of a staple now to my running gear. It's like I can't ever hold a phone in my hand.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, let's get on to listener corner. Maybe do the second one. This is kind of fun.

[B]

Ooh, I like it.

[A]

Um, I don't know if you saw this yet. I am a high School Runner. Currently doing the winter training plan. How do you feel about a high schooler listening to the podcast?

[B]

Hi.

[A]

Hi.

[B]

What's up? I feel. I mean, high schoolers are a advanced these days.

[A]

Yeah, that's true. And also.

[B]

Oh, they're getting the content they could have.

[A]

That's true. It's labeled as explicit, the podcast.

[B]

So, you know, I mean, we're explicit, but we're like friendly explicit.

[A]

Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

[B]

We got hogs with compassion over here.

[A]

We have HWCs. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

HWCs.

[A]

Perfect. Actually reminds me, hot water immersion is HWI in the studies.

[B]

Yeah, HWC. Also birth control.

[A]

Exactly. That's the biggest reason I'm doing. Yeah. So I actually like it. I. One of the places I am most thankful to my family is that I was exposed to all information from a very young age.

[B]

Like, a very young age.

[A]

Like anything. Like I remember reading Catch 22, a novel that changed my life before I was 10 years old.

[B]

Did you understand it?

[A]

Probably not all of it, but it was enough of it and just big ideas and, you know, shows and, and things like that. That, that I think did make my intellect much more resilient. Much more. Okay, we're talking about people and like toughness and resilience. But you know, new ideas don't scare me at all. Like if I find out I am wrong on something, I'm just like, makes sense. And I think it's because, you know, I was so the opposite of coddled information. My parents would talk to me about all this stuff. It's not like I was just doing it on my own. It would be processed, but thus, like, I don't feel weird about a high schooler listening, but I could see people that might.

[B]

Yeah, I feel like it'd be weird to listen with your parents. I have a core childhood memory of like watching 40 Year Old Virgin with my parents at 13. Oh, it was. I think I was just being an introvert and wasn't going out on their date nights. They're like, you're just gonna watch this movie too. And I was like, this is awkward.

[A]

Yeah, great one. Yeah, I like. He goes Kelly Clarkson. I think about that all the time. Okay, back to the question or listener corner. I wanted to write in a little listener corner. And so they said that one of the reasons I wanted to. To read it and let you guys know how much the plan has helped me. The winter training plan. I have noticed so many training adaptations in just a few weeks. I finished a 10 mile steady run and felt very good. A few Days ago. My current mileage and paces would have seemed impossible a few months ago. I think higher carbs and better fueling have been so influential on my success. I wish some of these fueling emphasis guidelines were emphasized more in cross country. I noticed I'm having trouble reading today.

[B]

Oh. I mean, we slept like three hours last night.

[A]

Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have chugged that bleach. Um, back to the question.

[B]

Maybe more.

[A]

Yeah, nobody uses carbs, even during long runs. I hope to scream from the rooftops as you guys do, causing some positive change in the world. I also want to thank you guys for helping me get over negative narratives. I feel excited to eat so many satisfaction bombs after listening to your podcast. I also understand failure and setbacks, allowing me to get out of a period of stress and anxiety that was caused by something I was going through. I can see that pretty Strava graphs and successful moments are not constants. Failure is okay. You guys have made me excited to go out and enjoy working hard. Listening to the pod makes me feel calmer and happier when things are tough in training. I've learned so much since I started following your journey, and I hope to continue having this source of joy and laughs on all my runs. You guys are hilarious. I love everything you do, and I'm so excited to keep fueling and working hard in training. Huzzah.

[B]

Huzzah. Well, so excited. I feel like high school running is actually an area where carbs can make a big difference and especially college running, depending upon, like, the mileage and training status of these programs. But oftentimes I feel like they're like, the slowest adopters of this stuff. And this makes me so happy.

[A]

So happy.

[B]

We got explicit content and compassion, but also carbs.

[A]

Carbs. Y. Yeah. What would you give as a message to your high school self if he

[B]

could go back now just to, like, dim your fire a little bit?

[A]

Oh, and that's the message we want to give to young women?

[B]

No, no. There's fire, but then there's like, burn down the house and the city.

[A]

You mean like self compassion?

[B]

The world. Yeah, compassion. It's like. And I think everything at the moment felt so self important. And it was. And it, like, it always will feel that way, but when you. You take steps back, it's like, you know, being a part of a team was so special and, you know, having friends at track meets and so many things surrounding the track meets and surrounding my field hockey games that I remember very little of the games itself and more of the surrounding stuff. And so like the competitive aspect. And so it's just like, take in the whole experience, enjoy the team, enjoy the community, Feel your body well, treat your body well. And like, temper the fire in the sense of like, it matters, but don't let it consume you and eat you alive.

[A]

That's so beautiful and so perfect. I mean, I mean, yeah, like, I think back to my own high school experience, and I was probably the opposite in a lot of ways. I don't know why this. Why was I a kid that was so far, like, inside my own head?

[B]

Probably anxiety, probably have a baseline predisposition

[A]

to that, maybe processing it at a young age. But in my high school speech, like my graduation speech, I talked about, we have a recording of this somewhere. Do you ever watch this? It was something along the lines of, high school doesn't matter. And so tomorrow is a day to be a new person. And so wherever you're going on the next steps, the message was, you can just evolve to what you want to see in the world. And I think sometimes back then my thought was, everyone in high school thinks this matters and it doesn't.

[B]

Well, I think in a large sense too, you went to a high school in which the graduation onto college rate was quite low too. And so I feel like oftentimes in that case, the students stakes feel even higher in high school. But I think that message then becomes even more important.

[A]

And I gave them a fake speech because my message was very controversial where I grew up.

[B]

What do you mean by a fake speech?

[A]

So you may have to submit your speech.

[B]

Oh, oh, the speech that you submitted was different than the one you gave. Yes, yes.

[A]

And as I left the stage, the principal said, you're in big trouble. And I went back and listened to it. It was not controversial, like, literally.

[B]

I love that you were contro. You're like, you know, you are the more controversial person on this podcast for sure. And I say that with a good thing. Like, it is good to have passion and feeling. And you were the same way in high school.

[A]

Well, yeah, I've been always been the same person. I've evolved and, like, gotten better in some ways, but, like, I've also gotten worse in some ways. The people that hate me, honestly, they hate me for me a lot of the times, and I respect that too. You can have your opinions, but, you know, the message was essentially, and what I would say to this person seems like they. They really feel as well, is that every single day, but especially where you're at right now, is a chance to, like, Become the type of person that you want to be in the world. Um, and I think so often, and, and this goes for 70 year old listeners that are listening to. And I think about it for myself, it feels like you're so far down the path. Um, very specifically in running. I see this often with athletes who have eating issues where they're just like, well, this is such a huge hole I've done, Doug. How am I ever going to get out? And the answer is just start digging.

[B]

Yeah, put a little, yeah, put a little bit of mud in there, you

[A]

know, um, and you know, for a

[B]

young person, are you digging to get out of the hole?

[A]

I guess digging on the side of the hole.

[B]

Yeah. Turn it back in. Yeah, I'm like, wait a second, don't dig the hole deeper.

[A]

Um, my other message to high schoolers would be to get a little bit better at metaphors. Just might help when you're 37 on a podcast. Um, but you know, that speech got me, did get me in trouble. I was like, what can you do?

[B]

You're like, I'm on, I'm on my way out.

[A]

But, but, oh, I also said in that speech, did you swear? Oh, you better believe it. You think I swore? Of course I swore. Guess what my quote was. You know how you have quotes often. Oh, yeah, it was.

[B]

Is it live, Laugh, love, fuck, no,

[A]

no, no, I definitely wasn't in that world yet. At all. At all in that world. But no, no, it was Lance Armstrong. People want to know what I'm on.

[B]

That was when he was still clean, right?

[A]

I mean, I should have known. But I wasn't, you know, or not

[B]

still clean, still assumed to be cleaned.

[A]

I wasn't on the Internet enough. I mean, everyone that know, like our podcast would have been saying like, oh, who knows? But the quote of everybody wants to know what I'm on. What am I on? I'm on my bike six hours a day busting my ass. What are you on? And I gotta laugh at the what are you on? Statement because I feel like, you know, but yeah, so shows that I didn't really know what I was talking about. But I think the one thing that holds up is, is just self compassion and cut yourself slack for every mistake you've made. Try to go out and make mistakes and learn to love yourself on the

[B]

other end, you know, that's so well said. And to send it down the canyons.

[A]

Oh, God, Megan, I am so sore right now.

[B]

You're like, I can't imagine that 10 mile downhill at the Start.

[A]

What do you think? I don't even know. What are the chances I get to the start line?

[B]

I think it's 70%.

[A]

Yeah, we'll see.

[B]

It seems to be my number of the day, but I'm honest in that you said 50% last week, and I think it's higher.

[A]

If I could take out, you know, your heart and put it into my heart and give you my heart, I would do it in a second, you know?

[B]

God, if I could have your heart from its all that time in the hot tub, your stroke output's probably amazing, but I mean, no, that means a ton.

[A]

I seriously, like. And I really wish I could just have it for myself.

[B]

And I'm starting to get things I actually like. I'm taking. I'm like, swimming in NSAIDs right now and feeling a little bit more now. You're gonna cry. I'm gonna cry. But, no, I'll be fine. And, like, that's the thing is, like, maybe it's not gonna be a hundred K this year, but it will be. I'm confident I'll get to race something.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, I'm.

[A]

No, I. I am too.

[B]

Maybe the middle school mile, but, you know, I'm. I'm actually. I'm actually quite confident and it's. I'm also quite confident. Quite sad at the same time, which is an interesting place to be, but. Yeah.

[A]

I just want the world to see, you know, everything you are and, like, I don't know, why is my heart good and yours not? I wish. I wish I could just get.

[B]

These things are so fucking racist. Random.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What did I do in a past life?

[A]

I know. I think about that all the time. We've had some karmic energy to us recently that hasn't been great, honestly. And I'm like. I'm trying, like, I know inside my

[B]

head, do our best.

[A]

The outcomes aren't always great, but I know in my head, like, I'm trying to be a good person.

[B]

That's the thing. Like, I'm trying to treat my body so well, and I also want to have dreams and beliefs, and in some past life, I clearly did something horrible. I really said something offensive.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I love you.

[A]

I love you.

[B]

It's actually, it's like to be on this ride with you, like, means a ton. And thank you for being there, like, unconditionally.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Even as I'm getting a core workout from my crying.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm sure. I feel like I got all the tears out, honestly, all the tears. Maybe not all of them.

[A]

Maybe not.

[B]

Maybe not all of them.

[A]

Maybe not. Well, just imagine us riding those field hockey sticks off into the center.

[B]

Oh, that's my sport.

[A]

That's your sport. Maybe that's what's heart protective. All this time is being down in that really weird fucking position and, like, hitting a little ball around with strange rules.

[B]

And I cared so much about it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And in 40 years, I'll probably be like, oh, look at that sport we did. Running in the woods, rolling in poison ivy, eating carbs.

[A]

Life is beautiful. Because it's kind of fucked, I guess.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Awesome.

[B]

I love you.

[A]

I love you. We love you all.