302. Mailbag Episode! The Fastest Shoe, Our Dream Study, Improving Testosterone Levels, Heat Training, Upper Body Lifting, and Lots More

Summary

Some Work, All Play – Episode 302: Mailbag! The Fastest Shoe, Dream Study Designs, Testosterone, Heat Training, Lifting, and More

Podcast Hosts: David Roche and Megan Roche, M.D.
Release Date: March 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this dynamic and heartfelt mailbag episode, David and Megan tackle a wide range of listener questions with their trademark blend of science, humor, and vulnerability. Recovering from a tough week with sickness and family challenges, they bring honest reflections alongside actionable advice on topics including shoes, study designs, hormone health, heat training, upper body lifting, running physiology, coaching, and community.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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Shoe Talk: The Puma R3s and Performance Shoes

• David’s Take (00:37): He finally tries out the Puma R3s and is blown away by their performance, describing them as "fundamentally game changing." Even running while sick, he felt faster and noted their lightness and support:

  “Anyone that runs for Puma is ahead of the game… No shoe that I’ve worn is caught up yet.” (00:45, David)

• Caution: Shoes have a carbon plate; not ideal for trails.
• Megan’s Reaction: Noted they felt surprisingly good even for her plantar issues.

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Coping with Sickness and Parenting Humor

• Both hosts detail a rough bout of norovirus impacting the whole family:
  • “It was maybe the worst experience we’ve ever gone through and still kind of going through.” (02:29, Megan)
  • Parenting while sick meant "horizontal parenting" and even joking about “self-pity fart panic” and the toilet "severance procedure”; humor as a coping skill.
  • They discuss lost optimism, exhaustion, and the importance of compassion for oneself during hard times.

Memorable Quote:

“Any hope or optimism we've ever had has been wrung out of us.” (03:56, David)

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Omega-3s, Supplements & Low Energy Availability (07:24 – 11:54)

• Supplement Science: Reviewing a study in the Journal of Affective Disorders on omega-3 supplementation for mood, stress, depression, etc.
  • Significant improvements seen with 750mg/day for 3 months in those with psychological distress.
  • Cautions: High doses may be risky for those with AFib; consult medical advice.
• Low Energy Availability: Sickness led to acute low energy states. Liquid calories (e.g., Beta Recovery drinks) are vital when appetite is low.

Quote:

“Get the calories you need in… unless you have a stomach bug, in which case sometimes you just have to suffer.” (11:06, David)

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Fun: Sauna vs. Steam Room vs. Hot Tub (FMK Game)

• Both Kill: Steam room (less effective for core temp, risk of electrolyte issues).
• Marry: Hot tub—universally accessible, family-friendly, reliable benefits.
• Fling: Sauna (fun on occasion, but less standard at home).
• Training Integration: Hot tub after doubles recommended if time allows.

Quote:

“A hot tub is really good because you don’t need a big, expensive one… it’ll be an intimate time.” (15:16, David)

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Listener Question: Dream Study Design in Running Science (17:34)

• David’s Dream Study: Sodium bicarb (baking soda) on fatigue resistance (>1hr) in marathoners:

  “If the bicarb group improves... you’ll be getting a result that shakes the entire endurance community.” (19:26, David)

• Megan’s Advice: Talk to mentors, leverage existing datasets, understand logistical constraints.
• Balance: Encourages big thinking vs. practical limitations (IRB, timelines).

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Physiology: Leptin Levels and Female Athletes’ Health (23:09)

• Leptin: Highly variable day-to-day, not a reliable single metric; more useful in conjunction with other bloodwork and menstrual/fueling patterns.
• Advice: "Don’t worry about it at all" if other health markers are good. (24:18, David)

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Strength Training: Upper Body Lifting on Rest Days (24:39)

• Megan: It’s fine to do upper body work on rest days if it feels good and isn’t fatiguing.
• Best Quick Moves: Pushups (for all), military press, pullups (or assisted variations).
• Importance: Upper body and compound lifts helpful for bone density, hormonal health, especially in aging and Reds-affected athletes.

Quote:

“If you’re going to do anything for your upper body… do it on your rest day.” (25:48, David)

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Fertility, Testosterone & Athletic Training (29:12 – 36:14)

• Fertility Struggles: Emphasize genetics, compassion, not blaming oneself.
• Heat: Avoid hot tubs/saunas when trying to conceive.
• Training Volume: Consider reducing extreme ultras if conception is a top priority, but moderate training is okay.
• "Huberman Stack" for Testosterone:
  • Boron (3–6 mg), Tongkat Ali (with anti-doping awareness), high protein diet (1g/lb), heavy lifts 2x/week.
  • Disclaimer: Evidence is patchy; rely on medical guidance and focus on safety.

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Coaching: Track Coaches for Ultra Running, Physiology over Résumé (36:06 – 41:44)

• Key Point: It’s not necessary for your coach to have specialized in your discipline; fundamental physiology knowledge transfers well.
• David: Track/road coaches with "intellectual flexibility" often drive better long-term adaptation than ultra "gatekeeping."
• Ultra/Track Crossover: Coaches who understand the breadth of physiology (speed, power, endurance) give athletes a competitive edge.

Quote:

“Running is running and the coaches that understand that are probably good at everything.” (39:00, David)

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Mental Health, Addiction, and Joyful Running (42:47)

• Listener Story: Overcoming addiction through trail running; finding self-respect and joy with “airplane arms” moments to music.
• Hosts’ Reflection: Compassion for self is essential—running (and life) gets better with acceptance and self-love.

Quote:

“The first place [healing] starts is in compassion for yourself and just giving yourself a lot of love while you’re in the place you might not like 100%.” (44:03, David)

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Supporting Teammates with RED-S (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport) (45:41)

• Challenge: How to help as a concerned male teammate.
• David: Be cautious—raising concerns directly, unprompted, can harm trust and recovery journeys.
• Megan: “Love and support and, like, showing up unconditionally,” but escalate concerns to coaches, who have pathways for care and intervention.

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Equipment: Treadmills & Home Training (51:10)

• Q: Is a free Woodway Forefront treadmill worth the space?
• A: Absolutely. High-end equipment, resale value, or training use.
• Best Treadmill/Fan Pairing: Wahoo KICKR RUN highlighted for serious athletes; use strong fans to protect the tread and train comfortably.

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Rapid-Fire Training Q&A (53:29–58:57)

1. Starting Slow, Building Aerobic Base

• Prioritize easy, intuitive running over strict HR zones; volume trumps precision in early development.

2. Rest Intervals in Treadmill Threshold Workouts

• For threshold (not pure speed) work, keep moving during recoveries for best adaptation; a brisk walk/run is ideal over standing.

3. Heat Acclimation for Summer

• Protocols: 1-2x/week sauna or overdressed runs to build heat tolerance and blood volume; overdressed runs (45 min) can make a big difference.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |---|---|---| | 00:45 | David | “Anyone that runs for Puma is ahead of the game… No shoe that I’ve worn is caught up yet.” | | 03:56 | David | “Any hope or optimism we've ever had has been wrung out of us.” | | 11:06 | David | “Get the calories you need in… unless you have a stomach bug, in which case sometimes you just have to suffer.” | | 15:16 | David | “A hot tub is really good because you don’t need a big, expensive one… it’ll be an intimate time.” | | 19:26 | David | “If the bicarb group improves... you’ll be getting a result that shakes the entire endurance community.” | | 24:18 | David | “Don’t worry about it at all.” (re: isolated low leptin) | | 25:48 | David | “If you’re going to do anything for your upper body… do it on your rest day.” | | 39:00 | David | “Running is running and the coaches that understand that are probably good at everything.” | | 44:03 | David | “The first place it starts is in compassion for yourself and just giving yourself a lot of love while you’re in the place that you might not like 100%.” | | 51:33 | Megan | “Yeah. Put it anywhere you have space [the treadmill].” |

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Community Corner & Listener Stories (62:34+)

• Kid-Friendly Podcast Request: A parent asks if the hosts would ever do a “spicy language”-free, youth-oriented episode. David and Megan reflect on the idea, noting that their voices are engaging and such an episode could be valuable, especially around self-acceptance and positive fueling.
• Emotional Honesty: Both hosts share how tough the month’s been, validate the reality of “rock bottom” moments, and offer hope for upward trajectories in life and running.
• Fun Banter: From Pink vs. Black sports bras to Pepto Bismol as a running brand collab, the couple’s humor and chemistry shine.

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Additional Topics Covered

• Supplements Review (Omega 3s, Imodium, Beta Recovery, etc.)
• Energy Management: Post-illness, prioritizing caloric intake, liquid calories.
• Hormone Health: Avoiding ketone supplements, value of protein and resistance training for testosterone.
• Coaching Philosophy: Value of open-mindedness, additive physiology, and not gatekeeping based on specific race distances.
• Parenting & Family Life: Real talk about parenting during illness, running with kids, and modeling positive health behaviors.

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Tone & Takeaways

• Tone: Transparent, self-deprecating, uplifting, humorous, and science-grounded.
• Key Takeaways:
  • Take care of yourself and your family—give yourself hope and compassion during hard times.
  • There’s no one path to performance: start simple, add nuance only as you grow.
  • Lean into joy and small rituals (fun shoes, “airplane arms,” music).
  • Community support and honest conversations drive both individual healing and collective progress.

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Selected Timestamps for Quick Reference

• 00:37 — David on Puma R3 shoes
• 02:27–04:20 — Parenting/sickness stories
• 07:57 — Omega 3s & mental health study
• 14:56 — Hot tub vs sauna vs steam (FMK)
• 17:34 — Dream research study design for students
• 23:09 — Leptin, bloodwork, and RED-S
• 24:39 — Upper body lifting on rest days
• 29:12 — Fertility, testosterone & heat/exercise
• 36:06 — Coaching, specialization, and physiological principles
• 42:47 — Addiction, joy, and the role of running
• 45:41 — How to support a friend with RED-S
• 51:10 — Treadmills, home training, gear
• 53:29–58:57 — Rapid-fire Q&A: aerobic base, intervals, heat adaptation

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Final Thoughts

If you need both scientific depth and emotional camaraderie for your training journey, this episode delivers. Come for the running science and advice, stay for the realness, resilience, and love—and maybe try those Puma R3s (but not on trails).

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“We love you all. Thank you for being here so much.” (69:01, David)

Transcript

[A]

Woohoo.

[B]

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

[A]

Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday and we're working on our Strava masterpieces on this Tuesday.

[B]

Oh, yes. Our Strava has taken a slightly different tone this week, hasn't it?

[A]

You've been throwing down some good stuff. Your title today, I believe, was Little Bitch Boy the Musical. That's a good one.

[B]

And the subtitle was from Bo Burnham's Outside. I'm not really feeling like I want to get lit. Tell us how you feeling. I'm feeling like shit.

[A]

I saw you out the window, though. You were running fast.

[B]

Was I?

[A]

You had the Puma R3s on. Like, if you're feeling like shit, maybe don't put the Puma R3s on.

[B]

Well, before we get to our really crappy week, I want to mention these shoes. So I finally Wore the Puma R3s. I think it was the top study that we had last year was the study looking at running economy gains in these shoes. They are fundamentally game changing. Like, I truly felt horrible, as you're going to hear about in a second. And my paces when I was going fast were really quick. And the shoes are very light, but also very supportive. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Anyone that runs for Puma is ahead of the game. So if you can get your hands on Puma R3s for if you're a roadrunner, it is absolutely 100% worth it. No shoe that I've worn is caught up yet.

[A]

What made you put them on? Like, why have you been sitting on them? What were you doing?

[B]

Megan, I haven't been sitting on the shoes. I've only been sitting on toilets. That's all I've been doing. No, because I got them right before the injury last year, so I never got a chance to wear them. And then I heard that they're, you know, kind of minimal, so maybe more stress on the plantar. So I was waiting to wear them.

[A]

They actually activate my plantar. And you put them on this morning and they're like, megan, they feel good.

[B]

They feel good. They. For some reason, it offloads right on that spot. If I could wear them for everything, I would. And in fact, maybe I will. Maybe I'm gonna take these to trails. They do have an exposed carbon plate, so I assume if you took them to trails, they would literally crack in half. But I might try it. It might be worth it for me.

[A]

We could provide some, like, outside covering to that exposed Carbon plate and just put you in them for canyons and fucking send it. Yeah, okay.

[B]

You're figuring out a way to get me back to canyons.

[A]

We gotta build the hype. You've been a little bit of a sad boy this week. So we've all been. Our family existence has been sad.

[B]

What was your Strava title today?

[A]

Something about like the Little Bitch Chronicles, Continuing your masterpiece. We got trucked by a stomach virus. I feel like last week in the episode we talked about like, oh, we should have drank bleach, referring to Ollie being sick in the middle of the night. And maybe we should have.

[B]

It was maybe the worst experience we've

[A]

ever gone through and still kind of going through.

[B]

It was so long, so difficult. We're not gonna get into details. No one needs to hear any of that.

[A]

No one needs that. Actually last night, in the middle of the night, it was 3:00am I was still dealing with this and I turned over and I was like, david, have I given you the ick yet?

[B]

No, absolutely not.

[A]

It's the first time in our 15 year relationship I was like, please, I hate myself right now.

[B]

I did tell you I would drink it like a. Like a bird call milkshake. The other joke, only other joke, I promise, only other somewhat gross joke that Megan vetoed as a Strava title that I wanted to make was the severance procedure, but for our toilet. So for anybody that's ever seen severance, you'll get that. Yeah, it was rough. So Leo and I got it first on Thursday night and then you got it the following day.

[A]

Well, I spent all night up with Leo. Pulled an all nighter, actually. It's a sad existence when your garment the next day, it's just like no sleep recorded. And I was like, oh, man.

[B]

Which is a terrible way to go into sickness. And it just wasn't pleasant. We don't. That's. I think all the details.

[A]

We'll leave it there.

[B]

But we didn't record a Patreon episode last week. One of the first weeks we've ever missed. And I didn't even have the energy to tell the community why I missed, which is how, you know, I'm depressed and just like I couldn't do anything. And we still had to parent, which is the biggest mind fuck of all of all this is just, oh, my God. And then our. Both of our bodies lost a lot in this. Like just physically, mentally, spiritually, spiritually, we have. Any hope or optimism we've ever had has been wrung out of us.

[A]

We Did a lot of horizontal parenting this weekend and just letting the boys run around us as we laid on the kitchen floor. And I had the reflection that we really need a childcare service where you provide all of your disclosures. Yeah, it's like you're here for a medical or a scientific presentation. You're like, here are my disclosures. Number one, neurovirus. How much do you want to come into our house and help us out?

[B]

Okay, what other stories? I'm trying to think non gross stories we can tell. I think the most relevant one is, is night two for me. I asked to go to the hospital in the middle of the night, which I've never done before, just on the floor of our bathroom. And I'm a tough guy. There's not much that will make me do that. And I think it was a version of the fart panic. If you remember Leadville 2024 where we're driving home from the race and I panic and I'm like, take me to the hospital and then I'm able to fart and things are okay. It was a version of that, but it was so, so bad. And you're even getting worse of it. You have a longer tail of any of this than I do.

[A]

Oh, it's rough. You know, I feel pretty good if I don't run. And then as soon as I start running, it's like the mechanical jostling and I'm just like, oh yeah, my existence.

[B]

But just in general, you know, it's hard. I feel like canyons probably isn't going to happen now.

[A]

I don't know. I mean, I feel like, give yourself a break here. Do a like 20 mile long run and at the end of a 20 mile long run in a few days, then think about that decision.

[B]

All I could think about is while I was doing my one minute on, one minute off workout. Swap. Classic. Maybe the my favorite workout. If you're looking for a workout and you just aren't sure what to do, just go do one minute fast, one minute easy. Do you know 10 to 20 of them? You're going to be golden. But as I was doing it, I was just like, I kind of hate myself right now. When you're actively thinking that during a workout some things are wrong. I feel like it's the gut brain connection that we often talk about in action.

[A]

Oh, our gut brain connection right now is drippy. I feel like we need an electrician for all of that. You described it on Strava as self packing pity fart panic. Self pity Fart Panic and what a great line. You're becoming like a writer, a masterpiece writer in this process.

[B]

That's my emo band. Like you've heard of Paramore. Now we've got self pity Fart Panic.

[A]

Well, the last five days I feel like you've been responding to this and you know, we haven't had childcare in five days and just being sick and going through it with just like the depths of despair humor and I love it.

[B]

Well, we might bring a lot of it to the podcast today.

[A]

It's a rare, unique energy from David. You're usually so like, you know, on it and excited, excited vibey. And you're just like, Megan, I kind of want to jump off a bridge right now.

[B]

Specifically we. We were able to go to Panera last night and we ate in the corner away from everybody and I asked if I could have the joab. The jump off a bridge. They didn't have it on the menu, but we'll see. Okay, so let's get to the episode. This one's going to be really fun because we bring in a special episode. It's going to be mailbag. We're going to go through tons of questions. We've built up a bunch over time for full disclosure. We didn't have time to dig into studies this week, so we have so much good. We're gonna talk about heat training, research ideas, lifting, male fertility coaching, giving teammates advice, rest intervals, easy paces, metabolic rate, and hopefully a lot more. Let's just rapid fire as many as we can. I know I say rapid fire all the time, but I'm committed today.

[A]

I feel like you actually are committed today. You're like, megan, I'm in business. I'm excited though. I feel like these questions are great. And every time we get to the back half of the episode, I'm like, oh, but I want more time for questions. And so now we. A full question episode.

[B]

Yeah. So let's get right to it before we do that quick promo for the feed. Go to the feed.com swap first order there. 40% off for every $100 spent. You get $10 back. So you're not going to get better deals than that anywhere on the Internet. Plus, so many great resources. The one thing I wanted to point out was a study I stumbled upon on Omega 3s. So this isn't a performance study. We've talked about some of the Omega 3 performance studies in the past. This is a study on mental health. So maybe I need this more than anyone right now. This is Extremely my shit.

[A]

Something tells me that you're going to be salivating at fish oil. Does that sound good to you at the moment?

[B]

Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Megan, no, don't bring that back. Thursday night, right before this began, or when it was kind of beginning, I said, oh, well, I need some omega 3s. And so I went to an old thing of omega 3s because we had ran out and a pill had broken. And so, you know, anyone who's seen that happen, it can get kind of nasty in there.

[A]

It's kind of like it spreads to all of the other pills and hangs out. And I love. You're committed to the bit. You're like, I'm just going to take these fish oil marinated pills.

[B]

You told me I'm fine. I mean, for you. And then the taste will haunt me for the rest of my life. And then I got the stomach bug. So you can imagine how I feel about it. So this study comes from the Journal of Affective Disorders. It's called the effects of omega 3 supplementation on stress, Anxiety, Depression, Sleep Quality and Everyday Memory in individuals with psychological Distress. Um, it took 32 intervention in the intervention group, 32 in the control group to have them do 750 milligrams of omega 3s every day for three months. And just the only finding relevant here is a quote. Significant improvements were observed in the intervention group regarding stress, anxiety, depression, sleep quality and memory outcomes with a very, very low P value.

[A]

Well, I love that this is in individuals with psychological distress because I feel like that describes us and probably a lot of people out in the world right now.

[B]

Yeah. And it's just interesting when you look at the research of omega 3s as it relates to brain function, you know, gut function, heart function, it might be one of the bigger ones and it's always subject to a million confounders. Omega 3s are not a cure all and in fact, extremely high doses can cause issues, particularly with AFib. But moderate doses of omega 3s have really good science and you can get these at the feed. I personally take Momentous brand. I think it's really, really good as long as a pill doesn't snap in there and then it's the worst thing you've ever had in your entire life.

[A]

Just get rid of the bottle at that point. But I do like, I mean, I think this is a very controlled dose. And do be careful with the higher doses, especially if you have heart issues or are prone to afib just because you really want to watch that association.

[B]

Yeah. And the Psychological impacts might not be relevant across the board. So, you know, digging into this study, yes, the P values are low. This is in people with extreme psychological distress. Maybe there is some nuance there about why Omega 3s caused that pathway to change. But I mean, across the board, Omega 3s do have really solid research and probably won't hurt unless you really overdo it. So a vote for omega 3s.

[A]

Okay, my vote this week from the feed, beta recovery. I've been drinking it now coming back, 380 calories, which is wonderful. I actually did two yesterday that might have been a touch aggressive. Yeah, perhaps I like it.

[B]

So that's the place where I am most proud of myself is you give me a stomach bug and I will try to eat before anybody else on the planet would ever try to eat.

[A]

Well, I feel like we're so like, you know, entrenched in the low energy availability research. We're like, not today I will have two beta recoveries and you just gotta get a little aggressive in there.

[B]

Sometimes you gotta get aggressive. But it did lead to some interesting reflections on low energy availability. And you know, it's an extreme low energy availability state when you have these types of bugs and the amount that everything goes to crap long, like with a longer timescale after it echoes the research that you see. You know, we talked about short term low energy availability last week and in fact maybe we deserve this because I feel like we were just kind of previewing it. But in all of that research it shows almost immediate impacts to, you know, every variable that they measure, including fitness and coming back already, you know, I've had two days where I've been able to replenish a little bit and even then everything is behind. And so just as a vote, get the calories you need in, like make sure you're fueling what you are able to do. Unless you have a stomach bug, in which case sometimes you just have to suffer.

[A]

But liquid calories, so helpful and I think that's where beta recovery comes in. It's like, you know, that's dense and it's nice to have an option like that.

[B]

Absolutely. So go to the feed for all your needs. I mean get your gels there, your drink, everything. So let's get on to question and answer. First one here is Fuck Mary kill question.

[A]

We do this a lot. I like that people are now just like, here, we're going to throw this one out for you.

[B]

Maybe we should have a whole FMK episode at some point. Here it is. Okay, really important question. Fuck Marry, kill, sauna, steam room, hot tub.

[A]

Well, I feel like I'm too low energy availability right now to either fudge Mary or kill. Yeah, like, I need some more beta recovery in my life to think about any of these.

[B]

You said you had two sex dreams the other night.

[A]

Okay, yeah. This is crazy. That's. Thanks for bringing this up on the podcast.

[B]

Well, you. I'm gonna call you out. We are authentic on this episode.

[A]

We are authentic. Okay, so Thursday night I got zero hours of sleep. Friday night, I got 12 minutes of sleep. Saturday night in the first, like before 10:30, I had a sex dream and I was like, my body, why I am dying. What is happening right now?

[B]

It's like the Tim McGraw song. I went skydiving.

[A]

I went Rocky mountain climbing.

[B]

I had a sex dream at 10:30 with a stomach bug.

[A]

I was like, how does this make any physiological sense right now?

[B]

No, I get that. Actually, last night I got back to a little bit more of my normal physiological processes overnight, which made me happy. And that's one reason I told you. Oh, that's huge to do a workout. Yeah, actually, it wasn't huge. More slight.

[A]

You just did a hand motion, but I'll take it.

[B]

Okay. So interesting question. Physiologically, to view this, I would say in this framework, you.

[A]

Oh, easy. Kill.

[B]

Kill. Steam room.

[A]

Steam room, for sure. I see sometimes athletes go in the steam room and kind of have just weird electrolyte imbalances.

[B]

So steam room is interesting. It's extremely hot perceptually, especially on the surface of your skin because it's warm. It's actually not that hot, temperature wise, but you're not able to stay in there long enough to get the core temp elevations. So while it can be cleansing and relaxing or, you know, helpful, if you stay in long enough to get core temp elevation substantially, it's going to be dangerous. So steam room for sure. We're both going to kill the fucking Mary. That might be more interesting.

[A]

It is interesting. You know, I think I'm going to.

[B]

Are you going to be. Are you going to be, like, controversial here?

[A]

So clearly, I think it's hard to be controversial. Either way, you got to go first.

[B]

Clearly, I'm going to marry hot tub because I'm going to have the hot tub for the rest of my life.

[A]

At what temperature is this? Are you going to write this into your vows? You're like, I'm only marrying 108 degree hot tub. What if it's like 103?

[B]

Oh, I mean, I still think hot tub is the best because I think there's enhanced capitalization benefits in your legs that you do not get from sauna. Most of the research until recently was on sauna, so sauna is definitely backed. But you need a dry sauna to get the research backed types, not the IR sauna. So that's a little different. And you know, dry saunas are really tough to get at your house that are hot enough for the same reasons that hot tubs can have their issues. So I think sauna makes a lot of sense, but for me it's more of like something you do on vacation.

[A]

For me it's like a fuck around and find out situation. Like you have to find the right sauna to be able to like make it work. And so it's a FIFO situation. Almost every hot tub is good and it's like standardized. You look at it and sometimes like sauna temperatures are off. There's different like heat variation based off of where you are. And so I think that's an easy one for me. Yeah.

[B]

And I mean, that's not saying saunas are bad, right?

[A]

We're still saying, yeah, saunas are great. Yeah.

[B]

We're still saying you're gonna have some fun times with saunas. Yeah. And I think hot tubs, one thing that is really beneficial if you're out there and you're like, oh, what's that next training tool that I can get that will also be good for the family later on, like you and your partner or whatever. I think a hot tub is really good because you don't need a big expensive one. You can get a small one. There's so much extra room in hot tubs. When are you going to have like 47 people in them? Which is how much a standard hot tub could fit. You just get a little one or two person hot tub. It'll be an intimate time and, you know, it'll also be way less from an energy perspective. So I think hot tub is the best option here.

[A]

Are you gonna do it today?

[B]

Um, well, so I did a workout this morning. Um, I might double.

[A]

Oh, shoot.

[B]

And I don't usually hot tub on days I double because I just don't have time for that.

[A]

Would you, for athletes that are doubling, would you recommend like hot tubbing after the double?

[B]

Yeah, after the second. After the. Sure. If you have tons of time. You know, I've been lamenting about that too. Just how our time is limited overall. So it's difficult to do the professional athlete stuff with kids in a way it never was before.

[A]

Yeah, the hot tub protocol starts to add up when you start putting in 30 minutes, like, four to five times a week, plus, like, training.

[B]

All the training you need to do, plus strength, plus everything else. It adds up.

[A]

Plus you gotta sit on our porch with your head in your hands. It takes a solid 10 minutes.

[B]

Oh, that's the biggest, most important part of my life, Magna. Give me that.

[A]

Give me that.

[B]

Other dads go smoke a cigarette in the running van in the garage. Just contemplating existence. I'm at least not doing that.

[A]

Actually, I saw one of our neighbors outside doing that last night, and I was kind of like, respect.

[B]

I'm not in a running car in their garage.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, but.

[B]

Yeah, but, yes, behind a tree. I feel it so hard. I know you have young kids. Okay, next question. Hi, Megan and David. Okay, so I have a cool opportunity. I'm a sophomore in college and have the opportunity to propose my own study design to do over the summer. I would be the lead researcher and can choose whatever study I want to do, and then the university would pay them some amount for it. The reason I'm messaging you is to ask if either of you have study ideas related to running performance that I could think about. I have primer, prior experience researching, and then some different things. I don't want to give it away because it might show who they are. And then here's the question. Do you have any ideas that could turn into a fun research study? I really want to gather useful and relevant and not studied yet information about training and health. Thanks so much for your help. I look up to you, both of you, a ton.

[A]

Okay, well, this listener actually structured our dinner last night at Panera because we're like, what would we do? What would we do? And we sat there having bread bowls and soup and being like, would we do?

[B]

So we debated a lot, and we came to a single answer, which is, we would want to look at the effects of bicarb on fatigue resistance. And the reason is that there is all of this literature finding that sodium bicarbonate makes a big performance difference one hour and below. Um, but there's this huge debate, what happens beyond that? And if you do a fatigue resistance test, our theory is that you will be telling us not just what happens at 90 minutes, but what happens beyond. And even if you're just looking at what happens at 90 minutes right there, the exciting part is you are addressing hundreds of thousands of road marathoners. So right now, road marathoners are being told not to take it by people who don't listen to the SWAT podcast who don't understand what the elite athletes are actually doing, et cetera. And if we could get a study on board that says it might help or it doesn't, that would also be interesting. Then you're going to be addressing information that is relevant to so many people. And I think it'd be a really great place to start your career.

[A]

And I think in terms of study design, just pay attention to, like, nutritional intake, but prior to coming to the test for the fatigue resistance test, and also thinking about other potential confounders like sodium intake and, you know, training leading up to this, and so kind of like, map out those different variables. And then my thought process, too, is also, talk to people at your university, because sometimes, you know, researchers are sitting on, like, realms of data, and then you can build a study that is taking new data off of that data. And sometimes that is the best part of the research process. David's like, oh, it has to be novel.

[B]

Yeah, you just want to, like, chart your own course. You know, you want to go do something entrepreneurial, because worst case scenario, you don't end up publishing for whatever reason. It just doesn't work out. And if so, you burned some university money. You're a sophomore in college, nothing to lose. Take big shots in your professional life. Like, I think that's so key. And I think in science, a lot of the time, mentors will direct you into their own lane, because their own lane is the way they went.

[A]

And sometimes it's a very specific lane, and you're looking at a very, very small part of that specific lane.

[B]

But even not, it's a comfortable lane, so it's the lane to take. And yes, that's cool. But what's most, you know, emphatic about almost every big researcher I know is they created a new lane. And this is a lane that no one's in right now. And so the way I would structure this is to have a group of athletes do a time to exhaustion test just regularly at the beginning in visit one, and then have visit two be split into two groups. One that does sodium bicarbonate, one that doesn't have them. Both do 90 minutes at LT1, which you'll identify from the first time to exhaustion test, and then after that, repeat the time to exhaustion test while doing full fueling during the trial. If the bicarb group improves in relative to the control group in the fatigue resistance test, you'll be getting a result that shakes the entire endurance community. And I think you could do that off a pretty Low budget.

[A]

I do think, though, time constraint wise, like, you know, if you're thinking about dedicating a summer to. And you have to get an IRB established, you have to recruit participants, you have to get the testing done, you have to do the data analysis, you have to write up the paper. That is also a lot. And so I think, you know, I think it's amazing to shoot for the stars and go for it, but I think it's also really valid at the same time to, like, talk to colleagues, talk to people at your university.

[B]

Okay. Okay.

[A]

And see what's going on.

[B]

What if you just do things unethically?

[A]

Is that okay?

[B]

Can we do that?

[A]

Oh, yeah. Just do research without an irb, Tim. It's like, why would I do paperwork?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I do think, though, just from a broader professional perspective, there's so much value in not thinking too much about the logistics and paperwork. Like, you do need to do it right. But, like, no one cares. No one cares. So many researchers and people just spend so much time on accounting and planning and strategic design and all this stuff. In reality, all anybody gives a shit about is what you poop out at the end.

[A]

Yeah, seriously. But you gotta do it. You got.

[B]

No, you got. But my point, don't think about it. Just design the coolest thing you can, and then if it doesn't work, you'll do it next year or you'll do it the year after that. You know, the cooler things are, the better. And I don't know, I think all of us in life just have a tendency to get bogged down in the minutiae of logistics.

[A]

Maybe this is just like the academic in me, because I'm always the dreamer in the relationship. I'm like, shoot for the stars. You go for it, you get outside your comfort zone. And when it comes to research, I'm like, find a mentor and piggyback off them and grab their IRB and build some data off them.

[B]

No, I get it. I think it's like we have different approaches to that. That end of the professional side of the.

[A]

Yeah. Also, like, logistics are not my forte either. And so for me, sometimes that's easier. And then I can dream within the project. And so this is our, like, personality differences maybe coming out.

[B]

Can AI do all that bullshit? Like, all the background bullshit.

[A]

Oh, but you gotta pass. Let me to get an IRB pass at Stanford, it is, like, rigorous. It takes a long time.

[B]

Just leave Stanford. That's all I'm saying.

[A]

So you can get IRBs past other places. That's true.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Okay, next question on leptin. Hi. First of all, I've been loving the pod and particularly enjoyed the segment you did on energy expenditure recently. That was last week, if you want to hear it. I thought this question might be interesting for female listeners if you ever end up doing more science stuff on the pod in the future. I've recently had some blood work done that included a leptin test. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, as a distance runner, mine was a bit low at 1.8. I'm 58 and I'm not going to list their weight and don't have a particularly low body fat percentage. I also have not experienced any disruptions to my cycle that I'm aware of. Is this something that I should be concerned about in regards to my fueling? Is this just a chronic training windfall? In that I've read lower leptin levels can enhance performance in endurance athletes, or is it something else entirely?

[A]

Leptin is tricky. We talked about this last week. So leptin is a hormone that is involved in satiety levels. So how full you feel, it has relationships with testosterone, estrogen and thyroid hormone. And one of the tricky things is there's so much day to day variation. I actually did a research project in med school looking at leptin. The data was so messy. Messy all over the place. We actually didn't do any. It was so messy. We looked at leptin and ghrelin and just wound up not doing anything with it. And there's just so much day to day variation that I would just look at it in the spectrum of other red slabs. In fact, I actually very rarely encourage athletes to get it measured in the first place because it just is noisy.

[B]

Leptin and ghrelin, they sound like hobbits.

[A]

They do. Actually. We should write a, write a. A Little Bitch Chronicles. Little Bitch Chronicles of leptin and ghrelin.

[B]

Perfect. Yeah. So leptin only really matters in context. Like you see a low leptin and you're seeing a low free T3 and some of the other variables Megan mentioned that might be important. Otherwise you're measuring too much noise.

[A]

It's impacted by training and nutritional intake, sleep and stress and so many different things that, like a single variable of leptin. And if, if everything else looks good, you're getting a normal menstrual cycle, you're eating well, don't worry about it.

[B]

Don't worry about it at all. Next question on lifting question. How concerned should I Be from a cumulative stress perspective about using my designated rest day each week as an upper body lift day. Background. I tend to get injured when I don't give my legs a rest day once every week. But I'm currently time challenged to fit in all of my lift days. I've been doing an upper body lift during my rest day and seem okay for now that I'm wondering if I'm playing with fire. What do you think?

[A]

I think it's totally good. Yeah. If you didn't feel good off of it, go for it. My bigger question, this is a larger existential question, is like dedicated upper body lifts. As an endurance athlete, I'm just kind

[B]

of like, you ever lift something with your upper body and you're just like, that's impossible.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's so funny because, you know, when I went to college, I specialized in lifting big heavy things.

[A]

Oh, there are videos of you in high school just grunting. Grunting.

[B]

There are videos of me in high school grunting at something that no one wants to hear. Thankfully. I don't think any of them are on the Internet yet. So. Yeah, I mean, it's very strange how my body's changed and a lot of that happens because I don't prioritize lifting. I mean, now the only thing I lift are children.

[A]

And actually same background here. I lifted a lot as a field hockey player, like strength and power, focused lifting. And so I think both of us, because we have that muscle memory, as soon as we do a focused upper body lift, our, our like triceps and biceps are like, rawr.

[B]

So lifting is helpful though. Being strong is good especially for aging athletes, especially for aging female athletes or athletes with reds.

[A]

Trying to build hormonal health like this can be very valuable. I just don't think it's, it's, it's needed if you're a time constrained athlete.

[B]

Yeah, it's an anabolic stress. And as we talked about in the energy constraint model discussion last week, some of the research finds that lifting can actually push the curve the other direction. It raises your metabolic rate. So there might be benefits that have nothing to do with the actual lifting itself. So when are you going to do it? Rest day would be ideal. You know, anabolic stress on rest day, it's not going to be like breaking you down much. Probably a wonderful time to go. So this might apply to everybody across the board. If you're going to do anything for your upper body, like, you know, push ups, pull ups, anything like that, do it on your rest day. It just is a good time to do it. Just gives you something to focus on. Core is great at this time. I also gave this listener some feedback of like, maybe put down the bench press and pick up the remote control. And they're like, david, I'm in the military. I was like, oh my God, thank

[A]

you for your service.

[B]

I'm so sorry.

[A]

You can stun.

[B]

You can flush me in a toilet

[A]

if you want to. Okay. You have a core snack routine. That's amazing. Yeah. If you had to create an upper body snack routine, as someone that like, you focused a lot on upper body lifting back in the day, what would be two exercises for it?

[B]

I mean, push ups are magic.

[A]

That was going to be my exercise. Yeah.

[B]

So convenient. And you can do them on your knees. So anybody can do push ups. I think doing those are really good. If you can do pull ups, that is a wonderful option. And assisted pull ups are great too, but it's difficult to do at home. Um, so pull ups for like male athletes might be good. What would that second exercise be for female athletes that might not be doing pull ups? It's kind of tricky, right?

[A]

It is tricky, yeah.

[B]

Military press I like a lot. So something that moves in a multiple plane of moment motion. So like above your head. That's what I often tell athletes that are looking to build bone density is squats, hex bar, deadlifts, military press. Those three compound lifts can be so effective.

[A]

I actually love a military press. Oh, you're making me. I'm like thinking about. My brain is like, oh, feel that. Wacky days.

[B]

I like a panini press. Not so much a military press, but lifting can be wonderful. I don't think it needs to be the main focus. And hey, if you want to see that core snack, you know where you go?

[A]

Where?

[B]

Patreon, patreon, patreon.com swap swap starts at $5 a month, but if you can't afford it, we'll get you in for free. So much great feedback recently. Like 40 training plans there. Something wild like that. Here's something from a listener. $10 a month for all this knowledge and information. Feels like highway robbery.

[A]

Highway robbery. I like that term.

[B]

And then we're getting tons of messages having huge PRs. Uh, here's one from a listener that ran an 11 minute marathon. Best while doing the ultra program. So that's really cool. And then another one from an athlete that got a 15 minute PR in the new York City half marathon after doing the six week half marathon. Threshold improvement plan. So lots of really interesting Things going down.

[A]

Do you ever think when you're making the plans? And I thought about this as we're like, you know, writing out, training, thinking about all the people doing this, and it's like, such a key part of the day. Does your brain ever go there?

[B]

Oh, absolutely.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's why each plan takes. Takes eight hours to do.

[A]

Like visualizing someone out there doing 15 by 11 and thinking too hard about it.

[B]

Yeah. If there's any plan that doesn't work, that would be scary and we would know. So the good thing is, once the plan's up there and it's been up there for a while, you know, it's been vetted by a lot of listeners because we would take it down immediately if it didn't work. And so plans all the way from like, one mile up to 200 miles. Go check it out. So patreon.com swap swap. Next up is a question on fertility. And I kind of want to broaden it out to a thought about male testosterone and ways that you might be able to improve that naturally and healthily and safer sport.

[A]

I love that because we get that question a lot.

[B]

Get it a lot. So, hey, David and Megan, thanks for all you do for the community and sport. I had a question that I was wondering if you could address or talk about on the next pot. My wife and I have been trying to have a kid for 14 months. We have both been through many tests now, and she's fine, but my counts are very low, basically. Do you have any advice here? Because their doctor told them to perhaps stop ultra training.

[A]

Well, first, sending a lot of love. Just because fertility journeys are complicated, they're hard. A lot of times these are factors that go, like, well beyond our control. And I feel like as athletes, that's something that always feels, like, so salient and relevant. And you're like, oh, well, it must be athletics. And sometimes, like, quite frankly, it is. And dialing that back is helpful, but a lot of times it's just factors beyond our control that are just so fully random, and it's hard.

[B]

And I think it's always genetics, even if it's athletics, because if it's athletics, that means that for whatever reason, your genetic context is susceptible to being affected in ways that most people are not.

[A]

That's a great way to phrase it, too.

[B]

Yeah, it's always genetics. And so, yes, you can be frustrated, but try to remember this is not your fault. It's nothing you're doing wrong. And I don't think it's almost Gonna certainly gonna be training on its own. It could be if you go into the hot tub like I do. Yeah, like that is my personal strategy right now for family planning, is to use the hot tub so long that we're not going to ever have a kid again.

[A]

Well, I got an IUD and you looked at the stats on an IUD and then 99. I think it's 99.4% scared you. And I'm like, we are good. That's a high percentage.

[B]

We're good. Because I'm roasting. I'm roasting.

[A]

I'm going to take the extra measures.

[B]

That's the first piece of advice to this athlete is be very careful about temperature exposure. So you don't want to be doing, you know, extra hot exposure. That Brian Johnson guy who's like the longevity guy, actually had a really interesting piece of data on using cooling mechanisms on his, like, undercarriage while he was doing heat and how that improved sperm count. Not to say you should do that, but the idea being the exposure does affect sperm count pretty darn aggressively. So focus there. Um, but what do you think about the training part?

[A]

I think I would look at training volume and just looking at overall nutritional like, like interventions and how you're fueling your training volume. And I think if you're doing a lot of low carb fasted runs, this is where you know, adding in high carb fueling throughout the training cycle is gonna be. So. And I do think an area of like, you know, maybe super long ultras and big, big stresses. If this is like a top priority that you're trying to figure out right now, maybe it's helpful to just dial it back for a little bit. And hey, maybe this is something that like, you know, maybe addressing this is going to make you feel really good in the long term by getting, you know, hormones and like, you know, the nutritional support to support that overall process.

[B]

Yeah, that would be an interesting study, is to look at 100 milers and sperm count, just like acute effects of that. Because we don't know. There's no good research on this. I can see why your doctor gave that advice. And I want to say so badly, just go do the 100 mile you have planned. Like, this is fine, but because you and your wife have been trying for so long and because, you know, this might be a really important thing to you and your family, it might be worth it just to control some variables. And so I think it's fine to continue training, but maybe we dial back the ultra stimulus and this is very similar actually to the advice that we often give pregnant women, which is, you know, training, totally great. You can, you can move on with that and listen to your body, but maybe don't do the a hundred mile, right? There's no research on that. And often you'll get advice online. It's like, oh, I'm going to go do this hard, hard race. It's like, well, you can for sure. You know, it's probably not going to matter, who knows? But there's no research. And so when there isn't, it might be best just to err on the side of being safe and taking no chances. Um, but at the same time, you want to live your life because again, this could just be a genetic thing that isn't going to be impacted at all.

[A]

And the last thing I would say too is just avoiding a ton of muscular breakdown. And so I think, you know, big runs with a ton of vert probably are just breaking down the body a lot. And so I would say just, you know, easy running strides, focusing on building speed. Like this is a great time to think about building that top end with like, quick, fast turnover and seeing if that all comes together.

[B]

And so the other thing I did is I went full Huberman and I gave him my testosterone stack. So what's interesting is I don't do any of this. Perhaps actually I do the protein part, but other than that, I don't do any of this. I have given this recommendation to athletes just based on a few studies that show some hopeful evidence. And these athletes have gotten their testosterone measured before and after and seen really solid increases. And so who knows what we're measuring there? It could just be, you know, confounders. But here is the stack I give. If we're only thinking about testosterone, which I don't think it is for this particular athlete. Um, first up is boron, recommending three to six milligrams per day. Um, just a mineral that seems to help testosterone levels in some people for whatever reason.

[A]

It might also help bone health too. It's actually in a lot of, like the broad spectrum bone health supplements, which is great.

[B]

Yeah, not gonna make a joke. This is a serious topic. Next up is Tongkat Ali. Uh, this is, is a big time Huberman recommendation, but you can get safer sport versions of this.

[A]

I feel like Tongkat Ali, just the name of the supplement, it would be a Huberman. It scares me.

[B]

It sounds really sketchy. It sounds so bad.

[A]

Yeah, so bad. It sounds like we're gonna go extract it from the jungle and just inject it into our veins.

[B]

Yeah, no, I, I, everything about it makes me uncomfortable. That's why I don't personally take it and I don't have any athletes take it. But you know, it does have interesting research and people swear by it. And that's always one place when we're talking about stuff like this, this I lean on anecdote because anecdote means something for the pe, the individuals that are going through it. And yes, we might not do have, have randomized control trials that validate this, but you know, do we need it when someone's desperate? I don't think so. Next up is the obvious 1.1gram of protein per pound of body weight. Somewhere around there seems to really make a difference. And then finally do heavy lifting two times per week. Squats, hex bar, deadlifts, pull ups, military press, stuff like that. Like get your body in that anabolic state where you might have like higher hormonal, you know, pushes. I think that can make a big difference.

[A]

The Huberman Stack.

[B]

Nobody quote me on anything I just said because I don't believe any of it. But actually I kind of do. You know, that's the problem is I want to say that but, and I wouldn't write an article about this in Patreon or whatever, but if some athlete is desperate and gets back a testosterone number of like 200 or something when they're a 30 year old man, give this a try. And I think you might be in a really healthy spot rather than doing something like going on hormone replacement therapy when that is so weekly research and could have so many downstream negative impacts for that 30 year old man, including

[A]

on fertility actually, which is an area that's not talked about enough.

[B]

Yeah, and obviously HRT is a whole other area where we are not experts and don't know anything about. We just know that, you know, you can't be competing if you're taking testosterone. So it's probably not a way to go for, for anybody. So yeah, who knows, Anything to say?

[A]

I think the last thing is just avoid ketones. I think there's some studies linking ketones to lower testosterone levels and I think just make sure to avoid that supplement.

[B]

That being said, the testosterone 2 sperm count connector might not even be relevant here or relevant at all. So who knows? Uh, next one on coaching, I'll try to summarize this one. Hi David and Megan. Firstly I wanna say how much I love the podcast. It's regular on my headphones as I do my long runs. Um, I Love how you guys love each other loads. Had a lot of fun but are also committed to your goals. That's really inspiring. And we're not inspiring today.

[A]

How are you feeling about your goals?

[B]

My goals? Yeah, my goals, Megan. My goals are be able to eat a piece of food.

[A]

Yeah, it's lofty.

[B]

I really love to do that.

[A]

You're shooting for the moon right there.

[B]

So they give a lot of background. They're an ultra runner. My question is this. My coach who I found by accident really is a former elite level track runner and I've been making great gains with this coach but I wondered if I should look into a more ultra specific coach or stick with my current option. Yeah. So what do you think here?

[A]

I think it's, I mean the fact that they're making gains and I think sometimes like you know, you don't need to have specific knowledge within that exact field to be able to advise an athlete on long term physiology and building. And I think getting faster from a track specific approach is going to be a great thing for ultras anyways.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Plus if you're like your coach, it's like send it. This sounds like a good relationship.

[B]

Honestly, I'd rather a track coach than an ultra coach.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When training for ultras I think think almost every track or road coach that has a broader view of the sport is very like intellectually flexible. Isn't just giving you what they would give a track runner and understand you need to be good at downhills like gets it. Um, they are operating at a level of precision of like human physiology that most ultra coaches just aren't even the top ones. Um, because the problem in ultras is so many things work. Um, and you're really just measuring a lot of the time athlete talent mixed with throwing them up and down mountains and you're not measuring the very limits of human performance yet. Hence why someone like me, some random loser was able to go and do really good ultras. I mean it's not going to be like that 10 years from now. Like I, I, whatever I've done will get, you know, rolled over. And it's because I understand what the road athletes are capable of and I'm nowhere near that level. And so any coach that's pushing that limit on the road will understand like, like how to bring the most of it out of an athlete. I think in a really beautiful way.

[A]

And I think sometimes there's unhelpful conversations within our sport especially. It's almost like a gatekeeping conversation of the coach having to have done the exact specific thing that they're coaching an athlete for. And it's like physiology is physiology. At the end of the day. Like David, you're coached ski, mountaineering, Olympian, without ever having been on a pair of skis.

[B]

Well, in the old criticism from those gatekeepers of me was, well, how can he do this? He's never done a hundred miler. Like that was so common or an all. Like he was. He's not an ultra runner.

[A]

And I've still never done 100 miler.

[B]

They said how he's never done ultras back in the day. How can he coach ultras? And I'm like, what the hell? Like, look at it now. No one's going back and revising that point of view. And so, yeah, I mean, I think running is running and the coaches that understand that are probably good at everything.

[A]

And in the same running is also endurance, which is biking, which is skiing, which is all of these different things. And yes, I think sports specific knowledge sometimes is helpful at the margin, especially biking. It's like, you're not going to teach an athlete how to corner and you're not going to teach Ana how to ski really fast around those gates, but you are going to teach the general physiology. And for athletes that are like creative enough to learn those points, it's great.

[B]

I could teach someone to do what Lindsey Vaughn did at the Olympics.

[A]

Oh, man, too soon. I love walking first. Before we make that joke, I've got

[B]

on the record that I love Lindsey Vaughn.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

I'm just saying, that's the one thing. I mean, granted, I saw that and

[A]

I was like, I need some serious therapy to do. I mean, to do what she did is so impressive.

[B]

It's so incredible. You're really like wigging out about my joke there. But it also goes the reverse way that a really great ultra coach should be able to coach short distance. And basically, if a coach can't kind of go across the spectrum, there's probably an issue there. Broader, more broadly with their view of physiology. Um, like that's a little.

[A]

Just seems to be open minded, just open minded.

[B]

Like in cycling, all of those coaches can coach the Grand Tours, which are the most ultra events. And people that are doing essentially track cycling or very short events, like, it's, it's the same physiology and for some reason runners just miss that. Like, one of the conversations in running that I got asked a lot when I was going through Patreon questions as I came back from sickness was apparently there was some discussion. I Didn't listen yet. So I don't want to get into it, but about ultra runners don't ever need to do high power, like, VO2 velocity of VO2 max style work because you're not gonna improve it. I didn't really get into the details, but I'm like, hmm, it wouldn't apply across any other endurance discipline whatsoever. Like, obviously, speed matters in whatever and

[A]

power matters and whatever your discipline is.

[B]

But the problem is sometimes the very best in the world are such VO2 max speed freaks that they don't need to think about it at all, because if they just run up mountains, they're going to get enough stimulus to improve. But that's like, what, 0.001% of people. So, you know, that's my little coaching unhinged rant.

[A]

Does any part of you, when you hear that, you're just like, ah. Because I feel like as athletes ourselves, sometimes we're like, there's high carb feeling, there's, you know, bicarb. There's all these things out there in existence in the universe, and our sport has gotten so fast, and sometimes you hear stuff like that and you're just like, well, we're still a little behind in some areas. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Well, I mean, I like it as a coach because I'm like, well, at least there's one advantage we still have. You know, that in some ways, high carb has stemmed the tide on the speed development of ultra runners. Like, there was a period of time where ultra runners were getting faster and faster and faster. And then high carb came along, and now ultra runners are doing more and more and more training. It's like reversing back to the mid-2000s.

[A]

That's actually a great way. That high carb might actually be some of the evolution of how that's happening. Yeah.

[B]

And. And I think that might be a good thing for us as personally as coaches, um, in the sense of, well, you know, until people catch on that, like, it's still, you know, the fastest 10k time is still probably going to be indicative of what happens as long as the athlete can do other things. Um, you know, that was starting to happen very aggressively for a while and now seems like it's reversed a little, at least in the popular conversation. Um, okay, I actually want to read some of the rest of this message from this listener, which isn't a question, but. Okay, that's the end of the question. But I wanted to tell you something else as it came up in one of the podcasts where David Talked about spreading your arms out like a kid when you run downhill. I laughed when you said that. And here's why. I've struggled with a very specific addiction most of my adult life. In 2024, I was able to overcome that addiction. And getting into running has been a huge part of that, giving me a focus and, let's be honest, some self respect. Because I have three kids, I'm often out running early in the morning. And one of the things I like to do when I'm not listening to Swap, of course, is listen to 80s movie soundtracks. I remember when the song from Fame came on and I was so elated that I spread my arms out running along the road and sang at the top of my lungs. I also sometimes dance along the road when I'm on my road bike, and sometimes I sing out loud too. Oh, and the other thing that I've learned from you, and this has been a game changer, Sorry, this is brain dump. Is to experience and share love and joy while running. I used to kind of hate running, but now I see it as an opportunity to bring joy, love, and positive vibes into people's lives. Anyway, much love, et cetera.

[A]

Man, those airplane arm moments, they're just the best. I feel like when you're out there and you get that, like, joy that hits you. And for me, for whatever reason, I feel like it always overlaps with music.

[B]

What song? Oh, give us a song.

[A]

Akon and Young Jeezy.

[B]

Akon and Young Jeezy. Knew you were doing airplane arms to Soul Survivor.

[A]

Yeah, like quite Airplane arm energy. That's more of just like fist pumping, like vibing. Yeah, yeah. We're doing like an airplane wave at the moment.

[B]

An airplane wave. I can see that.

[A]

Give you an airplane arm song.

[B]

An airplane arm song Free by foreign in the machine.

[A]

Oh, that's. That's a perfect.

[B]

Airplane arm culminates in such, like, cathartic moment. And I think catharsis is the ultimate airplane arm. And that points out my favorite thing about what this listener said is how running has helped them understand their addiction and move through it. And so, so many listeners out there are dealing with addiction of some type, either now or in the past. And just know we love you so much. You've got this and just really try to cut yourself slack. I think the first place it starts is in compassion for yourself and just giving yourself a lot of love while you're in the place that you might not like a hundred percent love. That's the trickiest part. But as soon as you can do that. The next steps are going to become so, so, so much easier.

[A]

I feel like we've actually both gotten a lot better with compassion recently, and I don't know where that comes from or why. Like, today I had. I got two and a half miles into my run and I got so nauseous I had to walk back. But I just was like. As I was walking back, I like, like, had compassion, like, a lot of compassion for myself.

[B]

I'm like, yourself.

[A]

Yeah. I'm like, I'm out here. I'm trying. I'm doing this. This is ridiculous and silly, and I don't know where that is coming from of like, that newfound. Maybe it's just having enough life experiences to be like, damn, yeah.

[B]

I don't know. I was listening to Bo Burnham's Shit on repeat today. Feels like a fucking duffel bag of shit. Oh, shit. No, but I mean, I actually do find compassion in letting myself just embrace the jokes around, you know, having difficulty moving through the world because it's just hard, you know, it's hard sometimes. So definitely harder today than most days episodes. Finally, next question. Hey, David and Megan, male high school runner here with a question relating to reds. I'm concerned about one of my teammates. She is really trying to improve by building up running and biking volume and going hard in workouts. However, in conversations with her, I get a sense that she is massively underfoot feeling. And then I'm gonna leave everything else off just in case from an identifying perspective. But then the question is essentially, how do I communicate my concern without overstepping personal boundaries, especially since I am not a female athlete and I can't fully understand her experience.

[A]

Well, to start honored that a high school male runner is listening to our podcast. Like, that means a ton. But also, this is like the most beautiful level. We. There was like identifying details on here that we did not read. And it was just such a beautiful, like, like, level of understanding his friend and thinking about these things and like understanding the challenges that female athletes face within sport. And I just love that we have male athletes like that that are caring, that are young. And it's like, I'm excited about our

[B]

next generation and so much empathy presented in this just to understand what she must be going through as she's going through it. But that's kind of where trickiness lies, is giving someone feedback in this sense, when they are not asking for it is probably never going to be appropriate because if you do and they are not ready to hear it, you aren't Only going to lose them as a friend. You might lose them in their journey toward healing. Because then it becomes, like, defiant almost. The hard part about that Reds part of the journey, where you're unsure if it's an actual eating disorder, if you're not in that circle of trust fully, like, in that they are bringing you into that particular part of it, um, you could be, like, almost impacting their journey in a negative way by talking to them about it directly. That doesn't mean there's nothing you can do. It just means you should be probably moving through this with caution and empathy.

[A]

I think the biggest thing is just love and support and, like, showing up unconditionally for them, whatever that means. But I think, you know, a lot of times now, these diagnoses and, like, the treatment process and working with an athlete on this is incredibly complex. Like, we're talking about digging roots that go deep to an athlete's past surrounding fueling behavior. Sometimes that's linked to, like, early childhood or traumas or other things that we're uncovering. And so it's so much beyond a single discussion. And I think this is where, like, you know, working with a team of experts is best. And I think the best situation in this case might just be to talk to her coach and to say, like, hey, I have these concerns. And then the coach can then refer her to an RD or a doctor and.

[B]

Or talk to the parents.

[A]

Talk to the parents and get some blood work done and kind of start to understand this. Like, for me as a coach, coach, actually, the Reds blood work has helped me a ton because it's like, before, we didn't used to have some of this more objective data to be able to support these diagnoses. And now it's like, if there's an athlete that I'm concerned about, I'm like, let's just get blood work and then we can have these conversations from a more nuanced perspective. And it's hard to do that as just a friend and I think being a place of compassion and support while just helping kind of get some supporting team members on. On board.

[B]

Absolutely. And so the coach was included in the part that we didn't read as being involved in this. Definitely just go to coach, talk to the coach, just openly about your concerns, say, hey, you know, let's keep this anonymous. And then the coach should know what to do next, which is, you know, have a conversation with the athlete that is, you know, accepting and open, but also direct and says what they need to do and what's going on and has that open conversation with them. And if the athlete, you know, doesn't respond to that well, the coach needs to go to the parents and a broader care team. Like this actually reminds me a lot of some of the conversations in safe sport training. So to go to the Olympic trials, I have to do the. The coach safesport training. And, you know, most of it is just all obvious stuff about, like, abuse it. It's important to do, but not particularly relevant for my world of coaching. But some of the discussion about, like, when do you report different things? It doesn't get into eating disorder stuff very often should. I feel like it probably should. But I think that it's relevant here where, you know, the coach has a responsibility that gets elevated as soon as they know. And so, you know, for. For you, as soon as you elevate it to the coach, you're satisfying, I think, your obligation to your friend otherwise, you know, unconditional support. And if you are close enough with your friend, there might be a time that you can start to have that conversation. But it has to be the type of relationship where you are really open with each other about that type of thing.

[A]

And I think just be a role model too. Eat a lot of snacks, go out for ice cream, see what you can do. And sometimes, like, these things are hard in the sense that these are ingrained behaviors for months and years. Sometimes athletes that we work with, decades. And it's not going to be a single conversation. It might not even be years of conversations. And I think for me as a coach, sometimes it's like I just want health and, you know, love and support for athletes so much that sometimes, sometimes I even have to step away and be like, you know, I am not taking a productive role in this conversation. And just know that these are long processes.

[B]

Yeah. And just directness is key when you're at. In the position to have the conversations. Right. Like, so for the coaches out there or the parents, you know, mentors, or even friends that are within that circle of trust, these conversations do not happen gently or easily, unfortunately, because it often ties to identity. And so it always needs to happen from a place of love. But love without pulling punches, right? Like, you're not. You don't need to say, like, do this or else, like, that's not the way to motivate behavior ever. But it does need to be very much. Here is what I see. Let's talk about it now. And if it's not moving forward, we need to do something together. And we've Got this, like, hopeful, but also stern and direct.

[A]

Also, I love this question. Yeah, we need more of these high school athletes in our lives. This is great.

[B]

This is incredible. Okay, next one on the treadmill. Hello, David. I have the chance to get a free treadmill, A Woodway Forefront. Have you heard of this brand specs say it does 0 to 15% incline and can do 12.5 miles per hour. I so want to do uphill treadmill. The only reason I'm hesitant about sagging this free treadmill is that my husband bought an elliptical last year. His choice and space will be tight, but if you think it's worth it, I want to find the space. Thank you.

[A]

Yeah, Put it in your kitchen.

[B]

Yeah. A Woodway Forefront for free.

[A]

Put it anywhere you have space.

[B]

Yeah. Take it and sell it if you have to. That thing is you're talking about top of the line treadmill at this point. That's an amazing option. And it's a great segue for us to talk about the top of the line treadmill. That actually is the very, very best one, which is the Wahoo kicker run. If you guys want to try it, go get it in the show notes. It is so good. Use code, swap, swap. And you get a crazy good fan. And so here's a message from a listener. 6.3 miles on the treadmill before work. Feeling good? Barely sweating. The Wahoo fan is life changing.

[A]

Yeah, the fan treadmill combo, it just feels so smooth.

[B]

It's so smooth. And you don't sweat at all. So you don't get the treadmill wet. You kind of need that for these really high quality pieces of equipment is have a fan on you that prevents sweating onto the belt. Otherwise it's going to slip as soon as you get really, really fast later on.

[A]

Yeah, I kind of miss that, though. Here's the thing, is, like, remember in college when I would go to the student gym and I would just be soaked? Like, every piece of my clothing would be soaked because I didn't have a fan on me. Now I always have fans cooling me, so I never quite get that experience.

[B]

You miss soaking in college? What are you, a BYU freshman? Do you get that joke at all?

[A]

I don't.

[B]

Okay. Some of our listeners do.

[A]

I actually. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

[B]

Some of our listeners do. Man, you can Google it.

[A]

I feel so lame.

[B]

No, no, no, no, no, no. I only know about it from like a jokey. Like it's often used in comedian, like Mormon comedians or will use this as A joke. I don't even know if it's a real thing. But I had to make the joke and I apologize. But yes, the Wahoo treadmill is incredible and I'm sure they love their proximity to the soaking reference there. So you can find it, use code swap. And if you can ever get a free Woodway Forefront treadmill, you probably don't need a Wahoo because that's really good. But I think it's $10,000.

[A]

Yeah. Put it in your bedroom. Put it right next to your bed.

[B]

Yeah. But the Wahoo treadmill is life changing for us. Us. So how about we rapid fire as many as we can here?

[A]

Let's do it.

[B]

I have no idea.

[A]

How many more are we gonna set? Let's do three rapid fire.

[B]

We've had to leave to go to the bathroom a few times, so we have no idea what our actual duration of our recording is right now. Next one. I'm a trail running enthusiast writing to you after a significant journey of losing a substantial amount of weight. Don't wanna read it, but it's remarkable. I've fallen in love with the trails and I'm excited to start your long term training plan. Currently my aerobic base is quite Limited. My 5k time is around 40 minutes with an average heart rate of 165 beats per minute. It my question is, should I prioritize low intensity effort, keeping a low heart rate and easy feel over completion time? For instance, if a prescribed four mile run takes 90 minutes or more to stay in the easy zone, should I stick to that slow pace regardless of how long it takes?

[A]

I think this is an area where it's totally okay to let it flow and to just go by how you feel. And I think especially as athletes are building back, it's like toss the heart rate monitor for a hot minute and just kind of let your body do its thing and find its vibes. Sometimes it's just too much to have that information and I think it also curtails long term development because you're trying to stick to these prescribed cases when just run based on how your body's feeling. Yeah, definitely.

[B]

I think one, I'm a little concerned that the heart rate might not be a hundred percent accurate. Um, but even if it is accurate, I think that this is the perfect time to just let yourself build up. For any athlete that's building up all of the nuances about heart rate zones, it's kind of important, but in reality your aerobic system needs to catch up first. And if you spend all of your time below, like LT1. So in zone one, zone two, you're not gonna be able to build up mechanically for running to feel natural. So put the heart rate monitor away, not just for a little bit of time, probably for a year, and just go run and start to accumulate some volume and cross train and do other things that bring you joy. And as you do that, you're gonna see so much progress by keeping things simple. Do that, add hill strides as your introduction to some more complex work and you're gonna see huge gains. And then when you do put the heart rate monitor back on, you're just gonna be, oh my God, I progressed so much. Whereas if you, you made yourself go slower and slower and slower to appease that metric, you're probably gonna get less development right in the initial part of the process.

[A]

Okay, are we rapid firing?

[B]

Okay, let's rapid fire. Going through as many as I'm gonna go to. Shorter questions. A lot of them are long. Um, oh my God. Rest intervals. That's too long.

[A]

I like that we can do it quickly.

[B]

You think we can do rest intervals quickly?

[A]

I believe.

[B]

Okay. Okay, here it is. Um, quick question about rest intervals for treadmill threshold sessions. I've been doing 45 to 60 seconds standing. It would take my treadmill about this long to slow down to easy paces anyway.

[A]

Way.

[B]

Wow. I don't, I don't understand what that treadmill's doing. Yeah, I'm like, that treadmill needs to get a job.

[A]

Treadmill needs some carbs.

[B]

Yeah, I'm finding I'm recovered. Heart rate down below 140 and feel more than ready to go again. Does it matter? I'm not running the rest intervals as I'm keeping them so short. For example, I did 6 by 6 minutes today off a 45 second recovery. Am I leaving stimulus on the table by not running between the reps? Thanks again.

[A]

I think this is an area treadmill threshold where I do think running between reps is actually quite helpful. Like on the track when you're running like fast 400s, 800s, I think the jog versus standing recovery doesn't actually matter that much.

[B]

Just whatever helps you run the faster paces.

[A]

For threshold though, I actually think it's a built in part of the workout to be able to let your body's heart rate come back down while running or at least moving. Like if you're, if you can't run and let your heart rate come back down, a fast walk is great too. But I think like, you know, being able to do that is Great.

[B]

Yeah. You want to lactate shuttle on the move. Um, that is part of the adaptation process. And for this athlete, it's okay to have your recoveries go a little bit longer. Just keep running. You shouldn't need to stop after. Also, that's probably a sign that you're going too hard on these if that's a big problem. Um, so just slow it down. Um, shuttling lactate while running is a key part of training adaptations at aerobic intensities. So like high aerobic threshold type work and so you could stop if you really wanted to, but you probably shouldn't. Um, okay, let's rapid fire more scrolling down, looking for some short ones.

[A]

How about the heat for summer?

[B]

Let's just do as many as we can. With the early signs of spring hitting Hotlanta. I said hot, Lana.

[A]

Yeah, I didn't. That was my. My brain went to, uh.

[B]

I'm already thinking about the summer heat and curious. If you could recommend a heat adaptation protocol. Are there specific key workouts or exposure strategies you'd recommend to help me acclimate more quickly? My goal is to maintain my performance and my sanity once the temperature really starts to climb.

[A]

There are some sauna and hot tub protocols of like, you know, doing four to five days a week and maybe doing that for two or three weeks and building the blood volume and allowing yourself to adapt to that. That being said, Hotlanta also gives you this, this naturally, maybe not, you know, more. It cycles a little bit more this time of year as we're building into like spring and summer. But I think it would be great to do one of those, like, you know, you know, four to five days a week sauna on hot tub and definitely get yourself feeling good for springtime.

[B]

That'd be good, but it's way intense. I think you can just do one or two sessions a week and be fine. Get a background blood volume stimulus that will probably help you for passive heat. And then in a perfect world, you do one active heat session a week where you just overdress for an easy run. You know, let yourself sweat and that will make you feel so much better when it gets hot. The amount that wearing a little bit of too much clothing makes hot temperatures feel better is just huge. And so feel is your biggest concern. You don't need much of it. You can go out on like a 45 minute jog overdressed, and you're going to feel like it's cold. When it's 90 degrees in spring, it's going to feel so good.

[A]

Have you missed your heat suit? It's been a minute.

[B]

Yeah, it has been a minute. Oh, my God, Megan. I got so much I have to do in training and I have no time to do it. One of the big reflections of this sickness is just feeling behind. Like, I. I'm. It's gonna be hard with this context of life to make it happen in the way that I might need to. And so I'm. I'm reckoning with that while understanding I wanna be hopeful and optimistic and go for it. But also, just like two kids is a lot different than one. And the second kid getting over a year old starts to change that calculus a lot.

[A]

Yeah, he's on the move. It is. Yeah. They're. Leo and Ollie are going back and forth. I do think, though, just give yourself six days and next week's podcast, we will reevaluate. How does that sound?

[B]

Sounds good.

[A]

We'll give an update.

[B]

Perfect. Do you want to go on to Listener Corner?

[A]

I do, but first up, Janji.

[B]

Janji, go to J-A-N-I.com there. Just sign up for the Janji Collective for 15% off. It is the best gear on the market. And what do you want to promo this week?

[A]

Why is it so comfortable?

[B]

It is so good.

[A]

Okay, right now I'm wearing the long bra. Check out this color.

[B]

Oh, so good.

[A]

Describe the color.

[B]

Very dark.

[A]

What? What color is it?

[B]

Black.

[A]

It's pink.

[B]

Wait, what the.

[A]

I thought we're keeping that in. I thought I was wearing.

[B]

So confused.

[A]

Hilarious.

[B]

I thought there was.

[A]

I thought you were giving me dark. David, it's totally black. I thought it was pink. I literally just changed from a pink sports bra. I was sweating into a black.

[B]

Oh, my God. You've been wearing the black sports bra ever since I saw you this morning.

[A]

Well, I haven't looked down at myself. Okay. I was.

[B]

You were making me feel so shitty.

[A]

Yeah, that's why I said very dark,

[B]

because I was like, I. I don't know. This is a trick question.

[A]

I thought I was like, man, your brain, man.

[B]

So the long bra, the black. How's the black feeling?

[A]

Do you like this beautiful color?

[B]

Me too. Yeah.

[A]

I actually love the long bra.

[B]

You know what it reminds me of? The yawning, empty chasm of space. Which brings me to Project Hail Mary, which we're gonna watch next week, and I can't waste.

[A]

I'm so excited.

[B]

Something to look forward to.

[A]

We're wear our John G to Project Hail Mary. What are you going to wear to it?

[B]

What am I going to wear. I'm going to wear the Atlas pant. I'm going to wear the multi short. I'm going to wear something else. I've lost track of everything. It's all going to be pink.

[A]

I'm going to wear the insulated runner jacket. I wear that all the time. Yeah, you should wear pink. You look good in pink.

[B]

I don't know about that, Megan. But that being said, it is Pepto Bismol themed.

[A]

It is true. That is true.

[B]

See, that's what we need is we need a brand partnership. So John G. Did a brand partnership with rvipa, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It was great. They talked about doing with swap. I'm not sure if we're doing that at some point, but what we actually need is Pepto Bismol Ultra X John G. Colab. Let's go.

[A]

That color. It's actually a pretty good color.

[B]

The Pepto Bismol, the pink color, I'd rather. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think Pepto Bismol, everything about it has the best marketing. Like to this day, whenever I see it, I think nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea, which I haven't heard that jingle in 20 years. Years. So that's amazing. Pepto Bismol Ultra. I love Ultras. That is the name of it. And the color is just so intriguing. If there was any natural source of that color, it would make like, you know, if I was a peacock and had feathers that were that color, you would the out of me.

[A]

In my dreams. In my 10pm dreams for sure. Patch of Bismill's gonna reach out to us now. Yeah.

[B]

Seriously. I mean, if they are looking for someone who is a genuine user of their product. Also, to be serious, I had my first experience with Imodium. I had never used it for whatever reason. Kind of intriguing. Like I don't think it makes sense because it affects gastric emptying in races which could impact like how you absorb calories.

[A]

Yeah. I feel like the high carb fueling times. Imodium doesn't. Yeah. But I have seen athletes use it well.

[B]

So use it well at the top level. I have two.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so maybe there's something with immobium that I'm missing. I don't know.

[A]

Know. We'll see.

[B]

We'll see. So maybe training. Training theory will come from all of this, Megan.

[A]

Yes, Some good.

[B]

And then it will be tax deductible because it'll be a business expense. Yeah.

[A]

I mean now that we've talked about on the podcast at this point, it's definitely a business expense.

[B]

You better believe it. Okay, on to listener corner. Do you want to read the first one that's a little less serious?

[A]

This is the first one.

[B]

Okay, random idea. My 6 year old daughter is a total badass. She will bike with me on many of my runs. She's crushing it, her daughter. I don't want to read anything else. Her sport of choice is bouldering, but she's also really counting down the years until she can run a marathon with me. She hears about you all, including how you used your voice and power to stand up for what's right regarding a bunch of different situations. We love a good standing up for kindness and justice story at the dinner table, but I don't let her listen to the podcast because of all the spicy talk.

[A]

It probably was probably wise this week.

[B]

If you've ever felt inspired to release a kid friendly episode, she would be an eager listener. I can't help but wonder if there are more swap kiddos who would also love some David and Megan Roach magic. I know you have a bajillion things on your plate, but just wanted to throw it out there that you have a little fan. Also, I love the spicy Talk and I'm 1 trillion percent here for it and everything else.

[A]

That means so much. Yeah, that really means a lot. Do you think we could do it? I don't think we could record an hour episode without being spicy and ridiculous.

[B]

I think we could. Absolutely.

[A]

You think we could?

[B]

I mean, we're not saying things that aren't kid friendly around our own kids.

[A]

I mean, that's true actually. What are you talking about? I came upstairs the other day and Leo was like, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

[B]

I was telling him I was playing for him London Bridge by Fergie with a oh shit, oh shit. And then he got a hold of it. I am getting used to the fact that he remembers things long term now and might be making memories for the rest of his life. That being said, I stand by playing him Fergie at a young age.

[A]

Yes. Exactly where it came from.

[B]

He's gonna grow up knowing he is Fergalicious.

[A]

The most important thing we need our

[B]

boys to know they're Fergalicious.

[A]

He's gonna throw up. Airplane arms on a run.

[B]

Yeah. Oh God, you said the word throw up. So yeah, I think this might be a cool idea. I don't know if it would be a meme podcast thing, maybe a patreon.

[A]

I have heard that children sometimes likes our like our voices yeah. Maybe it's just our intonation or rapid talking or back and forth.

[B]

I don't know, babies. I've heard it might be interesting though to have one kid friendly episode that talks about a bunch of topics that we think, think would be relevant to kids.

[A]

I actually think it'd be great to do maybe not 6 year olds, but maybe like a middle school episode of just the importance of like, you know, taking care of your body and fueling and, you know, doing a bunch of like. Sometimes I feel like middle school athletes are just going so hard and running and like. Yeah, having these like broader conversations can be helpful. I don't know.

[B]

I think it could be toward non athletes too.

[A]

That's true. Also, maybe just like, you're enough. Maybe just a you are enough conversation.

[B]

That would be good.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But also we can talk about like eating. Talking about mozzarella sticks. Okay, we shouldn't do that. Also, six year olds. Matilda, she was around six, right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Don't hate on Matilda. Matilda would be so ready for that. This sounds like a Matilda. This listener. Total badass. So we love this Matilda ass listener.

[A]

I had like a Matilda style haircut growing up.

[B]

Oh, I like that. I don't remember what she looked like.

[A]

Can we google this haircut?

[B]

Google Matilda. This is the most important content we've ever recorded.

[A]

This is a very much a Patreon vibe.

[B]

Oh, my goodness.

[A]

Don't. I had a haircut like that, didn't I?

[B]

You kind of did, yeah. It's interesting is that we're getting a lot of Matilda, the Ronald Dahl character or whatever, and then also a lot of influencers named Matilda. So Matilda, that would be such a cool name for a third girl. For a third child. If we ever did have a third child.

[A]

Well, the fact that you're considering it, I'm like, sure, you can have naming rights.

[B]

No, no.

[A]

If we had a third child. Absolutely. Megan, you've had so many times in the last few days where you're like, like, Megan, absolutely not. This has been too much. You've seen too much.

[B]

Yeah. The things I'm doing in the hot tub. We're not gonna have my. In another life. We're not gonna have a third child. It's gone. That has been a reflection. Things been hard recently? Yeah, they've been difficult.

[A]

It's been. It's been a long month. It's just been a month. It's been a month.

[B]

It's been a month for a lot of things that wouldn't be relevant to talk about on the podcast. Too. Like no need to drag people down into our like, like petty little.

[A]

But you know what? We're on the ups.

[B]

We're on the ups.

[A]

I feel it. You. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom and just be like, there's only one place to go but up.

[B]

Yeah. I don't know. You can drill down through the rock.

[A]

Oh, we can, we can go lower.

[B]

We can go lower.

[A]

That's for sure.

[B]

Trust us.

[A]

I mean, things can always go lower.

[B]

Trust us, Little John, get low.

[A]

Actually, if you notice that Leo sometimes is very existential. Someone like sometimes told him that like things go to the ground and whenever there's something that's like, you know, decaying, he's like, it's just going to the ground. That's what we're doing right now.

[B]

I respect it. I'm going to have my emo child, Fergie right next to My Chemical Romance. But I did have a reflection that maybe I did something really terrible in a past life. Really terrible.

[A]

But it's just, you know, life comes in peaks and valleys and so hear me out.

[B]

The universe didn't remember until a few weeks ago. And so all of a sudden the universe is like, oh man, we gotta make up for lost time.

[A]

I almost promise you you're gonna do a 20 mile long run on Saturday. You're gonna feel so fucking good and you're gonna be like, the universe loves me again.

[B]

You think so?

[A]

I think so. Okay, this is everyone, look out for David Rochesterva.

[B]

I'm just kidding. I love the universe. I love everyone. It's just kind of fun sometimes to lean into it all.

[A]

Yeah. You're like, I'm just gonna embrace it.

[B]

I'm just gonna go to the ground.

[A]

We're all gonna sink to the earth.

[B]

As soon as I click stop, Megan is going to pass the fuck out. I can just, I can see it in your eyes. You're like, david, you were dragging this out.

[A]

Why can't you just stop this? It's fun. It's so fun. Here's the thing though, it's like, like you know me in a way. You're like, megan, you have nap energy right now. And then five minutes later I'm like, I'm exhausted. But you see it before I feel it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Do you have it right now?

[A]

No, actually. Uh huh. But you're like in six minutes. Update me, Megan.

[B]

Okay, I'm just gonna drag this out more because I don't want you to get the sweet release of ending this episode. What are you gonna eat after this Episode.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

Are you ready? Ready? I'm ready to eat, man.

[A]

Actually, you know what? A chocolate Frosty. Ooh, can we go get one and then head home? You're like, time, Megan, time. Just doordash that. I actually doordashed a baked potato the other day from Wendy's. It was like the only thing I wanted. My mom as a kid would give that to us and we weren't feeling good and I was like, I just want it. And then you're like, well, we can't just doordash a baked potato. And so we got a Frosty and fries. And it was a great life choice.

[B]

Yeah, the Wendy's fries were really good.

[A]

They are good. Don't dip the fries in a Frosty.

[B]

Huh? Really?

[A]

Yeah. You've never done that?

[B]

I haven't. I think we've mentioned that on the podcast before, but I've never gotten around to it.

[A]

You've never gotten around to it?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's lame.

[B]

Can you dip the baked potato in something?

[A]

Yeah, it. The frosty.

[B]

I mean, I guess. I guess.

[A]

I mean, it's basically the same thing.

[B]

Yeah, it's true.

[A]

It's a pre fry.

[B]

Okay. I think we should go.

[A]

Yeah. We love you all.

[B]

We love you all. Thank you for being here so much.

[A]

If you've gotten this far. My goodness, this episode is gonna come

[B]

out so late today.

[A]

Yeah. That's okay. We did it.

[B]

Another thing that I'm messing up. But you know what? It's going up from here.

[A]

It is. It's going up. We believe.

[B]

Yeah. I need a Puma R3 for my brain.

[A]

Yeah. What do you think that is?

[B]

What do I think that is?

[A]

Give me one thing. Akon and young Jesus.

[B]

That's actually true. Trying to take it.

[A]

Take it easy.

[B]

Also project Hail Mary.

[A]

Oh, true. That's gonna be our Monday date.

[B]

That's gonna be so good. Also, maybe we just need to watch Matilda tonight.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, no. We got so much other good TV to watch. I don't know.

[B]

I want some Matilda ass energy in my life.

[A]

I haven't seen Matilda in far too long.

[B]

And to the. To the six year old. Actually a message for the mom to deliver. You are so amazing and you are enough no matter what. And eat so much food because it's

[A]

the most fun thing sometimes.

[B]

We love you all.