304. The Art of Steady Running, Pregnancy and Sponsorships, A Shocking TUE Dashboard, Heat and Heart Rate, Post-Exercise Ketones, and Bicarb!

Summary

Some Work, All Play – Episode 304 (March 31, 2026)

Title: The Art of Steady Running, Pregnancy and Sponsorships, A Shocking TUE Dashboard, Heat and Heart Rate, Post-Exercise Ketones, and Bicarb!

Episode Overview

In this lively, laughter-filled episode, hosts David Roche and Megan Roche, MD dive into a classic “SWAP” scatter of topics, blending deep science, run coaching, personal anecdotes, and passionate discussions on running, health, gender equity, and the latest research. Topics include the nuances of steady running, colon health screenings, nutrition experiments, gel recommendations, sauna and heat training science, cutting-edge supplements (bicarb and ketones), controversies in elite sponsorship (pregnancy deferrals), therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs), and listener Q&A. The duo’s warm banter and nerdy enthusiasm shine throughout, alongside memorable stories about parenting, track workouts, and bodily functions.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Driveway Ankle Yeeting & Injury Adaptation

• [00:01-02:45] The episode kicks off with a hilarious and cringey tale: Megan sprains her ankle while playing “Driveway Chase” with their son Leo, but bounces back to play minutes later.
• Discussion on how repeated ankle sprains build resilience: “Once you’ve gotten them enough, basically no ankle sprain can really affect you.” – David [02:15]
• Takeaway: Runners can sometimes “yeet and rally” after minor injuries.

---

2. Colon Health and Runner Screenings

• [04:14–09:55] Revisiting last year’s much-discussed study finding a higher rate of advanced adenomas in runners.
• David reflects on his own GI issues, pursuit of screening (cancelled colonoscopy, Cologuard stool check instead, negative result), and accidental “science experiment” with a new fiber supplement—leading to comedic digestive mishaps.
• Notable quotes:
  • “If you’re gonna have anxiety about anything, cancer’s probably somewhere to go.” – David [06:07]
  • “So many of our listeners are overdoing the sample size for Cologuard... Maybe it’s high fiber fueling life.” – Megan [07:24]
• Takeaway: Screenings can be wise, but the anxiety created by preliminary studies should be balanced with practical risk understanding.

---

3. Favorite Gels — The “Sex in a Gel” Segment

• [10:45–13:41] The duo reviews their favorite running gels (Enervit Mango, Precision PF&H, SIS Beta Fuel, Stryka/Sirka), with playful banter about taste and product names.
• Memorable quotes:
  • “Mango Enervit—makes me want to sing to that thang, like a melody…” – David [10:55]
  • “You actually told me after your ride, ‘Megan, I kinda want to fuck the gel.’” – Megan [11:24]
• Notable section on cost-effective fueling hacks and gel flasks (Tara Dauer suggestion) [13:08].
• “Pronunciation is hard. Don’t take any of the pronunciations we have on this podcast and call it a day.” – Megan [12:51]

---

4. The Art of Steady Running

• [14:06–20:48] Deep dive into steady (Z2) runs: what they are, why they matter, and how they’re overshadowed by “polarized” easy/hard training dogma.
• “Medium days should also be medium sometimes... It’s a staple of most training approaches.” – David [15:03]
• Steady running helps with lactate shuttling, aerobic development, and is particularly specific for ultra runners. Key for “bridging” low- and high-end adaptations.
• Coaching challenge: Steady runs are hard to define; athletes often get “gray zone” wrong.
• Major theme: “It’s a tough system. In fact, Megan, I’m quite hot right now. Do you mind if I open the door?” (light moment) [19:09]
• Takeaways: Steady running can transform Z2 efficiency and should be worked into long runs or even post-workout cooldowns.

---

5. Data Snax: Sauna Use, Heart Rate, and AI “Studies”

• [22:14–29:24] Review of a Terra API big-data analysis that claims sauna use lowers resting heart rate, with skepticism on data reliability (256 wearable users, 59,000 readings).
• Megan notes AI-written study quirks: “All of this is no news at the end of the day... isn’t that what Roman baths were built for?” [24:10]
• Discussion of passive heat, blood volume expansion, and potential for future research.
• “Sauna days had 5% lower heart rate, which equated to 3 beats per minute total.” – David [25:29]
• Caveat: “The graph looked quite odd... almost too good.” – Megan [26:41]
• Recurring motif: playful jokes about G-spots, dad facts, and the nature of AI-generated science.

---

6. Supplements Deep Dive: Bicarbonate & Ketones

• Bicarb (Morton Study): [33:32–41:52]

  • 8 college runners, 2x5Ks, bicarb group 20 sec faster. Control got “carbohydrate hydrogel and sprinkles”—prompting much laughter.
  • Bicarb reduces lactate burn and perceived effort in hard sessions. “Are you scared of the burn?” Megan: “If I think too hard about the pain cave, I kind of don’t want to feel that.” [38:41]
  • Practical advice: Many users benefit from lower-than-researched doses for cost/effectiveness.
  • “For me, the biggest game changer is that I don’t seem to have as many bad days on bicarb.” – Megan [40:09]

• Ketones (Post-Exercise Study): [41:55–51:12]

  • Study: 28 athletes take 25g ketones post-exercise and before sleep vs. placebo; ketone group improved time trial by 4%.
  • Downside: Financially and possibly physiologically “snowed” by high-dose ketones (est. $50–$100/day).
  • Concerns: Unknown long-term impacts, interaction with altitude/heat, possible hormone suppression.
  • David’s practical approach: “Ketone IQ, 10g, three or four times per week... way less of a stimulus, but it works for me.” [47:49]
  • Megan: “With heart issues, I’ve stopped taking it... just want certainty with supplements.” [50:44]

---

7. Sponsorship, Pregnancy, and Gender Equity in Running

• [55:36–63:41] Discussion about Emma Bates’ public split with YouCan gels during pregnancy.
  • Powerful critique of brands cutting deals with pregnant athletes: “If she’s been made to feel that way, that is indicative of a massive problem.” – David [58:16]
  • Broader context: Running and the outdoor industry are progressing on family planning support, but major gaps remain.
  • “Pregnant athletes should be more valuable, not less.” – David [62:44]
  • “Companies are making big leaps...we should also celebrate when we see it.” – Megan [60:59]

---

8. The TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) Dashboard Shock

• [63:45–72:51] Anonymous dashboard reveals TUE applications/grants—for substances like testosterone and HGH—in sports like cycling, equestrian, even trail running (14 apps).
  • Raises concerns about fairness, transparency, and athlete privacy.
  • “Skeptics will always say everybody has a TUE. I promise you they don’t.” – David [64:46]
  • Debate: Should TUE holders be named? David: “Yes, for fairness!” Megan: “No—patient privacy and stigma matter.”
  • Takeaway: A need for more review transparency, not “name and shame.”

---

9. Listener Q&A Highlights

• Carb fueling in road running: [75:19–80:14]

  • Old school approaches (glycogen depletion runs) are giving way to more science-based high-carb fueling—but the shift is slower in road running vs. trails/ultras.
  • “Most people should be fueling up on any 20-mile run.” – David [78:32]

• Hemoglobin, blood volume, and heat training: [80:20–84:27]

  • Difference between hemoglobin and hemoglobin mass, measurement quirks, what to watch for.
  • “Your hemoglobin mass can go up while your hemoglobin number goes down.” – David [81:51]
  • High variability due to hydration, timing, and genetics.

• Fueling hacks & Ricola drops: [73:21–74:49]

  • Ricola cough drops as “mouth fuel” for 10Ks.
  • “Could be a way to harness some performance benefits on hard workouts.” – David

---

10. Memorable, Quotable, and Just Plain Silly

• OT jokes about AI, G-spots, MRI sex studies, and “loogies”
  • “You just pointed in a very specific spot. Not going to tell listeners where that is.” – David [26:04]
  • Loogie watch: “That’s been in my lungs this whole podcast episode... Are you proud? I’ve been playing through that.” – Megan [51:46]
• Smashburger therapy segment: [89:07–91:44]
  • “Carbs and burgers fix many things.” – Listener email [88:34]
  • “Why is Smashburger so good?” [90:03]
  • Extended banter about burger doneness and preference gaslighting.

---

Timestamps Table of Contents

| Time | Segment/Discussion | |--------------|---------------------------------------------------| | 00:01–02:45 | Driveway ankle yeet, injury comebacks | | 04:14–09:55 | Colon health screening, fiber misadventures | | 10:45–13:41 | Favorite gels, taste testing, fueling hacks | | 14:06–20:48 | The art & science of steady running (Z2) | | 22:14–29:24 | Sauna, big-data, AI, rest HR, heat adaptations | | 33:32–41:52 | Bicarb supplementation science & practicals | | 41:55–51:12 | Ketones: studies, anecdotes, cost vs benefit | | 55:36–63:41 | Pregnancy & pro contracts (Emma Bates/UCAN) | | 63:45–72:51 | TUE dashboard, ethics, athletics, privacy | | 73:21–74:49 | Listener: Ricola drops as run fuel | | 80:20–84:27 | Hemoglobin & heat training Q&A | | 88:34–91:44 | Burger therapy, smashburger segment |

---

Notable Quotes

• On Training Resilience:
  “You can yeet and rally.” – Megan [02:32]
• On Colon Cancer Anxiety:
  “If you’re gonna have anxiety about anything, cancer’s probably somewhere to go.” – David [06:07]
• On Gels:
  “Mango Enervit—makes me want to sing to that thang, like a melody.” – David [10:55]
• On Gender Equity & Sponsorship:
  “Pregnant athletes should be more valuable, not less.” – David [62:44]
• On Supplements:
  “For me, the biggest game-changer is that I don’t seem to have as many bad days on bicarb.” – Megan [40:09]
• On Bicarb Perceived Effort:
  “Are you scared of the burn?” – David [38:41]; Megan: “If I think too hard about the pain cave, I kind of don’t want to feel that.”
• On Science Snacks:
  “I am partial to this. And I do see similar resting heart rate drops, maybe not on sauna days, but like around sauna or hot tub training. And I think because it confirms my biases, I have to be very careful about really pretty graphs.” – David [29:24]
• On Community Impact:
  “If it can be one small thing, like satisfaction bombs and fueling bodies and carbs… you know what? I’m happy with that.” – Megan [89:08]

---

Tone & Style

The episode is classic SWAP: equal parts nerdy, silly, loving, and science-hungry. The hosts are irreverent but caring, making even serious subjects feel accessible. They readily admit their biases, poke fun at themselves, and honor listener experiences.

---

Overall Takeaways

• Steady running is essential for aerobic development and ultra specificity—don’t let polarized dogma crowd it out!
• Big data and AI are reshaping sports science, but skepticism and interpretation matter.
• Supplements like bicarb and ketones offer promising benefits, but practical, individualized (and financially sustainable) approaches rule.
• Running gel tech and flavors have never been better—don’t settle for old-school fuels.
• Equity & transparency in elite sport sponsorships and medications are ongoing battles—progress requires public pressure, transparency, and empathy.
• Community (and carbs) make running, and life, better.

---

For more, check out their Patreon, YouTube, and newsletter for training plans, science chats, and more Megan & David shenanigans.

Transcript

[A]

Woohoo.

[B]

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

[A]

Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday and I'm ready for some driveway chase on this Tuesday.

[B]

Oh God, no. Don't you ever say that again. Megan, I am still dealing with the aftermath of seeing you do driveway chase last week.

[A]

Are you still jarred?

[B]

Oh my God. So the difference between me and you is that I was taking a video of you playing driveway chase with leo. It was 7pm at night. He was on his little strider bike ripping up and down our driveway.

[A]

He's quite fast on that thing. He requests racing now. Like he's all about racing, mom. And he legitimately wins because he's just ripping down the driveway.

[B]

Well, he is on a bike. It has wheels. You don't. Very specifically, you don't have anything close to wheels because of what happened next. So yeah, it's 7pm, maybe you're a little tired and I'm filming this for posterity and all of a sudden you absolutely yeet. Your ankle, it turns over fully. And since then I have studied the tape, Megan, and it is bad. It is one of the worst ankle sprains I've ever seen. I have no idea how you were running. Like literally five minutes later you were fine.

[A]

I ripped this thing hard. To be fair, I was in untied shoes because that's sometimes what happens when you're parenting and you just get called up to do a chase. And also to be fair, our driveway freaking has boulders in it.

[B]

Wait, wait. It literally just has a few small rocks, which is good for the water table. If a drop of water from like rain hits a non paved surface, that's a good thing.

[A]

Okay. Our driveway has its own water table. I feel like we have like rivers forming and ponds of just sanding water. And this has been a thing in our relationship. It's like, David, I think we should do the driveway. And you're like, oh, hell no.

[B]

We're gonna need couples therapy about the driveway.

[A]

But we can just pull up the tape and be like, Megan's yeeting her ankle on the driveway.

[B]

I have pulled up the tape and you yeeted your ankle on nothing. Your ankle went down sideways. I don't know what you were doing. It wasn't untied shoes. It wasn't a little itty bitty rock. That was something. That was just pure Megan.

[A]

It was like a 90 degree turn. And to be fair, I actually can't go back and watch the tape. It is like nauseating to Me.

[B]

Do you think it's okay to post on Patreon or is it too much?

[A]

You could post just maybe not the video, but you could post the still shot of my ankle, like 90 degrees.

[B]

It's funny because in the still shot you're still smiling while your ankle's going down sideways and Leo's just there looking like a total doofus. Just like so joyful. Um, and it's pretty classic.

[A]

I did get back up to play, so like two minutes later I was back racing.

[B]

And I have no idea how ankles work like that. I think to be serious about a takeaway for everyone is, yes, ankle sprains can be bad, especially when you get them the first time. But once you've gotten them enough, basically no ankle sprain can really affect you. So just move your feet real fast and understand that if you keep running, it'll probably get better.

[A]

You can yeet and rally.

[B]

Yeet and rally.

[A]

That's like the story of my life right now. I, I don't get it very much running anymore.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is interesting. I think I've increase. Increased my cadence running and kind of worked on my running form and it's helped a lot. Yet I truck it in the driveway.

[B]

Yet you still yeet. Okay, we have the best episode for you.

[A]

May we all yeet.

[B]

A quick roadmap, my experience with colon health screening. Some interesting thoughts there. Our favorite gels, the art of steady running. Perhaps that's a training discussion.

[A]

I think we should keep it in there. I think it's an important training discussion.

[B]

We don't have any specific reason to talk about it, but it's a good one. And then a lot of science, including a data snack on saunas, a new bicarb study, a post exercise ketone study that would be quite expensive if you followed the protocol.

[A]

Yeah, we were just going to do the math on this and we're like, how much money per day are they spending on ketones?

[B]

I think I probably did the math wrong.

[A]

No, I think we're doing the math right.

[B]

We'll see. I kind of like my basic bitch ketones approach, but we'll get to that. Then Emma Bates and you can perhaps. Not sure we had anything to add there. A shocking therapeutic use exemption dashboard. Some thoughts about professional running, plus a Q and A on carbs, hemoglobin, heart rate zones and more.

[A]

A lot of good stuff on here. A lot of science snacks. I feel like some interesting studies that came out that have some like relevant takeaways that we can do kind of quick Hitters on.

[B]

No, I love my science snacks.

[A]

Yeah. Including one that was, like, done by AI which is interesting. I have thoughts on that.

[B]

Wait, the study was done by AI?

[A]

I mean, it was filtered. It's terra AI. Okay, okay.

[B]

From an AI dashboard type system.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Which.

[B]

That was the sauna. The sauna data. Yes.

[A]

I think the writing was done by AI too.

[B]

I don't doubt it. I feel like AI companies are probably using AI to write.

[A]

I pulled some quotes ahead, and I'm like, look at this sentence.

[B]

Oh, man, I can't wait for that part of the discussion.

[A]

I didn't see that they even had citations in there for things that I was like, do you even need to cite this? Plus exclamation points? I love being exclamation point, but maybe not in science.

[B]

Dude, I'm in. I'm all on board if they're using exclamation points. Okay, so first up here is related to the study that we talked about last year that was in our top five of the studies of the year. Go back and listen to that episode where we did the full rundown. And this was on colon health and runners. Megan's going to have a million caveats she's going to dunk on me, but I think this study is just immensely important. So it was a just a small data set where it found that runners had 15% likelihood of advanced adenomas in their colons, compared to 1 to 2% for the general population when you were looking at a younger cohort. So while it wasn't like some broader finding we talked about in the podcast, a number of listeners have gone on to get different types of colon health screening, and some have found significant findings. Whether that's indicative of them being runners or it's just a thing that would happen if we screened more, we don't know. But I do think, given the increasing prevalence of colon cancer overall, this isn't just a runner thing. It is the, as far as I know, one of the only cancers that is increasing in prevalence. I thought it was important to get myself screened.

[A]

I agree. I think. Okay, yes. Do we. Do we put that study in the top five or the top 10? I feel like it was in the top five. And then I was like, we're back in this truck up. That this is going to be like, number eight. It's kind of what your bowels sound like.

[B]

Oh, my God. Yeah. So that's why I was concerned. It's not this study. It's because, you know, I've had long term GI issues that might be attributable to running, but this would happen even if I didn't run.

[A]

Well, I think this is the issue that I have with the study is I think it's really important to raise awareness of these things. And I think for you, like you had, you have had long term GI issues, including blood and stool. And it's like, absolutely. That's a place where like talk to a doctor and get checked out. I feel like though, this study is putting running as a line of causation to these potential, potential, you know, pre cancerous or cancerous risk factors. And to me it's like, it feels like such an early thing to bring up. And it also feels like it's creating this wave of anxiety in athletes that is a little bit like perhaps not needed.

[B]

True. But if you're gonna have anxiety about anything, cancer, probably somewhere to go to like, fuck cancer. I, you know, lots of listeners out there have dealt with this personally. Everyone has dealt with it in their close circles. And it's scary. And the study is not even finalized, I believe. So a lot of this data we still have to, to see. But for that I wanted to get screened. You know, I want, I've just been scared about this. So I scheduled a colonoscopy and then canceled it because it kind of seems scary once I looked at it. Which gets to Megan's point about why this study can be taken too far, because colonoscopies come with risks. I looked at the risk of the colonoscopy itself. Well, that kind of scares me. And there are, is this other option of cologuard where you can get a stool sample tested, which isn't 100% definitive, but it does when you're below 40, give you some details that might be helpful.

[A]

You also don't have to do the prep protocol for it, which involves pooping your brains out, valves backing up, beep, beep, beep on repeat all through the night. I'm like, if you, if you can avoid that for right now, maybe that's wise. In the bulk of training, I do

[B]

that in every long run. So not sure how much I need to do that anymore. So did this test protocol. One of the things I heard from a ton of listeners is that you get it rejected if it's too big of a sample. Because I mentioned this on a past episode and so many of our listeners are overdoing the sample size for cologuard.

[A]

Maybe it's high carb fueling life, maybe.

[B]

I don't know. I Feel like this must be high fiber. I'm very impressed with our listeners, but got it back and actually got negative results.

[A]

High five.

[B]

Which is good. And so I was shocked, actually. I'm very happy about it. But also the peace of mind doesn't just come from the study and concerns about that. It also just comes from the idea that I am reaching the age where some of these advanced adenomas are not just becoming more prominent in runners or are become more prominent in the general population. So Hank Green, one of our favorite thinkers and science communicators, did a video that I saw on Instagram, but I imagine it's on his TikTok too, where he detailed that colon cancer prevalence is increasing. And he actually cited ultramarathon running as one of those risk factors, which I imagine is that same study, though I'm not sure. So I think that this is one of those places where just getting these options, working with a doctor to get like the prescription for cologuard might be worth it. Or just going for the colonoscopy and maybe if I keep having concerns, I should do that just for peace of mind.

[A]

Okay, well, one of my favorite things is you did the cologuard test and then you're like, I'm going to take a lot more fiber.

[B]

So in the process, I read all about colon health and why this might be increasing across the board. And dietary fiber has decreased in the American diet, and it's quite low in my diet, I would assume. And so you know what I'm going to do. Fiber. I got influenced by an email from Matt from the feed, and I got momentous fiber and gut health. And I'm like, I'm gonna do this. And so after I got those good results, I decided to have it. And it led to one of the worst experiences of my entire life. I don't know what happened to my stomach, but it increased acid, like, acidity so much that like, it was horrible. I don't. I don't even want to describe how much it hurt.

[A]

I walked in the door, I was out with the boys, and you were just sitting there at the kitchen table. And you're like, megan, I took the fiber and I took all of it. And you also did this the day before a long run with Hans. And I was like, dude, that's some serious swag right there.

[B]

Yeah, but I tried, I was trying to science based. This is why I don't do things like this. And what I didn't tell you is that I was out playing with Leo and after this, and it got so bad, but I actually had to go behind a tree.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You did not tell me that. So perhaps I'm surprised Leo didn't tell me that.

[B]

Yeah, well, I don't think he knew because I was covert about it. I didn't want him to get scared.

[A]

I feel like I'm like, we're like, of the age now, or Leo's of the age where he keeps telling us these things. He's like, mom, I guess what dad did and he rats you out. He didn't rat you out on that.

[B]

And what I say back is snitches get stitches pitch. Okay, so that's just a little aside there. And the reason that aside is something I focus on personally is the number of messages we've got of people finding things in screenings recently. And so I don't know if that matters that much. Maybe there's downsides I'm not seeing that Megan might see, but in the world where helping one person might make a difference, I do want to focus on that. And, hey, I mean, I got a positive. I got, like, a good test result, which makes me very happy.

[A]

Did you have anxiety as you opened that up?

[B]

Oh, so much. So much. I was so scared. I was sure it was going to be bad, so hooray. Something's going well. Okay, so let's get on to the study writing discussion. Before we do that, a quick promo for the feed. Go to thefeed.com swap there you get 40% off your first order, so you gotta go use it now. And $10 back for every $100 spent. It's the best deal out there.

[A]

I feel like we've been loving the feed recently for just a variety of gels. It has been so fun to just try different flavors, try different gel types. What was your Strava title this weekend?

[B]

Oh, my goodness. Mango Enervit. Makes me want to sing to that thang. Like a melody.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Thing is so good, which I think is talking about. I mean, people can guess what that's talking about.

[A]

Actually, I think I saw a Strava comment on your thing that was like, anytime anyone uses thang in a Strava

[B]

title automatic, like, that was lotto. Big energy, the song. So, yeah, Mango Enervit is the best tasting gel I've ever had. So. It used to be called Tae's Secret Gel. So Tate Pagaccia helped create this gel. The taste of it is so good that it almost feels like it doesn't. It's like cheating.

[A]

You actually told me after your ride, you're like, megan, I kind of want to fuck the gel.

[B]

I don't think that's true. I don't think that. No, that's not exactly what it's.

[A]

I think that I want to have sex with a gel.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

I should say that, honestly, in that form sounds a little grosser than I want to fuck the gel.

[B]

That's actually not it. I said the gel. It's sex in a gel.

[A]

So. Okay, that's.

[B]

That's very different.

[A]

That is very different.

[B]

It's very different sex.

[A]

You're right. You're right.

[B]

You got to try this gel to find it out. And on Thursday this week, I'm going to be doing a gel pack for the feed where you get 20% off these gels that I'm discussed right now. So check that out. Also not exactly sure it's 20% off, so if it's not, I apologize. I think that's what it is. So starting with Enervate Mango, then Enervet Cola. You really can't go wrong with enervet. High carb 40 gram gels. Precision fuel and hydration. Their 100 milligram caffeine gel.

[A]

Oh, it's so good.

[B]

It's rocket fuel. It's awesome. Science and sport. Beta fuel gels really like those. They've increased the price recently. And then finally, how do you say these gels?

[A]

Okay. I've been calling it the Striker gel for the last, like, six weeks on the podcast, which is a 50 gram gel at a 1 to 0.8 ratio. It's delicious. I like the citrus flavor, but guess what? It's stirka.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How do you get stirka?

[B]

From this. Or circa.

[A]

Circa circa, I think.

[B]

Oh, weird.

[A]

I know.

[B]

I didn't learn this until Emma Bates's Instagram video where she describes her situation with UCAN that we're going to talk about later. And she said it the right way. I was like, oh, no. Oh, no. I've been doing this wrong on Main with so many listeners to this podcast for a really long time.

[A]

Pronunciation is hard. I feel like, don't take any of the pronunciation that we have on this podcast and call it a day.

[B]

There's not enough vowels in there. There has to be more vowels. I know.

[A]

How do you get that?

[B]

I don't know if I trust someone that uses that few vowels.

[A]

I respect Emma Bates, though, because she wrote it out in like, you know

[B]

how it's pronounced, how it's pronounced.

[A]

And I was like, thank you Emma, you're doing the world a service.

[B]

Absolutely. And then one other message I got from a listener. So this isn't going to be in the gel pack, but in describing all of the high carb fueling on the YouTube video last week was using the feed high carb mix, which is the cheapest option available, to get high carb mix and then mixing it with a small amount of water in like warm water and blending it and using that as essentially a gel mixture in a flask. In that the cost per carb is the lowest you can get. And so I can't vouch for that. I haven't personally done it, but it seems like one of those low cost options that is making it so that you get all the benefits but at the cheapest price possible.

[A]

Actually, speaking of which, Tara Dauer did a post the other week about having a dedicated gel flask and the feed actually sells these, which is great. And it can be a really convenient way to carry gels and to take in like, you know, a relatively higher quantity of high carb fueling with an ease. And I'm like, that's a great idea.

[B]

Absolutely. So go to thefeed.com swap okay, so here's a quick training discussion before our science. Next, I wanted something that emphasized training. And this is all motivated by my runs with Hans Troyer.

[A]

You guys have been crushing it on mags. Look at you.

[B]

Well, it's so funny because he's coming into these runs at the end of a week on Sunday where he's doing 120 miles a week. He's training at altitude for the first time. He's just crushing it. I'm coming into this run, you're like,

[A]

I'm gonna bike on Saturday.

[B]

I'm 50 miles a week with some old man energy. And he's bringing that young, infinite energy. And so it's been really fun because what we go out and do is I call them classic Z2 runs in Hans training walk, where every Sunday after a full TR training week, he does Z2 runs that are a little bit flatter, usually less hills than magnolia, and gets flowing. And what's really interesting about these study runs is that they have connections so much to training theory. But sometimes I think steady running gets lost. And the reason for that is that always when we're hearing about training, we hear about polarized, like either you're going easy or you're going hard and make hard days, hard and easy days easier. But in fact, medium days should also be medium sometimes. And that is a Staple of most training approaches.

[A]

And I feel like they unfairly get coined all the time as like gray zone training. But the reality of ultra racing is we're basically spending a hundred miles in the gray zone. And so you actually want to practice being in the gray zone and that feeling.

[B]

But maybe what's most significant to me is that you see these runs in training plans for road marathoners, road 10k runners. It's ubiquitous, often within the long run. Whether that's Renato Canova's training approach that's used a lot in Africa, or like the I Stone training approach where they'll do two workouts plus a steady long run. Where, I mean, for those athletes, for the men, they're often going down to like 5:30 pace. So we're talking about quality, but still slower than their marathon effort. And so I love steady runs. But what do they actually mean? The answer is, who the fuck knows?

[A]

Nothing.

[B]

Exactly. But as a general definition, it's training right around lactate threshold 1, so the top end of zone 2 or a bit higher, though sometimes it could be a little lower if an athlete's really, really advanced. And often you'll go higher on uphills, a little bit lower on downhills. Running with intention or purpose, not necessarily a singular heart rate or even lactate level.

[A]

And I think the hardest part for us is how do you describe this as a coach? Because it's kind of like, you know, unless you're right there in person with an athlete, it's a little bit of this ambiguous territory. And for me, I like putting this in as like easy, moderate running as kind of like a catchphrase or even just thinking about progressing an hour faster at the end of a long run, or even doing some structured tempo after a workout. Like you're getting some nice steady running if you add like a 20 minute temp doing hills or speed or different things. And so I feel like athletes that we coach might be like, how am I getting this study running? And it's actually mixed in there a little bit stealthily.

[B]

Yeah, I think the long runs are an amazing place to really focus on it than the post workout. And so why are we even doing this type of thing? I think a lot of it just comes back to lactate shuttling, where you're stressing the low end of that mechanism and causing your body to have to be efficient with relatively high output. Um, and so the hard part becomes beginner. Athletes might be always doing this. Like they would have to basically walk not to be doing this. So for Advanced athletes, it becomes more and more important as they progress. Whereas, like, where does that line exactly fall? Really don't know. And so it's one of the most tricky parts of training theory that this is ubiquitous. But how do you even plan it or how do you know when to do it? Um, it's really hard vibes, baby vibes.

[A]

And I think this is an area that like has actually been game changing for you is because I think you are one of the best athletes in trails. You're gonna bristle as I say that bristle so hard at Z2 efficiency. And I think a lot of this has come from your approach of like working a solid amount of study running into your own training. And I think that's paid off in terms of like the efficiency at C2.

[B]

Well, maybe that's the biggest conclusion of why to do this at all is that you have on one end the low end development of the aerobic system. And that can just be as easy as it gets. There's nothing that's too easy on the top end. You have power things like strides or workouts or whatever. Um, how do you bring that together to actually improve aerobic performance and aerobic metabolism generally. So in an ultra, this is incredibly specific because you're racing at these efforts. Uh, but for every athlete, improving that will also improve fat max. And improving that will improve how your body shuttles lactate even at very high efforts. And so I love what you said about how to incorporate this. I love long runs. I also love, here's like a little tricky point after workouts. So you'll do a speed session of some type of. And then you'll do 10 or 20 minutes of steady running where you go out and just kind of run intentionally. This might be a little bit above Z2. I think it's so good for lactate shuttling. It's one of my favorites.

[A]

How do you think about this from the perspective of athlete level? Because for you, you're going out and like your study running is quite fast. Like your study running could be 5:40 piece, could be 5:30 piece. And you take an athlete that might not be as fast and their study running obviously is a little bit slower. Do you prioritize more steady running time for athletes that are less biomechanically efficient? Because the like breakdown, the breakdown stimulus is not as high.

[B]

I actually stress it more for elite athletes. The faster you get. Because if you're not, if you're running hills and if you're running normally, you're going to get some of this. Um, but for more advanced athletes, you might get none of it. You might just find yourself either running really fast or really slow and no in between. So, yeah, it's a tough, tough system. In fact, Megan, I'm quite hot right now. Do you mind if I open the door?

[A]

I've saw you. I've been seeing you looking at the door. I'm like, are you trying to peace out out of here?

[B]

No, no, I'm just. Oh, my gosh. Am I hot or are you hot?

[A]

It's not that warm in here.

[B]

Okay, maybe it's that bra you're wearing. You got that salmon color on right now.

[A]

I feel like your brain hates salmon color.

[B]

No, I love salmon color, Meghan.

[A]

Anytime I wear salmon color, you're not like, it's pink or it's like, you're like, it's salmon.

[B]

I think the bears are still hibernating, so you don't have to worry about one just coming when you're trying to cross the road, like when the salmon are going upstream. Uh, okay, so any other conclusions on steady running?

[A]

No, I think it's just a great thing to think about a little bit more. And I think, you know, for athletes, it's one of those things to be like, okay, today is a steady run focus, and trails are a great time to kind of work into that and to let it be also a little bit more like, undisciplined. Yeah.

[B]

And maybe the simplest way is your long run. Go out and run pretty intentionally. It doesn't have to be, I am going fast. Right. You can do this on trails or whatever, but if you let that run be a slog, you're going to be missing so much of the potential adaptation. And that's often what we see in the road plans. But sometimes it gets missed or it gets broken up into intervals that we don't need to do, like LT1 intervals. Runners do not need to worry about that. Maybe cyclists do to a certain extent, but for runners, it's just about go out on this run and run pretty steady. In fact, our winter training plan that was released on Patreon is all about this. And we are hearing from athletes that their Z2 paces are improving by 45 to 60 seconds per mile. So this adaptation stimulus can work fast and it is so good.

[A]

But I do think that steady is also not like, all out effort. And I think that is also really important too, because I have athletes that if I write steady in their log, I know are going to go out and just like, hammer their bodies into a fine pulp. Like, let's avoid that point too.

[B]

Okay? Absolutely. So let's get on to the sauna dataset. Before that quick promo for patreon, go to patreon.com swapswap just released a new training plan for vert. It's a six week plan, so if you're doing background training that doesn't have a ton of climbing, you can hop right into this and get ready for really steep races.

[A]

It's actually nice. We don't really have a training plan like this and it makes me excited that you could combine this with like some of the speed focused or power focused plans and then add the vert plan right before heading into like a bigger vert race. And I like the two. The way those come together is great.

[B]

Ideally, you're using one of our longer plans for our big race, but this is kind of up my alley. I always stuff invert at the last second because it's hard for me to get to trails that have enough vert to train on. Like, I have to drive there and stuff. So usually it'll be the last three or four weeks. So this is putting it all into practice, what that might look like. Um, and then tons of other training plans there for the $10 a month tier. We'll do your heart rate zones. Um, plus if you ever can't afford it, just let us know and we'll get you in.

[A]

It's kind of wild thinking about people out there doing our training plans. We've been getting so many messages about this, but I was in a wonderland the other day here in Boulder.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And was stopping at my like rock spot where I stop and take a jail at five miles into my run. And there was a guy doing 12 by 45 second hills. And he said like, huzzah to me at the top. And I was like, like, is he doing our training plan?

[B]

He might be. I wonder which plan that is.

[A]

I know anytime I see anyone doing strides, like a trial runner doing strides or focus intervals, I'm like, is that a plan?

[B]

Maybe the coolest influence to have. So go to patreon.com swap all right, so let's do all the science snacks.

[A]

Now.

[B]

We're going to start with the sauna data, which was coming from an article that is titled saunas lower your heart rate more than exercise. Really simple. Clearly this isn't a scientific study. This is more of an anecdotal gathering of evidence, which I think is pretty cool, actually, because sometimes with studies, when you're doing especially prospective Style interventions. It's really hard to get real world data. It's not real. This is truly real world data. This is coming from wearable users, 256 of them and over, I think, 59,000 daily readings.

[A]

And this was done by Terra API, which is a data source that connects a lot of different devices together and, like, minds it for data. And I think there actually could be some interesting conclusions drawn from that. I think this. You're like, you're looking at me. You're like, megan, you're gonna be a turd, aren't you?

[B]

I can tell. No, no, I wasn't looking into it. I'm excited. I'm excited to hear what you say. I need this, Megan. Otherwise I'm gonna go over the top and I'm gonna be stuffing things up my butt. Clearly, we've seen that already.

[A]

So excited about Terra API. I think some of the challenges are that this can be great for, like, big data. But when you're looking at 256 wearable users, even though you're getting a lot of daily readings, we're getting to the point that, like, there's a lot of nuance here that we're missing. And I have a lot of questions about how Terra API is handling missing data. When you aggregate a lot of the devices together, a whoop is different than a Garmin in terms of how they structure sleep readings and even resting heart rate. Those are different calculations that they're using across devices. And so I have a lot of questions about what happens when you smash all that together.

[B]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of people doing this recently, especially with Claude code, because basically Claud code lets you anything. That software, it seems like I don't use it personally, but it's like the SaaS apocalypse where Claude code's coming in and doing a lot of that if you want it to. And I've seen athletes that are really into cloud code feeding all of their data into it, and then giving me six page summaries of things for Coach David to know. I'm like, okay, this is very cool, but I could see some of your misgivings.

[A]

Does it have lines that read like this? So this is a, this is a direct quote from the study. It is for this reason that saunas are also considered great for recovery. All of this is no news at the end of the day. Isn't that what Roman baths were built for? For recovery after battle? Exclamation point. And then they cited it. It's citation number five. The Roman baths and Baths from World History Encyclopedia.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

Yeah. As soon as I saw this exclamation point, I was like, this was written by AI, wasn't it?

[B]

I thought Roman baths were for meeting people that are single and ready to mingle.

[A]

We'd have a lot of fun in a Roman bath.

[B]

Maybe those are ancient Greek baths. I'm not exactly sure. Yeah. So that is curious. I kind of like it. I like when people bring in history. I'm not sure if that is coming from AI, but, I mean, heat has been a staple of cultures going back millennia. So I like when you're looking at the weight of authority from all of this history, culturally.

[A]

You know what? I knew this was gonna get you. It's like the dad facts of your brain is like, just give me some Roman baths. And I'm all about Terra API.

[B]

Dude, if they use saunas in World War II, I'd be all about it. In fact, I heard about a movie that's coming out that's all about weather forecasting for D Day in World War II. And I'm like, you are hidden directly on the dad G spot.

[A]

You just took all the dad spots in one place. I feel like someone just has to go through and feed all of these, like, large language models a bunch of dad facts, and it's going to appeal to dads out there.

[B]

Oh, my gosh. I've been a dad since I've been six years old. Okay. So the results when they compared all the sauna data was that sauna days had 5% lower heart rate, which equated to 3 beats per minute total, even when controlling for exercise on the day, because sauna often overlapped with exercise days. And then women had less of a drop, with the strongest impacts of sauna use in the luteal phase. So, like, the late part of the cycle.

[A]

And I love figure one of this, which they. Actually, this is where it'd be great to have YouTube, so we could just pop up the figure and show what we're talking about.

[B]

But the DAD G spot, you want to pop that up on the screen

[A]

right here.

[B]

You just pointed in a very specific spot. Not going to tell listeners where that is.

[A]

That was figure one right in the middle, actually, about two thirds of the way down. Um, but what they found actually was they were looking at. There was a line for athletes that were not doing the sauna, and then a line for athletes doing the sauna and looking at, like, sleep across the night and heart rate during that. And it was basically, like, three beats lower. The entire Night and the athletes using sauna. But the data were just so beautiful that I was like, that's, that's where I have the first brain moment that I was like, this almost looks too good.

[B]

Oh, the data was too good.

[A]

It was too beautiful. The G spot was too strong.

[B]

I mean, it makes sense when you think about it that unless the signal is just so overwhelmingly uniform, you know, like universal, why would you see such a beautiful graph? Because I know exactly which one you're talking about.

[A]

Yeah. And it was like the comparison across the entire night was basically like three per day beats per minute constant. And I was like, that's curious to me.

[B]

Yeah. And like constant with similar fluctuations too.

[A]

Yeah. The graph looked quite odd, huh?

[B]

Yeah, that.

[A]

That being said, we're sharing this on here because I think it's interesting just from like a, like, scientific perspective how we're using like, you know, things like Terra API to generate this data and what are some of the challenges of that. But I also think, like, I actually think sauna is good for dropping resting heart rate. So I'm like, check my bias. Like, even though the data are so beautiful, I actually do think sauna is effective. When you're thinking about like, you know, building blood vol and how that relates to resting heart rate, it hits your

[B]

passive heat G spot.

[A]

It really does.

[B]

We should probably stop with those references now. Yeah. I think on one hand this is going to be a revolution with big data analysis. I think we're going to learn so much more about training theory as we develop ways to analyze it across the population.

[A]

And that's awesome. To me, big data is so exciting.

[B]

In fact, I think top study of the year last year was a big data analysis study involving Strava and marathon times.

[A]

But 255, 256 wearable users, not quite big data.

[B]

What about 59,000 daily readings?

[A]

Yeah, that's a lot. But.

[B]

And then think about how many hourly readings that is and think about how many second readings that is. Dude, it goes bonkers.

[A]

Think about all the noise.

[B]

Um, yeah, so I think as it relates to passive heat, this could be a signal that's worth thinking about. So when you think about passive heat, you're thinking about blood volume expansion. So once you expose yourself to heat the body to cool down increases the liquid content in blood, which increases your blood plasma volume, which over time, as we've seen in the hemoglobin mass studies, can actually improve the number of red blood cells you have too, because it starts by expanding essentially water content and then to Maintain your hematocrit levels, your red blood cells get jacked up through natural epo. That's a great adaptation. But simply doing blood volume increases should decrease some of the cardiac stress and make your heart pump more efficiently. And that's one reason that citing the Romans or the Finnish people or whatever might be relevant here, because probably that's what people have been seeing for millennia, is that this cardiac stress stress can be productive to how a athlete feels and as Tara would say, how an athlete recovers. So I am partial to this. And I do see similar resting heart rate drops, maybe not on sauna days, but like around sauna or hot tub training. And I think because it confirms my biases, I have to be very careful about really pretty graphs.

[A]

Okay. I need to get on this train because something has happened since July and I kind of wonder if Garmin has changed the algorithms because, like, prior to July, my resting heart rate was often like mid-40s, like 44, 45, 46. Now I literally cannot get below 50 for the life of me. And like, nothing fundamentally changed in July. And I'm wondering if Garmin actually changed their algorithms as to how they calculate it, because I think it was like a 30 minute lowest average reading, whereas like some other things, like Oura Ring is just like simply the lowest heart rate. But, man, I just can't crack 50.

[B]

Mine hasn't changed. Megan.

[A]

Sorry, sorry.

[B]

I mean, you have had heart issues, so.

[A]

But not since July. I'm like, how, how is this lasting so long?

[B]

Um, okay, so another vote for passive heat training. I'm gonna go back and use the hot tub right after this. And I just think it's one of those very productive things that takes very small amounts of work. I think often the protocols are looking at five days a week or something. If you just do one day a week on your rest day, I think that's a very productive blood volume stimulus that will add up over the course of time. My dream study, if someone out there has like 12 weeks to do it, is what happens if you do one quality passive heat session a week. Let's compare the intervention group with the control group, because I think we'd see rather significant changes if you made the duration of the intervention long enough.

[A]

I love that. In fact, I feel like we need a whole branch of science. Like most scientific papers, when you look at anything, like when you look at ketones, when you look at bicarbonate, you look at heat, all of which we're talking about today, it's like we're going to look at the very max stimulus because we're looking to try to find a larger effect size. And it's like, actually, as a coach and athlete myself, I'm much more curious and like, you know, what can we do at the bare minimum when we have. When we're time crunched to get some kind of a stimulus? And I feel like we so rarely look at that in science, but that would apply to so many more people.

[B]

You know what the word of the day is?

[A]

What?

[B]

Snacks. Snacks.

[A]

It's true.

[B]

You know what the second word of the day is?

[A]

It's a snacks. On up. Two spots. Actually, two of my favorite things.

[B]

Oh, no. You were debating as you keep that in. Megan paused as you were saying.

[A]

Actually, I paused more for comedic effect as opposed to, like, thinking about it. That's easy. Those are legitimately two of my favorite things.

[B]

I saw a study. I'm not sure if this is real. I think I saw it on social media.

[A]

This is terra AI looking at the

[B]

G spot of people having, like, intercourse in an MRI machine or something.

[A]

Oh, fun.

[B]

And that there was.

[A]

Wait, that's like not. It's a very tricky environment for intercourse.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, there's a lot of sound going on. A little claustrophobic.

[B]

I mean, what is auto erotic asphyxiation other than giving yourself constraints? They say in improv. They say comedy thrives with constraints. Maybe other things do too, if it can actually happen. But they said that. I mean, I don't know. Actually, I'm not going to wade into it, but the science of G spots seems a little bit.

[A]

Wait, just explain to me, what were they looking at?

[B]

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

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Researchers were just freaks.

[A]

Yeah. Like, were they looking at the brain? Were they looking at other spots?

[B]

But the science of snacks is fantastic. And the idea being even with passive heat. So I talk about it all the time. You would think, oh, is he doing it constantly? He's like, no, I don't have time. Maybe if I did, I would. I usually do it two times a week and I think it makes a huge difference. Or similarly, we're about to talk about bicarb. How much do you take? I take way less than they recommend at my body size. I think that these types of interventions don't have to be significant. Or ketones. Oh, my God, I can't wait to get to that one.

[A]

Oh, I mean, just because, like, financially we can't drop that amount of money on ketones.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No.

[B]

And the reason that I do What I do is because we don't have enough support from the feed because no one could.

[A]

Oh, we would blow through, like 12 athlete supports from the feed and maybe

[B]

they give it to us if we ask. Maybe the ketone companies would. But I want to have something that is broadly applicable to everybody. I would never want to do something that others couldn't. So, yeah, there's a vote for passive heat. Also, sorry about the whole MRI thing. I really don't know enough about it.

[A]

I think that's going to be people's favorite part of this, the podcast. I just have questions like, what were they? Like, what were they actually looking at?

[B]

What were they looking at? It'd be so funny if I was just sharing, like a hallucination, you know, like AI hallucinates.

[A]

I mean, it'd be a great hallucination by itself.

[B]

Okay, next up is a study on the effects of of morton bicarb on 5k performance. That's the study title. It took eight college male runners and had them do two 5ks one week apart. Crossover design. So getting the interventions in random order. Um, and here's a quote. Two hours prior to the time trial, subjects consumed either the Martin Bi Sodium Bicarbonate supplement at 0.27 grams per kilogram or a placebo made of Morton carbohydrate hydrogel and sprinkles that look similar to the sodium bicarbonate pellet sprinkles gave me

[A]

a lot of joy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Did that give you joy, too?

[B]

It brought me so much joy. And that's actually why the study is coming to the podcast, because this overlaps with what we've talked about a million times. But a few weeks ago, we had a question from a listener about designing their own study. And I said, let's do bicarb and have that correlate with fatigue resistance. The listener emailed back and said not only are they going to do the study, that they have a smooth IRB process at their school. Their mentor supports it. So, Megan, I'm dunking on you right now because you told me that they should just do whatever their mentor was doing.

[A]

I was like, academia is tricky. IRBs are hard. You should find some data that already exists and build on it.

[B]

And you know what else?

[A]

What?

[B]

We got messages from listeners of agreeing with Megan that David is wrong. It doesn't know what he's talking about. But guess what? I was perhaps right in this one instance, though. Maybe the study won't work out.

[A]

I think it just varies a ton by university.

[B]

Yeah, there was One top researcher who's really great in their field. He's like, david, no offense, but you were really, really wrong on this.

[A]

You didn't tell me this.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it made me feel pretty bad, even though they didn't mean it that way. And I was like, yeah, but like, I support entrepreneurialism and I think we should all just step outside the thing. And they're essentially like, but David, you're stupid and wrong. Didn't quite say that, but it felt made me feel that way.

[A]

Anyone that's been in academia and hears the word entrepreneur is like, it's impossible to marry the two.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Which I get. I mean, you know, you look at the sauna data snack and that's not a study for a reason. Right? Like, it's not like it is entrepreneurial, but it is not rigorous enough to be a study. Um, and so the reason it's coming to the podcast is because they asked then about, well, how do you, you know, control? Like, how do you do the control variables in these groups? So I looked at all the studies. Some of them use sodium. Like, I think that that's one of the hardest parts here is sprinkles don't have sodium. Um, but then I saw sprinkles and I was like, we have to talk about this. They are feeding the control group sprinkles suspended in a carbohydrate hydrogel. That is crazy.

[A]

Well, it reminds me of Leo who, who is like obsessed with sprinkles. And for a long time I feel like he wasn't eating enough food just because his three year old brain couldn't sit down and have the focus to eat enough food. But he would, if you put sprinkles on it, anything, anything. Like, he would put sprinkles on anything. Anything. Chicken nuggets, sprinkles, sprinkles, French fries, sprinkles.

[B]

Yes. I feel very self conscious about what I am feeding our children.

[A]

Welch's fruit snacks. Which, by the way, the first ingredient is fruit. Fruit.

[B]

Fruit puree.

[A]

Puree, sprinkles.

[B]

I mean, once I realized that, I started giving him fruit snacks all the time. Like, yes, I understand the second ingredient is corn syrup, but this is a win and I'm gonna take it because I see some fruit happening right now.

[A]

I think it's his primary form of fruit. In fact, actually in his lunchbox, which has like different containers. It's like a bento box that has like different things that you put in it. Like, Megan, can I just put two fruit snacks Two bags of fruit snacks

[B]

in here and I did.

[A]

Did you?

[B]

Meanwhile, when I go to his school, every other bento box.

[A]

Oh, it's like so beautiful.

[B]

It's so beautiful. It looks like it is created by a Michelin star chef.

[A]

They have like pastas and chickens meanwhile, like chickens. Chickens.

[B]

Multiple chickens.

[A]

Meanwhile, Leo has peanut butter and jelly every single day. Yeah, he does have a handwri note. That's different. Like there's cars driving to mountains, there's family pictures. There's things in there.

[B]

It's true.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And some animal has been leaving like various carcasses.

[A]

It's so true.

[B]

Maybe we should put one of those and just throw them for a loop. Like, Leo would probably love it. He'd be like, I respect you. You're. You're calling my bluff. Okay, so back to the study. Um, the groups, both of all the eight male runners did both 5Ks. The bicarb group was 0.3 minutes faster. So about 20 seconds faster. Seven out of eight of them improved, while the eighth was just.04 minutes slower. So a few seconds slower on the 5K. Yet another vote for bicarb is making instantaneous 20 second beneficial change in these athletes that's substantial at this level. And if you think about that 20 second change, it is not just on the day. You then Adapt to the 20 seconds of benefit and then you get a little bit stronger and then you're gonna adapt to that and you're gonna adapt to that to adapt to that. So even if bicarb is just thought of as an ergogenic performance enhancer, it'll make you stronger day over day over day. And then I also think there is potential benefit for mitochondrial health and how you adapt regardless of how fast you're going. So another vote for bicarb as a performance enhancer.

[A]

Also, what are the psychological impacts of being 20 seconds faster and then applying that to belief, it's like, okay, you know, going 10 seconds faster off of this, 20 seconds faster. And I feel like for me, maybe it's just because bicarb simply makes me feel good, but there's some kind of psychological benefit of performing a little bit better that makes me believe a little bit more. And then that starts to compound. And I think that is an exciting thing.

[B]

True. And I just think it just doesn't hurt as much because a lot of the performance benefit comes from reduced perceived exertion at the same paces. And even when you're going faster, for me, the burn gets reduced and I don't know, I don't know about other elite athletes. I'm scared of the burn. Are you scared of the burn?

[A]

It is kind of like everyone talks about, like, enjoying the pain cave, and I feel like if I think too hard about the pain cave, I'm like, I kind of don't want to feel that.

[B]

I like ultra pain caves because it doesn't burn, it doesn't hurt. Like, I mean, it's broader. It's like, longer term, but it's something that. That I almost feel like ultras are the human experience. Right. It's like, this is pretty dark, but the, like, you know, we all die. Abyss. Frederick Niski, whatever, however you pronounce his name, like, that idea of the world is ultras. And so we're all equipped to handle that so much more than we're equipped to, like, throw your hand in the stove and you know you're going to do it. And so, I mean, I'm scared of track workouts even now. And bicarb makes it totally acceptable to me. Like, my brain doesn't have that process anymore.

[A]

Well, I think for me, too, once I take bicarb, I do get the jitters. And you make fun of this. Me for this. But it is very real to the point that I'm like, I actually need to run right now or else my body feels like it's just gonna, like, I'm like, jump out of my cells. It's weird.

[B]

Well, what did you say the last two nights? In the middle of the night?

[A]

I've had anxiety the last two nights.

[B]

I get it. I get it. But you specifically said, I'm like, I'm

[A]

jumping out of my skin for I

[B]

have dry mouth and I'm jumping out of my skin.

[A]

I don't know why.

[B]

That's not bipartisan. So no offense. No offense. And I validate you.

[A]

No, but it happens every time I take bicarb, okay? And other people say the same thing.

[B]

And trust me, I am an anxiety boy. I'm not making fun of that feeling in the middle of the night. I'm sure there's, like, other stuff that we need that we can work through.

[A]

Okay. It is weird, though, when we've had a lot of nighttime awakenings because of, you know, having two kids. It is weird when I am the problem. I'm like, I should not be the problem right now.

[B]

I'm getting woken up by all of our creatures tonight. I have no doubt that Addie is going to come in and be like, david, I have to go poop.

[A]

Please let me outside, dad. Please let me outside. Okay. Final thing on bicarb, though, is I think for me, the biggest game changer is that I don't seem to have as many bad days on bicarb. Like, if I take bicarb, I can almost always get through a workout on a subpar day and have like, a pretty good experience. Whereas before, sometimes it's like my brain is like, every part of me is like, stop, stop, stop. And I feel like I don't have those workout days on bicarb.

[B]

Yeah. And I think it takes lower doses than they study often, again, because they're trying to look. Look at the max level of adaptation. I take bicarb 10 or so.

[A]

I probably take bicarb 8. Yeah.

[B]

And I just take it in one hydrogel, like one like Science and sport Beta fuel or Enervate or something like that. And it works super duper well for me. So find what works for you. The feed has cheaper options. So, like, this gets to the expense of it. If you order the max dose of Morton, it comes to $70 for eight servings. If you're cutting it in half or if you're cutting into thirds, 12 servings, which is pricey but not crazy. Fly carb is another option. Go to the feed right in sodium bicarbonate. Look for different options. If you want to give this a try. I think it's worth it. It just makes me feel so much better all the time. Like, it just makes me feel better about hard training.

[A]

Okay. Did you see that? Fly carb has new flavors and they also have a hundred milligram calf option. And I'm like, how much, how much do we want to go to the moon?

[B]

Guys, stop combining things. I don't need it. I don't need it.

[A]

This sounds like sex in an MRI machine. Like, we just don't need to do it.

[B]

It sounds like something. Sex in an MRI machine while also eating a pizza and getting a foot massage. No, I can do all those things separately. Let me be the one that decides about where my pizza goes.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Should we do anything before we get onto the ketones?

[A]

Say, let's just get on the ketones. I feel like we should just move on with this energy.

[B]

Okay. This one is called post exercise ketone supplementation improves endurance performance in mitochondrial adaptations during an eight week endurance training intervention. Uh, this took 28 al athletes over eight weeks of training. It had 14 athletes do 25 grams of ketones post exercise and before sleep. And then 14 athletes did an isocaloric placebo.

[A]

And what they found was that the ketones improved the 30 minute time trial by 4% more. Um, and then they were also looking at different, like, muscular signals as well as cardiac signals. And they found that the relative VO2 peak improved more in the ketone group, which they were theorizing was due to enhanced peripheral oxygen utilization. Yeah.

[B]

And there were some just. Just enhancements in adaptation markers. Interesting things. This kind of overlaps with what we've seen in the past with post exercise ketones. And this is perhaps the biggest study on this, like eight weeks of normal training. So all the past studies on post exercise ketones have looked at overload training where they just crush athletes, and they find in those cases, the ketones post exercise seem to make the overreaching signals diminished. Um, I've always said, said on post exercise ketones, can you overreach? You can for sure, but it's much lower risk. Perhaps. But this is also, you know, just such a substantial intervention.

[A]

They are snowing them with ketones.

[B]

Snowing?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What is that a reference for? For the non medical people.

[A]

It's like a medical term for when you, like, put a patient on a lot of medication that, like, makes them delirious, like snowing someone. I'm like, they're really snowing them with ketones and they start 25 grams twice a day is insane.

[B]

Dude, we need to snowing more often.

[A]

I use it a lot now for some reason.

[B]

You know what turns me. We need snowing a lot. And we also need to use soaking.

[A]

You use.

[B]

You can soak in an MRI machine?

[A]

Um, yeah. I mean, I feel like it'd be hard to do anything other than soak in an MRI machine. Quite frankly, that's the best case scenario in an MRI machine.

[B]

My joke about soaking two weeks ago has gotten more positive feedback than any joke I've ever made in podcast history.

[A]

Well, the funniest thing about it was I had no idea what you were talking about. About. And then even the next day, you have. Even the next day you texted me on a run and you just sent me a picture of the definition on Google.

[B]

Oh, on. Yeah, Urban dictionary Soaking. Because I just remembered you. We never followed up what soaking was after that.

[A]

Did you send that to me from the Wonderland bathrooms?

[B]

I know I sent it to you from just the middle of the trail because I was running and I was like, megan needs to know about soaking.

[A]

These are the kind of text messages I get when you're out running. It's amazing.

[B]

So they are snowing them with ketones here. It's A lot. And I think the price of this is pretty substantial. And also the level of intervention makes you concerned about downstream impacts that we're just not measuring, because anything with positive enhancement like this is coming from various markers. And there's tons of theories. We've gone into that in the past. There's a great review study from, I believe, the same lab, which again, a lot of the same researchers are involved here, which also makes you a little concerned at times, even though totally trust them. The science looks incredible.

[A]

Incredible.

[B]

Um, so you're doing 50 grams per day, if I'm reading this correctly. And then we went to the website to look at this ketone ester. So it's a ketone ester to be contrasted with something like ketone iq, which

[A]

is generally considered like the gold standard in ketone supplementation.

[B]

Ketone esters, yes. And Delta G, which is one of the primary ones. The exact price, I'm unsure, but I was seeing like a hundred dollars for

[A]

a few bottles, actually 117 for three bottles.

[B]

And maybe it's less other places, but

[A]

I mean, it depends on where you go to get it.

[B]

The bottles having 27 grams. That can't be right. It just can't. It can't be a hundred dollars of ketones per day in this study. Intervention.

[A]

I mean, that's what happens when it snows.

[B]

Yeah, maybe. Either way, it's expensive to do these types of interventions. And so the question is, is there a lesser intervention, Is there a less expensive intervention that might also harness some of these adaptation benefits? Because the reason that this is happening is multifaceted. But mainly it seems like it activates certain parts of, like the adaptation markers, let's say. Like I was going to think of the exact way to say it, but I'm going to keep it general. That then change the way the body responds and including perhaps increasing the natural EPA EPO response in the kidneys. And there's a million theories for why this is, but we still don't know a thousand percent. That's a little bit scary. And so are there lesser interventions that you can start to do some of this. This and not perhaps hit some of the risks that could happen when you're doing such a major intervention where you're harnessing adaptation signals that have developed over millions of years in the body and introducing them exogenously without precedent? It's not something humans have ever done.

[A]

Also, the study is looking at this in isolation and not when combining with heat training and combining with altitude. And I guess I have questions. When you start to take ketones, especially at this level, and combine it with altitude and combine it with heat. It's like, what's happening to the body? And are we saturating pathways that are, like, you know, that are already getting hit by altitude and heat? And so I have major questions there. But then also, like, what's happening long term? I mean, we've seen ketone impacts on testosterone levels, and we've seen that in scientific literature. And I've seen that actually a lot anecdotally, especially in female athletes. It's like, how much is a lot? Pretty substantially. Okay, I've seen ketone. I've seen. I've seen testosterone levels in female athletes go from like, mid-20s down to like, like three or six.

[B]

Yeah, but I think you haven't seen it enough to say a lot.

[A]

No.

[B]

Yeah, I want to specify that because I. I haven't seen it enough to be scared about it.

[A]

I've probably seen it four or five times, which. That's a lot when you think about, like, you know, how much blood work I'm looking at within, like, you know, a team of athletes, for sure.

[B]

And how many athletes are actually doing it, especially female athletes. So with that in mind, what I do, and I always get hate whenever I say this, because people are like, that's not the gold standard, bro. You don't know what you're talking about. It's like, actually, I do. Do I want to do something that one is financially, like, sustainable, but two might be a little bit less of an intervention. So if there are any issues, I'm not feeling them. And what I started to do almost, I guess over two years ago now is I just do ketone iq, which is relatively inexpensive. I take one shot three or four times per week after training.

[A]

Also, the green apple flavor is kind of delicious, which is a different type of ketone.

[B]

It's also 10 grams. It's just so much less of a stimulus. And, you know, the. The people that disagree will say, this is just unstudied. It doesn't do it. But knowing my body, I actually am very almost certain. I Very almost certain. I don't know what I'm talking about. But, like, that it has coincided with when my endurance has been enhanced. So, like, I was. The problem is I also started bicarb around the same time. Like, I did a lot of intervention.

[A]

You also started high carb.

[B]

Yeah, well, high carb is a little earlier, but. And I also started more intense heat training.

[A]

You also started wearing your beautiful ASU super shoes. Yeah.

[B]

That I can't wear anymore because they hit my plantar.

[A]

Okay. You should talk about the reel you just made related to super shoes. Tangent. This is great. It's coming out after the podcast. I think it's one of the best reels you've made.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah, I do.

[B]

I think it's not going to get much traction.

[A]

No, I think. I think it's actually going to go viral. Okay, we'll see who's right.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

We'll know on Tuesday when the podcast comes out.

[B]

Well, so basically it's this reel where I'm holding up the Puma R3 road super shoe. Which is which. It doesn't make sense. It does not compute how good the shoe is.

[A]

Well, it does make sense. They use, you know, computer models. Yeah.

[B]

But at the same time, this. It's so light and you look at it and there's nothing to the shoe. But then you put it on and it feels like you're running on a cloud. And then you run it and it's just like, so responsive. It doesn't make sense how good the shoe is. Like, it actually makes me think that shoe tech is starting to hit a peak, which is interesting. Like, I don't think shoe tech is going to get better and better, which is contrasts with what I felt before I wore the shoe. I'm like, this is close to the top top. We can't get that much better than this shoe because it is hitting everything. But I start with a shoe and it says, like, road shoes. And I'm like, we use space age technology to make this shoe 3% faster. And guess what? It's also comfortable. And then it switches to trail shoes.

[A]

You're in a bucket hat, too.

[B]

I'm in a bucket hat for the second one and it's all blurred out with like a sensor thing. And it's like we time traveled back to 1997 to give you this total piece of shit. It's 24% heavier, 14% slower, and also go fuck yourself. You're too slow to know the difference. So we'll see. I mean, yeah, I. I think it really is sad, but I'm proud of the real at least.

[A]

But I feel like the real might actually create meaningful change.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

I feel like there's. I think there's a chance that people who are designing trail shoes sit around a table and we're like, we're gonna make less heavy trail shoes.

[B]

That's how you know you're an influencer, that you're influencing people that are actually in the room where it happens every so often.

[A]

You never know.

[B]

You know, Alexander Hamilton was the original influencer in the room where it happens. Um, okay, so I think Ketone IQ is a great intermediary to try this out. Doing it after hard workouts or long runs, like once or twice a week, seeing if it makes you feel better subsequently. But also totally optional. It's not one of those ubiquitous things like bicarb is taken by almost every track runner. Passive heat, not ubiquitous, but I think healthy. Is this healthy? I think so. It makes me feel healthier. My blood work has come back better, but I don't know. And that's where an intermediate step might be beneficial.

[A]

And I've stopped taking it personally. Like, I feel like my. I've had, you know, with the heart issues. I'm like, I just wanted it, like, have some certainty with supplementation.

[B]

And maybe we go back. You're like, you had your heart issues. Basically your whole training approach was designed around your heart issues for a while from, you know, like, you know, from. From me. Because I was thinking if we develop your aerobic system so much that when we start high intensity, you'll be good. That that might be heart protective. And from. Because it's an inflammatory pathway. I was like, well, let's try this. And it was working really well until it didn't. And now I'm like, you know what? Fuck it. Let's throw caution to the wind. And as long as your heart's feeling good, let's just go for it.

[A]

Actually, it was kind of great to have, you know, the pericarditis come back after a bike effort because now you're like, it's all just random.

[B]

There's nothing we can do.

[A]

There's not anything that truly is just random. And with training now, you're just like, fuck it, we ball. And so I just did strides, which I haven't done in a long time. I'm going to be doing some flatter ground workouts here and it's like, I'm excited to build some.

[B]

I'm so excited. And Megan, I rarely call you out on anything. We just had a little edit in there, which is rare. We don't do that very often. And it's because Megan started coughing and then, oh, my God, you dropped a loogie. Never seen before.

[A]

That's been in my lungs this whole podcast episode.

[B]

I'm so impressed by you.

[A]

Are you proud? I've been playing through that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You can probably hear, actually sometimes when I laugh, there's a little bit of like, a throat catch. And it's been that fang, that thing has been hanging out in there.

[B]

I do not want to sing to that thing. Like a melody.

[A]

Did I just give you the ick?

[B]

No, no, no. I love it.

[A]

It's right there.

[B]

I'm glad that it's out of your body now.

[A]

You can look at it the rest of the podcast.

[B]

I can't stop looking at it. Why is it there? Why is it not moving? Why is it growing legs?

[A]

It's like the astrophage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We just need to add a little, like, black food dye to it, and it's gonna be astrophage.

[B]

The Project Hail Mary Astrophage. Yes. Should we do a Project Hail Mary review?

[A]

Let's start. Okay.

[B]

No, we did on Patreon.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Go listen to our Patreon app. Bonus episode from last week for the.

[A]

We did wear spacesuits to the theater. And it was so fun.

[B]

That was so fun.

[A]

It was one of the best dates, actually.

[B]

One of the best dates.

[A]

And then the movie was so long. I actually loved it. It was a really fun date and

[B]

the movie was great, but it was very PG.

[A]

You gave it an eight stars. If David gives something other than 10 stars, that's like, you know, not great territory. Actually, anything other than 12 stars and you're like, what happened in there?

[B]

Is that a good trait or a bad trait?

[A]

It's a great trait.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I love that about you.

[B]

Is it 12 out of 10 trait?

[A]

Yeah. What's that? Loogie.

[B]

Oh, my God. Literally a trillion out of 10.

[A]

I've never seen a looby that's a more robust textbook.

[B]

Like, we're gonna hang that in MOMA as, like, a definition of human existence.

[A]

In 20 years, they'll probably still be

[B]

hanging Natural History Museum. Okay, let's go on news before we do that quick promo for the Wahoo Kicker Run treadmill. This thing is just so freaking good. We have a link in our show notes where you can click it and use code swap for 400 off. If you're going to get a treadmill and you're going to spend a substantial amount of money on it and you're going to use it a lot, this is what to do. Because the difference between this treadmill, which is premium, and a treadmill where you're spending three or four thousand dollars, is your life is a million times better and you run so many more miles on it. It is just so good.

[A]

Actually, the primary reason that I'm excited for flat speed in my own training is I Get to rip on the Wahoo. Yeah, let's do it.

[B]

Yeah, I was thinking about that. You don't need to do a pillow. Let's just do flat.

[A]

What workout?

[B]

I mean, let's do miles right away.

[A]

Oh, I'm so excited.

[B]

Let's just go run. Yeah, you know, let's. At this point, what do we have to lose? I rarely reach the fucking point as a coach, but, like, your heart stuff made me so sad that I'm like, you know, at this point, let's just make you as fast as we can, and if something happens, something happens.

[A]

I know. It's like, I feel like the patient build. It's like, we might as well just get fast and then see what happens.

[B]

If these are going to race when you're good and, like, the hard stuff is just its own thing, you know, And I'm so proud of you for how you're, you know, working through it and stuff. And. And, yeah. So, I mean, the Wahoo kicker run is gonna be getting some work. It's gonna get pounded.

[A]

Oh, I'm excited. I don't know if it's quite ready for pounding yet. Like, I feel like I haven't done a mile repeat in a long time.

[B]

You're.

[A]

So it's gonna be a little bit of just, like, gentle.

[B]

Yeah, no, I mean, we're gonna be pace controlled and heart rate controlled, but I think you're so much faster than you think just at baseline. And I'm excited for you to see it, excited for the world to see it, because we're back, baby.

[A]

We're back.

[B]

The heart's good. Everything's looking up.

[A]

We're coming back. I had a moment this weekend, actually, where I forgot to take myself off the start list of Crown King 50k, which is the race I was planning to do, which, just, like, logistics, man, it's hard as a mom. It's like that was, like, the 45th thing to do on my to do list.

[B]

Yeah. And how did it make you feel?

[A]

Well, I got tagged in a few, like, race predictions, and I think I talk about my heart issues a lot on the podcast. I'm, like, honest, authentic about it, but I don't really. Other places, like, just kind of feels clunky to talk about on Instagram or, like, you know, other social media places. And so I just didn't. And then I was like, oh, no, I was supposed to race today, and I definitely got, like, even though I'm so excited about building back here, that, like, wave of sadness of missing a race and, yeah, felt it and then just had to. Just went on and did my first long run back and felt a lot better.

[B]

Yeah, It's a good way to process things.

[A]

It is a good way to process things.

[B]

I'm so proud of you. Okay. Oh, let's get on to news. Um, we're almost an hour in. I feel like.

[A]

Let's keep the news going, Stewie.

[B]

Okay, so I had very spicy takes on the Patreon bonus episode.

[A]

And then you got a little scared.

[B]

Well, I got scared because if they get taken out of context, I might get canceled.

[A]

I don't know. You were, like, doing the good work for women.

[B]

Okay, well, maybe I don't need to be the one doing good work for women, but. So this comes to the Emma Bates, you can discussion. So Emma Bates did this Instagram post where she reviewed her favorite gels, and it was a great post. I actually agreed with her gel listing a lot.

[A]

It was actually most of what's in the David Roach package.

[B]

Yeah. Am I taking women's work? Maybe I am.

[A]

I think the gels are just good, and they stand for themselves.

[B]

Okay, I'm a little worried about that. But at the start of that post, she talked about getting dropped due to pregnancy by YouCan, which was her previous gel sponsor. And I'm not going to get into the science of UCAN itself as a gel company. It's not something you'll ever hear us talk about. We don't think it's wise scientifically. We don't think a lot of the athletes that are sponsored by them use them in our own view, but also to each their own. It might be very effective for some, and that's not our place to talk about because, you know, there's no studies on it. And a lot of it's our bias, too, against how it's marketed. But Emma said she was dropped with pregnancy, and that led to a very important discussion online about what are the responsibilities and obligations of companies like UCAN in these situations. And it also led to a little bit of a back and forth with what actually was the fact pattern here. And I don't think we're ever going to know exactly what that was. But what are your initial thoughts?

[A]

I do think this is important. Like, I think we've come a long way in the world where pregnant athletes are being recognized more, and pregnant, you know, pregnant people in general are being recognized more within society. Like, I was so excited to see Solomon sign Grayson Murphy, and they did a whole photo shoot of her in her, like, third Trimester. And I just thought that was, like, the most beautiful way to announce an athlete. And like utmb and. Yeah, utmb. Yep.

[B]

So pregnancy deferral, but now they're doing family planning deferrals and things like that where, like, if you're considering IVF or going through that process, it also applies. That's a really good step.

[A]

And I feel like companies are making these big leaps to be like, this is important to us and this is important to society too. But I feel like there's still this, like, disconnect. And I think we see this in broad. Like, I think it's almost like trails and ultrarunning are a little bit ahead of society in that sense. And that at least makes me excited for the trail world. But I feel like there's still these huge gaps. And I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, Emma felt this and this was like a big challenge for her, just based off of what we see in general society, that this happens all of the time. Like, if you look at earnings gaps, you look at women in the workforce, you look at all of. There's like, many, many, like, hosts and hosts of stats on that and the discrepancy between male counterparts and that that gets to the broader pregnancy discussion.

[B]

Absolutely. And the discrimination doesn't have to be explicit of we are dropping you because you are pregnant or you are of childbearing age to be extremely terrible, both for individuals and society as a whole, because it leads to this process by which everyone starts to get hurt, even outside of their, you know, specific professional obligations to a company. And then the companies themselves aren't valuing humans for the whole self. So you can release the statement to give them credit of saying, well, this was decided at this point before we knew about pregnancy. And then Emma's representation. So her agents said, oh, well, that's not fully true. So I do want to give that credit. But the problem for me is, well, one, this is a fucked situation because Emma has been made to feel that way. And if she's been made to feel that way, like, that is indicative of a massive problem. And so even if you can thinks they didn't do it for that reason, reason that they are contributing to, like, very bad outcomes for all women and all humans because, like, this is a human rights thing. But number two was some of the discussion online. So I just. This is what I discussed on Patreon that I'm not going to get into now, reading tweets and things like that from the most idiotic male runners saying, Essentially, like subtweets of saying, like, you are. You have obligations to companies and things like that. So it's professional sponsorship relationship means.

[A]

And also, like, contracts aren't done in perpetuity. And I feel like on page and we're like, in perpetuity was like our keyword there.

[B]

Go fuck yourself in perpetuity. So where do we go from here? I think the big thing is one to recognize in the response you are seeing just how much discrimination there still is. And so first check yourself before you wreck yourself. Like, professional sponsorships and obligations are sponsoring the whole athlete. If we think it is just results, and if anyone says it's just results, that is a honestly, like, misogynistic way to view how sponsorships work. You were sponsoring the whole human. That needs to be a big part of it. Um, but number two, we need protection mechanisms so that this can happen. And that's why public pressure and talking about it has to happen. Because otherwise companies can be free to, you know, communicate either on one hand, either communicate so poorly that an athlete feels like they're being discriminated against due to pregnancy, or on the other hand, you know, being discriminated against objectively, like that is. Either one is just as bad for all women.

[A]

And I think we need pressure on companies, but also celebration when companies get it right, because it's happening more and more often. Like seeing Solomon the Feed has been incredible. Supporting pregnant athletes and, you know, athletes who are mothers, which is like an entirely different context, to be fair, of, like, being an athlete. Like, it does change your identity and it changes your whole self. And I love to see companies celebrating that. And I think, like, we should also celebrate when we see it too.

[B]

Yeah. And on just a broader point, you see this all the time in sponsorship discussions. I'm thinking of a couple right now which. And these people mean no harm. This is not one of those.

[A]

It's not the go fuck yourself in perpetuity situation.

[B]

In the other, other context where they're like, you know, sponsorships are about results, not influencing or whatever. That conversation also misses the fact that it is you are sponsoring the whole person, because that is the nature of this. If you are say you are just sponsoring results, you were saying an athlete is only like, what they have given you on race, like in races recently. And if you take that to its logical conclusion, you're also going to be discriminated against half the population. Because even if it's someone is not planning on getting pregnant and will not get pregnant, they will get implicitly Docked because they might be of childbearing age or they might think about this, or it could be something in, in that happens. And that's how gender gaps start to form in broader society. So we need to be very careful about that. Celebrate the whole athlete, have the entire, have that be validated. Like you're some of the companies you mentioned. And I think you can clearly fuck that up here. Like in, in the way it was discussed, in the way it was ha, you know, happened. And that's a big problem. Even if the facts are somewhat like what they say, I think it's still a massive problem and it's something we need to change.

[A]

Well, I also think that conversation of responsoring an athlete for results breaks down when you start to go the other direction too, of what happens when an athlete, athletes, like, you know, public Persona starts becoming negative in the sense of like, what they stand for, their actions, what they do. And it's like, you know, if you. It. I think that goes in both directions and it's important to think about the whole human in both directions. And I think people that like, talk about, oh, you know, you're just sponsoring an athlete's results probably would agree that like, you know, if an athlete is saying problematic things, they should also probably be dropped.

[B]

Interesting. Yeah. No, and I think like, maybe the big conclusion is moms are worth more than. I love that than like the guy on Twitter commenting about results. It's like, who gives a fuck about your half marathon time or whatever. Like, really, how much does that truly matter to selling things? Like maybe a little. Maybe for the best in the world. Maybe for like the Jim Walmsleys it does. And it's just results at that point. But for most people it's something so much more and you know, presenting your whole self in the world is hard. And for mothers it's harder than it is on anybody else, I would say say. And with that in mind, it's like those athletes should be more valuable, not less. And you know, we, we've. I, I feel like every company that does investment sees that in how, you know, things are paid off for them. So, yeah, just like, let's make sure that we're understanding how all of these societal issues connect to trails and not make myopic, idiotic statements on social media about like, athlete value.

[A]

And we can take Sterka Jols. Yeah, she taught us how to say thanks, Emma.

[B]

Okay, next up, up is the therapeutic use exemption dashboard. This is a message from a listener. Have you guys seen this dashboard? It Blows my mind that testosterone and HGH in steroids qualify for TUEs. So you can apply for these, that you get a waiver to take the substance and it's okay if you test positive for it. I was expecting to see things like inhalers, birth control or fertility medications. Should names be released? I say yes. What do you both think about this? Could be an interesting discussion for the podcast. Yep. So what do you think?

[A]

I went down the rabbit hole of playing around with this TUE dashboard. So it includes a bunch of the medications that athletes have requested to have TUES for. Um, it includes the sports that have the most prominent use of TUEs. It includes like a variety of different things, all de identified data. It was pretty eye opening to me just seeing the stark numbers of applications for TUES and then seeing what some of those things were like, you know, what were the medications? Things like growth hormone and testosterone and things that actually would have a potential impact on racing and performance. And so it was a bit of an eye opening moment for me.

[B]

So skeptics will always say everybody has a tv and I promise you they don't. At least, you know, in our subset of what we see.

[A]

Actually, can we say these. I'm going to say these numbers here. So this is. So they took the number of applications and this was across a variety of different sports in cycling, actually next to equestrian. So equestrian had the most applications. 379. It makes sense. I mean people are. You're really thinking about a lot of things in a question raising.

[B]

What do you mean though? Why would that have more?

[A]

Well, it's interesting because I, I assume that's for the human and not for the horse. I don't know.

[B]

We probably shouldn't delve into it if that's for the human. That's strange.

[A]

But I just think it's the culture of equestrian. It's like, you know, this has been a long term culture of thinking about how can we like get the most. And there's also a lot of money in it too.

[B]

But are you talking about the human or the horse?

[A]

I think we're talking about the human.

[B]

What does the human do in equestrian? Human sits there.

[A]

There's a lot of like, yeah, it's interesting. Probably like weight based questions. I don't know.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I, I have, I have questions about this. I pretty sure assumes the horse. I'm pretty sure there's a different filing process for a TUE for the hors course.

[B]

True, true. Why would a question be so high? That's weird.

[A]

I think it's the culture of a. Like, question writing. We need to know.

[B]

You shouldn't besmirch the culture of question writing.

[A]

Okay. But cycling was the next highest at 323. Lacrosse was very high at 1:58. And then triathlon was 78 and trail running was 14.

[B]

Interesting. Yeah. So are these applications or granted?

[A]

These are applications. So not all of them are granted.

[B]

Okay. And so some of the ones that were granted seems like, like, testosterone, things like that, human growth hormone. And so there are places where those might make sense, you know, like testicular cancer or medical conditions that are very serious.

[A]

It's actually very hard to get a therapeutic use exemption for testosterone, we assume. Yeah.

[B]

How do we know?

[A]

I mean, there was so out of all of the applications, there were 90 applications for testosterone. And it didn't say how many of those, like, what percentage of those were accepted. But usually it has to be things like pituitary tumors or major growth disorders or even actually traumatic brain injury, which made me think of cycling is. You know, are cyclists applying for it for traumatic brain injury uses?

[B]

Yeah, it's just tough to know. And. And so that's what's so scary about this, is that I think because the TUE system has, like, no transparency, essentially, it leads to everyone questioning everything. And it could lead to an uneven playing field, but we don't know. So, like, if some cyclist has TUEs that are just bonkers and then is winning every race in the world, it would be really bad for Fair Sport and Queen Sports Sport. But, you know, where. Who is making these decisions? How are they made? And I don't know. And so the listener's saying, should the names be released?

[A]

What do you think?

[B]

I. I mean, the thing is, I say no, but at this other side, I'm like, well, if you don't release the names, is there any way to add transparency without, like, totally undermining the anonymity that should be granted to athletes? And so it's tricky because my, like, true answer. Can I give you my Patreon answer?

[A]

Give me my Patreon answer.

[B]

It's like, look, look, if this is elite sport, if this is people competing at the international top level, TVS probably should be public, because if you're not making it public, like, it just incentivizes bad behavior. And I am scared about where that could go. And the problem is, I know, ethically, that's a bad answer.

[A]

Yeah. And it's funny, ethically, I just can't get behind that because it's like, you know, seeing like fertility processes would be so heartbreaking for someone that's like Clomid Gue to come up publicly.

[B]

Maybe, maybe that's the compromise is that. That there's a subset of substances.

[A]

Maybe it's like testosterone, growth hormone, like steroids.

[B]

Yeah. Things that are defined like I'm sure there's some definition of like anabolic agents and other things in the, you know, WADA code that something if it meets that standard that like ika not masking agents, like, you know, a lot of the fertility treatments could be considered and that's why they're banned or diuretics or anything like whatever. I don't know exactly what the situation would be, but the things that are the kind of. Of crazy stuff that if glance Armstrong would have taken it. It should probably be public.

[A]

Yeah. But what happens if you have a pituitary tumor and you know, then you're getting all of this crazy fucking Internet emails and comments everywhere and people's like, you're a doper and you just have a brain tumor. You know, and it's like, I have empathy for that situation. And I think like, I think there needs to be more transparency as to like, what are the nature of the disorders that we're doing. What are the percentage of testosterone, like application applications that then get approved? And so I have a lot of questions on this, but I feel like that. I feel like the names are too far. Like thinking about like what gets said on the Internet. Imagine what would get said on the Internet if you had even like a spironolactone, you know, T. Okay, my answer was and wrong.

[B]

I do.

[A]

I win.

[B]

You win, you win. A basic ethics win.

[A]

I think usually I'm not winning on the ethics front.

[B]

I'm trying to think of other ways while maintaining anonymity to make this possible. Then it's okay. If you can't do it that way, which makes sense, then maybe you do it through the review process where that could have more transparency. Where the applications themselves that are denied or granted can be public.

[A]

Yeah, I was going to say I think there's a way to do. I mean the tricky part is like whenever you're talking about those very specific things at the top level, sometimes you're like, is this actually anonymous? But I think if it's done with a lot of enemy that's, well, maybe

[B]

not public, maybe then like, why does random people on the Internet need to know know, maybe you can have an athlete review board of athletes that's fair that are also competing at the top level so that they can see in sign not, not review.

[A]

Oh my God. But can you imagine how tricky that would be in those small social circles when you have an athlete review board reviewing like medical history, trying to make hard solutions. It's so hard.

[B]

I mean, I think that's a pretty good like general trajectory that I came from by realizing just how wrong and stupid I was. You know, the review process.

[A]

Well, you, you went from a wrong and stupid place to a slightly less wrong and stupid place. I don't know.

[B]

I don't know. I think transparency in the review process. Not full transparency.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But some that involves the stakeholders might allow like more assurance in the system because like, that's the big, the core problem here is that in face of like this black box of information where nobody knows what's going on behind the scenes, even professional athletes are assuming some competitors are abusing this system.

[A]

System.

[B]

Like it's just realistic. That is. While I do not see tues in the real world almost ever in our coaching experience, but again, trail running doesn't have very much.

[A]

That's a very small amount.

[B]

Um, and I, I don't know about road running, but nothing I'm seeing.

[A]

So compared to the horses. Yeah.

[B]

Or whatever.

[A]

Um, I actually wonder though if that equestrian example is because the rider is such a non like compared to like, it's not like the rider is the one that is out there competing in endurance wise. If they're like, it doesn't actually matter. So I'm gonna take whatever it is I need for health.

[B]

The general population is on medications that ue's more often.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Thus they feel more comfortable applying for it because it's actually ethically okay. Because when you're sitting there riding a horse, your spironolactone, which actually might matter because it's a diuretic, but like other hormone, like other medications like prednisone matters less when you're sitting there riding a horse.

[B]

Probably. Yeah, I, I could see that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Um, yeah. So I don't know if that was satisfying. I, I do think that the review process, at least some understanding of what's going on might be helpful. Um, because it, it hurts. Clean athletes, as always when there is skepticism. Right. Like every dose of skepticism about them hurts not just the people that are cheating, but also the people that are clean. And it just introduces so much like, negativity. And I mean, God, I deal with YouTube comments that are so weird and crazy on almost every video. And it's like, I'm just A random dude in trail running who's not that good. Can you imagine what it's like to be a prominent athlete in one of these sports? Like, it must be so, you know, overwhelming and makes you feel so shitty about what you're doing.

[A]

Also, that time that you shared that you got a knee injection, which was like a cortisone injection, which was totally legal, totally done within the scope, and people started freaking out, and you're like, you guys, you just don't understand. And I think that's a tricky part of that.

[B]

And I was trying to be transparent.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

And that's. That's the tricky part. It's like you release transparency to the general population, and people just don't understand. Boom.

[B]

Okay, maybe I'm just totally wrong on this, then.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

Made the best decision.

[A]

I think there's just no good system is the answer. Like, I think this stuff is really tricky. People need medications for, like. Like, you know, fundamental parts of human physiology. And sometimes there's bad actors in that system.

[B]

Boom. Okay, once again, in conclusion, David Wrong.

[A]

I don't know. I think you were beautiful. Okay. Your blue eyes are shining so bright right now. By the way, that loogie. The loogie's moving.

[B]

It's moving. It's. It's. It's like.

[A]

Is it generating energy? Is it going astrophage on us?

[B]

I don't know. It's doing something, dude. I'm pretty worried that this is, like, the next phase of evolution. Whatever is in there.

[A]

I'd be honored. Seriously, some of my salt in there, she be a little scared.

[B]

Okay, uh, let's get on to Q and A. Uh, Hardy. Gosh, we talked a lot about stuff

[A]

that was fun, though. Okay, should we do it? Let's do two questions.

[B]

Uh, let's do as many as we can. Here's a. First, a comment. I listened to this week's podcast, which was last week, about the carb mouth study and the response it had, and wanted to share an interesting anecdotal situation. I had my tonsils removed at the end of January, and my nerves are still recovering in the back of my throat as a result. I've been joking that Ricola drops are fueling my right runs. Interestingly, they satiate me to the point that I have to essentially, or I have to force gels during my longer efforts. Now they're about 3 grams of cards each, and they essentially keep my mouth lubricated. I've also been dropping much faster times, which is interesting based off that 3% improvement rate for my shorter efforts. 60 minutes or less. So anyway, for what it's worth, the Ricola drops might just do the trick, especially for those potential 10k efforts. They sort of just stay in my cheek, and I can suck on a single recola for about an hour. Hour. I wanted to share that with you for whatever it's worth.

[A]

Okay. Ricola goes hard.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Have you had a recola drop before?

[B]

Yeah, actually. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I feel like when we have cough drops in the house, you just. You. You don't have, like, any bodily issues, and you're like, I'm gonna go hard on these things.

[B]

Yeah, you better believe it. It's just a Jolly Rancher, right?

[A]

Yeah, it's a candy.

[B]

This is interesting, actually. I wanted to bring this because could be a way to harness some performance benefits on, like, hard workouts where you're not taking a gel. I'm curious. Kind of want to try it with something like this.

[A]

I also think it could be good in the context of GI issues. Like, if you're really having GI issues at the end of a race and you're just trying to get through, I feel like sucking on something actually could be quite helpful. Um, you can't do it.

[B]

I didn't do it.

[A]

You started laughing first.

[B]

You walked into that MRI machine.

[A]

Yeah, I said I did.

[B]

But, yeah, sucking on something at the end of a race can help. I've always said that. Okay, next one.

[A]

We're just gonna move on. It was good. Rapid fire.

[B]

Say a question for a future Patreon podcast, but we're gonna bring it in here if you need one. There's a really great book by Nicholas Thompson, who's the CEO of the Atlantic. Seems like an incredible guy, from what I understand called the running ground. On his running life and his relationship with his dad and about being a dad. It's highly recommended. And then he shares an Amazon link. Everyone go check that out.

[A]

Running Ground, actually Wild anecdote. So it's also. Nick was also on the Ritual podcast, which I was listening to a few weeks ago. And as I was listening to the Ritual podcast, I have never emailed with Nick in my life. He emailed me.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

Like, 15 minutes into listening to the podcast. And I was like, what is hap? I literally got the email on my phone right as I had the Rich Roll podcast above it. And I was like, what in the universe is happening right now?

[B]

He actually emailed everybody who listened. You're not even special.

[A]

Sorry. Ritual has my email.

[B]

Nicholas is a great writer. And a pretty badass roadrunner. I devoured the whole book, but the attached passage about when his training got super serious under the supervision of coach and it made me pause. Quote, I run down mountains, which tears my quads the way they'll tear on races day. Just say no to Rapdo.

[A]

Yeah, he's doing it.

[B]

Um, I do 20 mile runs without drinking water or eating breakfast so that my glycogen stores and hydration levels will reach the levels of depletion I'll hit when I've prepared properly and run 26.2, end quote. I'm not a roadrunner, and I've been thoroughly indoctrinated in the world of carb, thanks to you guys. I'd probably take a gel for anything over 5k. Is this normal, serious roadrunner protocol, or was Nicholas just trying to channel his inner goggins? I have noticed that in the handful of roads, road halfs in marathons I've done done, I've done, people are usually drinking and eating way less than I do. I don't know if that's just old school mentality or if road runners do things differently.

[A]

It's a great question. I do feel like high carb is a little less pervasive in, like, the general population of road running than it is in ultra running.

[B]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

[A]

Maybe some of that is actually, like, our influence. I feel like, you know, we've had a pretty large influence on the ultra population of being like, carbs.

[B]

Oh, Megan, fruit snacks. I'm just gonna, like, tickle my nipples right now. You couldn't say anything better to me.

[A]

Like, influence carbs. I'm soaking fruit snacks.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I think more. It's so obvious in ultras.

[A]

Like, well, that's the thing. It's, like, impossible to do it without it. Yeah.

[B]

Then you get your epiphany and then you realize, oh, this is legit. And then it goes like, I think our influence might just be giving more people the epiphany to try it. And then what from there? It has nothing to do with what we do.

[A]

Well, it also could be just giving the fuel products itself. Like, I feel like a lot of roadrunners are fueling with older school products. Like, you go to the finish line of a road run race and you see a lot of gels that are impossible to get down that are like 22 grams of carbs. I'm like, why would you take that when there are other things that you could take?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I feel like trail Runners are like pretty, pretty up on that gels

[B]

the consistency of that loogie.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

It's true, right? Oh no. So, yeah, definitely less prevalent in roads. But I think it's more about the information that those athletes are consuming to reach that point because the old school of all runs was less fueling obviously. And like longer events come around first because athletes that figure it out reach the top level, they share their stories. Hence why we're so transparent about and talk about it all the time. But at the shorter level that's also starting to happen more. Hence Emma Bates post about gels. Like, you know, that wouldn't happen 20 years ago for road marathons when I'm sure the coach of Nicholas was basically coming of age. And you know, because of that, that that will influence more and more people. And, and we're seeing it at the top end. Like, you know, athletes that I coach are doing high carb and we're seeing marathon times like you know, sub 210 for men and you know, 220 ish for women. Like that is because of high carb and also their athletes that are incredibly talented. But like that plays a big role there. And so what we're seeing with the depletion runs is just an old view that hasn't been fully eradicated. And that even applies in trails. Like, you know, Killian is the greatest. He will talk about this stuff sometimes times and it is, hey, what it is like to have 92 VO2 max. That must be delightful. And so he's coming from a place of. He genuinely thinks it helps him and perhaps it does because he is so good at adapting, but it does not for most people to do that sort of thing. And as the YouTube video got into Metabolic flexibility is a good thing. We're not saying fuel every run you do, but if you're going on a 20 mile run, you absolutely should be fueling up.

[A]

Okay, maybe this is my bias, but I feel like a lot of gel companies and things like the feed, like the features feed primarily sponsors trail and ultra runners as their runner cohort primarily focuses on trail and ultra runners as opposed to road runners. Yeah, like I feel like Martin actually has a large stake of like the elite professional roadrunners. But besides that there's not a lot of like big fuel sponsorships. And I wonder if that's because like they're, they realize that that market is just like less demanding of it right now.

[B]

Yeah, I think there's huge demand out there for the road market that just hasn't been Tapped like, like as I've been talking to the feed.

[A]

Oh, I'm like featured sponsor, like Jess McLean.

[B]

Ali or Ali.

[A]

Oh, God. Amazing.

[B]

People like that. Like, you know, I think there's just so much and. And we need the education more in that world now than we do other places. So, you know, who knows? I think that there's a lot of progress to be made there. And when Nicholas is saying that, I think he's more trying to emphasize the amount of hard work that is involved in that type of training rather than saying this is a good thing. Um, you know, I think our forefathers or whatever that did this type of training pushed themselves way harder and did way more to their bodies because they didn't have this benefit. So it elevates hard work, but it's not physiologically something you should do.

[A]

Also plug for this book. I've heard this book is awesome. And hearing Nick talk on ritual, I was like, I want to read it.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. Last question here on hemoglobin. I hope you all are feeling better than you were. Thank you for all your content on the pod and on Patreon. The training plans are in. Incredible. My question is regarding hemoglobin. On my most recent labs, my hemoglobin was 14.2 and my ferritin was 67. This was a female athlete. I'm thinking about starting to get more serious with heat training and get a hot tub. Does hemoglobin correlate with hemoglobin mass? Is it possible for hemoglobin to get too high? If so, what would that number be? Also, how could someone expect their hemoglobin to increase if they started heat training in the quote, long term passive heat acclimation enhances maximal oxygen consumption study that we've talked about before for hemoglobin mass increased by 3.8%. Would this be analyst to a 3.8% increase in my 14.2 hemoglobin, which would then be 14.7.

[A]

Okay, this is a lot of numbers.

[B]

A lot of numbers. A lot of stuff going on here.

[A]

They went hard on the numbers. And I think it's important to break down the difference between hemoglobin and hemoglobin mass. So hemoglobin easier to get measured. You can just walk into a lab and have a CBC measured and that measures hemoglobin along with a variety of other things. And hemoglobin mass is slightly harder to get measured. It's done via carbon monoxide rebreathing. And hemoglobin is Essentially, hemoglobin, like it's hemoglobin mass divided by blood volume is how you get hemoglobin. And so when you're heat training, you're actually building the denominator there. You're building the blood volume. The blood volume. And so sometimes it's a little tricky to see like one to one relationships here.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. Basically, hemoglobin mass is not something you're going to know almost ever. You can infer it from other variables, but it is not a ratio of hemoglobin. In fact, your hemoglobin mass can go up while your hemoglobin number goes down

[A]

as a function of the blood volume.

[B]

Yeah, because your blood volume increases. And my guess is that's usually what happens with heat for most people, is that their blood volume increases, their hemoglobin goes down a little bit because there's more liquid content in their blood. They never get fully back to baseline, but they get close. And then if you had altitude, you can have the best of all worlds. And so, long story short, hemoglobin number, very interesting, but more of a proxy for iron stores how your body produces red blood cells and overall health, rather than the function of whether heat training is successful. That being said, sometimes I see athletes do heat training and their raw hemoglobin number goes up too, which is confusing. Perhaps there's like a compensatory mechanism where the swing back when you start producing red blood cells goes beyond baseline in some people, but tough to know.

[A]

Also, there's a ton of variation in hemoglobin measurements just day to day. So I actually got like a standard of care, hemoglobin done just as, like broader labs. I was like, what's going on with my body? I got that done on like a Wednesday. And then I had these heart issues and I had to get more urgent labs done because we didn't have those values back with like a troponin. And so they ordered them stat. And the labs, hemoglobin labs that came back within like two days apart, it was like 14.2 and 14.9, which is quite different.

[B]

I didn't realize that.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's like a huge.

[B]

I mean, it's hydration status makes a huge difference.

[A]

Hydration status, training, any number of things, even time of day when you measure it. And so like when we were talking about like 14.5 versus 14.7, that could just happen randomly on it, like, you know, two days apart, just from a variety of different things. And So I think don't read into the numbers quite so much either.

[B]

If you want to game the system, just get dehydrated.

[A]

Yeah. And get your chemical measured and be like, I'm ballin'.

[B]

Yeah. And what raw numbers, I mean, you would have to go very high. I think for women, probably 16 plus. You'd start to be like, all right, you might need to check for hemochromatosis for men 17.5 or 18 plus. Sometimes you see those numbers naturally without any condition, but it's rare and it's hard to know exactly what the number. It's kind of like hematocrit, where in the old days when cycling didn't have tests for some of the performance enhancers like epo, they would look at hematocrit levels, which is a percentage of red blood cells in your body, and they would see. I think it was like a 50% cutoff for male cyclists was when they were flagged for more screening. But you see over 50% levels in the general population all the time. Like, it's very, very common amongst pro male athletes, like, because it's selected for. Um. And so, you know, what are we actually seeing here? The raw numbers matter a little bit, but it. The peak that really starts to matter is very, very high. Your blood work is going to flag that really aggressively and you're going to probably get a hemochromatosis test to see if you have that gene variant.

[A]

Exactly. And I feel like you're not going to push that high with heat training.

[B]

Oh, yeah, you're not.

[A]

It's impossible. Your body has mechanisms.

[B]

Very high altitude could.

[A]

Could.

[B]

Sleep apnea could. Or cheating could. And you know, otherwise it's just genetic signals. And like, the genetic signal of that is one of those elements of talent that, like, we don't always measure at very young ages, but ends up being rewarded later on. And so it's. It's tricky because some athletes are like, essentially, hemoglobin gifted, red blood cell gifted. And which is you? Well, it's me and it comes from my mom. I always.

[A]

And it's our kids too. Leo and Ollie are testing off the chart hearts with hemoglobin.

[B]

And I always mentioned that because, you know, I. Mimi, my mom, she, you know, always was self conscious about her athletic role in our family. Like, you know, she was never into it and so she's a great athlete, but she just never, like, did much of it. And so my dad was biking all the time or whatever. And, you know, it turns out that whatever talent I Had. My dad was very good, but, like, obviously, obviously, I'm excelling past where he was a little bit. And it turns out that my mom, when she had a severe internal bleed where we flew back across the country, and the doctors told us she had a very low chance of surviving.

[A]

She was in a coma. Yeah.

[B]

And most likely the doctors theorized that the reason she survived is because she has this adaptation that causes her to produce more red blood cells. And so after that, she got all these tests and went, oh, I have the same adaptation. I might just be gifted from mom this whole time. So. Thank you, Mom.

[A]

Also, Mimi, listen, since. Hi, Mimi. I've been, like, diving with Mimi recently. I feel like, in many ways, Mimi, like, your mom has become like my mom, too, and I love it.

[B]

You said she reminds you of the grandma and Moana.

[A]

Yeah, there's. Okay, so the grandma and Moana has a beach scene where she's just, like, singing and flowing, and it's just like, so one with the earth and, like, chill. And that's how your mom is. Well, yeah, it's beautiful.

[B]

Moana Live action coming out this summer.

[A]

Oh, true.

[B]

Excited for that.

[A]

We should get Mimi as the star character.

[B]

It's a little bit strange that we're doing this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

It's kind of like, why?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, honestly, it makes me feel weird for some reason. Not exactly sure.

[A]

Why doesn't. I mean, I feel like that's some kind of bias and it makes you feel weird.

[B]

Perhaps. Yeah.

[A]

I'm like, that seems problematic, David.

[B]

It's not.

[A]

I mean, it's not problematic, but I'm just like, where is that? Why does it exist?

[B]

Don't call me problematic. That's like a slur.

[A]

I know.

[B]

In the modern society, you do not call me that.

[A]

Okay. Okay. Okay. I think you should.

[B]

You know what I am.

[A]

What?

[B]

Solution. O matic.

[A]

I think you should talk about why it makes you feel that way.

[B]

Okay. On to Listener Corner. Anything to talk about before we get there?

[A]

Yeah. John Ganji. Why is their stuff so good?

[B]

It's so good.

[A]

I like. It's the only sports bras I train in right now are John G. Specifically the long Brawl and the pace bra. And I just like. I love it.

[B]

The Multi short is incredible. They have shorts coming out soon.

[A]

Oh, yeah, they're talking about it. I don't think we can. They sent us a package, and I have been wearing that outfit almost every single day.

[B]

Bonkers stuff. So go to J A N J I dot com. Don't Use code swap. Actually. What do you do? What do you do? You sign up for the John Collective.

[A]

Yeah, John g collective has 15% off. You actually get notified of designs early, which I love. So things on Janji sell out quite quick. Especially like the fun graphics and designs. And if you're part of the collective, you get to see those early.

[B]

So good. And the Atlas pant is my favorite. I love it. Just wearing around the house.

[A]

The run all day tee is my favorite.

[B]

Yeah, I've been.

[A]

Yeah. Wearing that every day.

[B]

So good. I mean you can't go wrong on their website. Just check it out and know that you're getting the best stuff you can get.

[A]

The salmon culture. Oh, the sports bra that I'm wearing right now. David's gonna have thoughts on salmon.

[B]

I can't make another bear joke. Going up a stream to die. Dumb joke. So we'll leave it there and get the listener corner. Here it is. I started listening and watching your content last fall while I was training for my first 100 mile race. Your nutrition advice changed the game for me. With well fueled long runs, I was able to maintain 15 plus hour training weeks consistently without injury. PR my marathon by 16 minutes in the middle of the 1 mile hundred hour block and run 100 miles with 10,000ft of vert incredibly fast. I don't want to say any of that detail. These might be identifying. Um, these past few weeks I hit a mental wall. Training felt bad. I didn't want to run. And even though I was hitting paces that I needed to, I just felt crappy. After listening to Swap last Tuesday, I adjusted course. A few easy days, lots of sleep and a fat double smash burger.

[A]

Oh, hell yeah.

[B]

Today I PR my half by almost a lot from before making two anonymous.

[A]

You're going hard on the anonymity.

[B]

I also took in 80 grams of carbs after hearing David explain why carbs are so useful in the half marathon on his last YouTube video. Carbs and burgers fix many things. You guys are geniuses. It said truly fix all of it. I'm like adapting everything. This doesn't fix everything. Um, so grateful for you and for all you do for running. Planning to use one of your plans on patreon for the 100 mile I'm doing this summer cannot wait. Thanks for being awesome. Much love.

[A]

Oh, that means so much.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Sometimes I think about like, you know, you just. I think about broadly like what our impact is on the world and if can be one small thing like satisfaction bombs and fueling bodies and carbs. I'M like, you know what? I'm happy with that.

[B]

For me, it's mainly people's colons, apparently.

[A]

Are you creating anxiety, though, at the same time? Yeah.

[B]

I mean, maybe.

[A]

Oops, sorry, sorry, sorry. That was buzzkill.

[B]

No, I have anxiety.

[A]

You're like, this is my life calling.

[B]

I also like their Double Smash Burger reference.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because last night or yesterday afternoon, we were sitting on the couch, it's like, you know what, Megan? I think tonight I was like, what do you want for dinner?

[A]

We usually do, like, pizza on Sunday nights.

[B]

Yeah. And I was like, I think I want something. And I, you know, was like, you're like.

[A]

You're like, I want something with vegetables.

[B]

I want a vegetable. And you're like, fuck vegetables.

[A]

Yeah. I was like, I actually want Smashburger.

[B]

So that's what we got. And it was good, actually. And I feel pretty darn good.

[A]

Why is Smashburger so good?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here's a vote for Smashburger. Not sponsored, but if they reached out, we would definitely talk to them.

[A]

Actually, here's a vote. We've had a lot of subpar burgers recently, which is not a statement. Like, we've had some burgers that are like eight out. Actually, maybe like six out of ten burgers.

[B]

Yeah. Usually they're small and a little bit scary, honestly. Well, I don't want to make that reference.

[A]

My loogie, I was looking at it.

[B]

It feels like it has some consistency. Elements of that.

[A]

I shouldn't say an undercooked burger. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Maybe that's my process problem. I need to specify medium because I. I understand you're supposed to like medium rare, and I respect people that have good. And this is going to get me canceled.

[A]

But like, anything that is, like, in me, anything that is, like, the slightest bit pink, and you're like, you are

[B]

worse than I am.

[A]

No, no, I'm. I'm like. I'm like, medium rare, please.

[B]

No, that's not true.

[A]

Ever. That's true.

[B]

What are you talking about?

[A]

You look at that little, like, piece of pink within a burger and you're like, oh, no.

[B]

I mean, come on, come on. But, but, but, but, but, but, but if we went back to first principles and no one knew anything, right? Like, if we never had cultural programming, which one would you prefer? Not well done, not overton, not dry, but something like kind of in the middle ground.

[A]

Medium rare. What? Yeah. What? You're like, I don't.

[B]

You are. You are gaslighting me on this podcast right now.

[A]

I am not you are problematic. Medium rare is the solution.

[B]

What I like about Smashburger is they. They smash the. Out of those.

[A]

Yeah, there's no pink in that.

[B]

There's no rare coming through that burger.

[A]

Okay. But here's a solution. If you have a 4 out of 10 burger, just add bacon to it.

[B]

That's true, actually.

[A]

Or whatever your bacon alternative is. Like, I'm sure they make crunchy things that you can put on a vegan burger. I don't know. It just needs to have crunch and it needs to be salty, and it can save a 4 out of 10 burger.

[B]

Like a chickpea pancake.

[A]

A chickpea bacon, I guess. Perfect.

[B]

But thank you so much. I think we talk about all this stuff to hopefully. Hopefully, you know, help one or two people and also have people have a little bit more fun whenever they're listening to something. So do you think we should take out the steady running discussion?

[A]

No. Why?

[B]

It's kind of boring.

[A]

It wasn't boring.

[B]

Okay. I just want to give voice to my.

[A]

I actually think it's. I mean, maybe it was like, we didn't have as many jokes in there, but I think it was actually probably important.

[B]

Important? I don't know. I don't think we had that many conclusions either.

[A]

Well, I mean, we'll see. Is it in here or is it not? It's a Schrodinger's box of study running. We don't know. It's Monday.

[B]

We'll see.

[A]

What else do we. Oh, we wanted to wait and see if your real went viral.

[B]

Okay, so medium or medium rare on salmon?

[A]

Yeah, this. Maybe you don't like this because it's medium rare.

[B]

It is medium rare. It is. Yeah. It definitely.

[A]

This is the color.

[B]

But like, salmon, you want it cooked right?

[A]

Yeah. I mean, but you don't want it to be too cooked.

[B]

But I like sushi. Is this a me thing?

[A]

This is a you thing.

[B]

Okay. I thought I was just speaking for the people.

[A]

I mean, maybe you are. Maybe there's more people out there. But, like, I feel like it starts to lose some of its flavor.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And the juices.

[B]

Anybody who listens to.

[A]

Anyone who listens to vegetarian is just gonna be like, you guys.

[B]

Well, no, because similar principles.

[A]

Well, actually, I feel like when they make the impossible burgers, they try to replicate. Like, they have, like, beet juice that replicate. I can't remember if it's impossible or beyond, but, like, there's beet juice that replicates that juice.

[B]

Yeah. And that is like, nightmare fuel. You ever heard of like. Like the. What is it the night hair demons or whatever that visit people when they have the night terror? Here's another thing to worry about. But to me, that is like, the beet juice coming out of this thing.

[A]

I'm like, no, you're like, why do this? Don't replicate that.

[B]

This has been a very important discussion to you. Brought to you by David and Megat. We love you all.