309. The Marathon that Changed Running, Ultra GOAT to Western States, Misconceptions about Training Volume, A Supershoe Lawsuit, and A Hydration Study!

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Some Work, All Play – Episode 309

Date: May 5, 2026
Hosts: David Roche & Megan Roche
Title: The Marathon that Changed Running, Ultra GOAT to Western States, Misconceptions about Training Volume, A Supershoe Lawsuit, and A Hydration Study!

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Overview

This episode of "Some Work, All Play" bursts with energy, humor, and deep dives on both the big headlines and nerdy details in the distance running world—everything from a shocking US marathon debut and the upcoming Western States 100, to a legal drama over supershoes, misconceptions about training volume, the latest on hydration and ketone studies, and even a detour into horse racing and vaginal microbiomes(!). Expect classic David-and-Megan tangents, open hearts, and science you can use in your own running.

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Episode Roadmap & Major Themes

[02:20]

• Jim Walmsley and golden ticket controversies at Western States 100
• Vinnie Mowry’s wild 2:05 U.S. marathon debut
• Supershoe lawsuit: biomechanical risks of carbon-plated shoes
• Training volume extremes—myths and realities
• Latest on hydration and ketone/carbohydrate science
• Horse racing, bicarb, and women coaching
• Listener Q&A: caffeine, zone compression, Gnomeo, and more
• Pop culture gems: microbiome scoring, chatbots, and more

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Real-Life Intros & Tangents

• Banter about saddle sores and creative athletic tape solutions.
  • David: “If anything, I think that I should be celebrated as a pathfinder... They made one [movie] about Moana. That’s fucked up if you’re not making one about me and my taint strap.” [01:12]
• Their modus: "giving explicit words to the things no one wants to talk about.” [02:14]

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1. Jim Walmsley—GOAT at Western States

[06:42]

• News: Jim Walmsley is running Western States 100 via a sponsor slot.
• Controversy: Some see sponsor-entry as unfair since most runners must qualify via “golden ticket” races.
• Host Perspective: Both support Jim’s inclusion for the visibility and excitement he brings, though David plays devil’s advocate about the spirit of OG qualification.

  “My actual take is this is frickin’ awesome. Athletes like Jim should be able to do any race they want at any point. He’s earned the right. And it’s so good for the sport.” – David [07:42]

• Megan’s “hot take”: Past winners should get automatic multi-year invites.
• Discussion: Value of seeing the sport’s superstars clash; parallels to cycling “preeminence.”

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2. Vinnie Mowry—Historic 2:05 Marathon

[13:36]

• Key Facts: Unknown U.S. runner Vinnie Mowry runs 2:05 in his debut on a non-elite course.

• Analysis:

  • Largely self-coached; prior injuries and perhaps overtraining in college.
  • Heavy fueling/carbohydrates and treadmill training at Planet Fitness as secrets to success.
  • Tendencies: Runs easy days very fast—potential red herring or new normal?

• Big Picture:

  “It’s the most shocking performance in running history…We’ve never seen anything like this—an athlete blowing away what was considered feasible just a couple years ago.” – David [14:19]

  • Inspiration for “hidden” talents, late bloomers, and how supporting health/fueling can unlock breakthroughs.
  • “Carbs ignited something that was baseline within his genetics.” [17:17]

• Notable Quote:

  “If someone’s talent expresses when they’re 16, we say you’re talented…Most of our talents take years and years of giving just these gentle tailwinds to fully express.” – David [21:01]

• Takeaway: Support your own journey—talent and breakthroughs come at any age and circumstance.

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3. Supershoe Lawsuit—Technology & Injury

[22:10]

• Story: Elite sprinter Abby Steiner sues Puma, alleging their carbon-plated shoes caused her serious injuries.
• Context: Carbon shoes change biomechanics; companies possibly aware of injury risk.
• Legal take:

  “They’re trying to bring in everybody…Is it going anywhere? Probably not…Athletes get injured. But I am very sympathetic—I'm dealing with a foot injury now probably from these shoes.” – David [23:02]

• Broader discussion:
  • Shoe tech is now almost mandatory for elite performances, though it alters stress distribution and risk.
  • Not all bodies/biomechanics respond well to carbon shoes—risks are not “one-size-fits-all.”
  • Amusing aside: David’s “biggest financial regret”—stockpiling discontinued shoe models (19 pairs!) for injury comeback. [25:38]

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4. Training Volume—Myths vs. Reality

[28:25]

• News: Triathlete Sam Long posts about a 45-hour week; cycling myths of 25-30 hour training weeks.
• Evidence-based perspective:

  “Men’s pro cyclists: ~17 hours/week. Women: ~16. Training volume adaptations saturate earlier than conventionally thought—once you get above 10 hours/week, it’s not the driver.” – David [29:44]

  • Triathlon requires more (swimming as additive), but outlier stories are not the baseline.
  • Reminder: “You don’t need to chase volume like that dragon—it’s going to burn you eventually.” [32:10]
• Ali Ostrander example: National-class with only 4-5 days of running/week (balance with cross-training).

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5. Hydration and Health—It's Not Just for Performance

[49:00]

• Science Snack: Most athletes (58% in a cited study) are habitually low drinkers even outside sessions.
• Risks: Long-term low water intake linked to kidney stones, metabolic disturbance, mood, and chronic disease.
• Stress Connection: Hydration impacts stress response—good hydration may improve recovery and resilience.

  “Stress is connected to hydration. If you dehydrate someone, they’re so much less able to deal with difficult things.” – David [50:00]

• Athlete Takeaway: Drink enough, especially around workouts; don’t overcomplicate, but don’t forget.

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6. Ketones & Carbohydrates—New Study

[57:15]

• Study Design: Cyclists with high-carb (120g/hr) vs. high-carb+ketones vs. placebo during hard efforts.
• Finding: Pure high-carb outperformed carb+ketone and placebo.
  • Adding ketones did NOT enhance performance, possibly reduced carb oxidation efficiency.
• Take-home:

  “Long story short, ketones during exercise, probably not the answer.” – David [60:55]

• For Science Nerds: Blood glucose and exogenous carb use went down with ketones, which could actually harm performance.

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7. Pop Culture & Community Tangents

• Vaginal Microbiome Scoring: Brian Johnson’s viral social post on his partner’s “top 1%” vagina as measured by microbiome score.

  • Satirical breakdown of “optimization” culture and scoring, with David concluding:

    “Let yourself just be. In the optimization culture, live your life and be happy with that.” [39:15]

  • Leads to the birth of the (fictional?) “Goblin” app—comic riff on health/sexual wellness scoring.

• Chatbots/AI: Shout-out to listeners who use ChatGPT for running advice in the "voice of David Roach."

  • Hilarious comment:

    “50% elite physiology insight, 50%: What if endurance science was written by a caffeinated goblin?” [74:53]

• Horse Racing & Bicarb:

  • Kentucky Derby tangent: Bicarb (“milkshakes”) banned in racing due to health risks, but question if microdosing or derivatives exist in training to skirt the rules.
  • The first female trainer wins the Derby, “cool progress” in coaching gender dynamics. [41:15]

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8. Q&A Segment—Rapid Fire Insight

Caffeine "Zone 2 Hack"

[61:49]

• No, mega-dosing caffeine to raise heart rate does not actually help aerobic adaptation—HR just a proxy, not the training stimulus itself.

Gnomeo & Bicarb for Short/Long Races

[66:01]

• Gnomeo + Bicarb combo seems very promising for 10k/marathon, less certain in ultras (“weird” results).
• Ongoing n=1 and athlete anecdotal testing—hosts ask community to share more data.

Zone Compression

[69:21]

• Elite marathoners run remarkably similar splits from mile to marathon—ultra compression of physiologic "zones"
  • In ultras, main focus is pushing top of Zone 2 as high as possible.
  • In marathoning, training at and above threshold, with pace changes, builds this zone compression.
  • As zones compress, small pacing errors (even 3-4s/mile) can have outsized performance impact.

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9. Community & Heart

• Emotional highlight: Listener thank-you about David & Megan’s legacy of love and sport community, “feels historic... a proper milestone for the sport.” [79:18]

  “If we could leave one legacy, love is a pretty good thing to leave.” – Megan [79:30]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• David, on recovery and optimism:

  “Sometimes it's hard. Not every week, it feels like. But I feel like showing up authentically—hopefully that tracks in time.” [79:30]

• On their approach:

  “Giving explicit words to the things no one wants to talk about.” [02:14]

• On talent development:

  “Most of our talents take years and years of gentle tailwinds to fully express… Sometimes it’ll take 20 years and high carb and giving your body all it needs for health. It doesn’t mean you are less talented—just differently talented.” – David [21:01]

• On “optimization” culture:

  “Let yourself just be. And live your life and be happy with that and… just assume you have a 99th percentile vagina. Act accordingly.” – Megan [40:07]

• Trademark humor:

  “No one—no app has ever yet evaluated my butthole.” – David [80:47]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 06:42 — Jim Walmsley / Western States “GOAT” discussions
• 13:36 — Vinnie Mowry’s marathon breakthrough
• 22:10 — Supershoe lawsuit: risk & legal angles
• 28:25 — Triathlon/cycling training volume myths
• 49:00 — Hydration study & practical stress impacts
• 57:15 — Ketone+carb science for endurance
• 61:49 — Listener Q: Caffeine “zone 2” hack
• 66:01 — Listener Q: Gnomeo+bicarb for racing
• 69:21 — Listener Q: Zone compression explained
• 74:53 — AI/chatbot humor: “caffeinated goblin” science
• 79:18 — Listener Corner: legacy, love, and gratitude

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Episode Tone & Feel

• Warm, irreverent, nerdy and accessible: Equal parts serious science and “TMI” hilarity.
• Community-centered: Repeated gratitude, encouragement to be yourself, support for all kinds of runners & dreamers.
• Science-forward: Heavy use of studies, careful with caveats, both personal narrative and evidence-driven.

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Final Takeaways

• Let your athletic journey take time. Health and fueling can unlock talents at any age.
• You don’t need monster training volume to excel—train for you, stay healthy.
• Science matters, but so does context: not every study (or shoe, or fueling approach) fits every athlete.
• Laugh, share, and find joy (and love) in the process (and your microbiome, apparently).

Hosts encourage everyone to live fully, embrace their own “goblin badge”—and keep showing up, weirdness and all.

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Transcript

[A]

Woohoo.

[B]

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

[A]

Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday, and we're firing up our best athletic tape on this Tuesday.

[B]

Our best athletic tape.

[A]

Hmm.

[B]

I don't know what I'm talking about. Tell me.

[A]

It talks about the fact that yesterday I walked into the kitchen and you were just pants down in the kitchen, applying some athletic tape to the nether regions. And I was like, what is happening right now?

[B]

The correct term was all around those nether regions.

[A]

You really were. I mean, do you have like, some kind of ankle tape strategy that you use for down there?

[B]

Yeah, well, it was our ankle tape, the Hampton Adams tape that we use for our ankles. And when I did, did you do a stirrup strip?

[A]

Basically, yeah.

[B]

So I got a piece of toilet paper and put it over the saddle sore that I've gotten from biking too much and then wrapped it all around my leg, and it worked shockingly well. My saddle sores healed. Megan is all. Because I'm a doctor.

[A]

Did you give yourself a Brazilian wax process?

[B]

Honestly, probably need it. Yeah, I don't really, like, I don't know, look down there very often, and every so often I'm like, damn, I'm glad I don't.

[A]

Well, you wouldn't let me look down there. No, I was like, I want to check it out and just make sure you're not at, like, a serious infection risk. And you're like, absolutely not.

[B]

There are some things that are between me and God that is. That is down there. So, yeah, I mean, it actually worked shockingly well. If anything, I think that I should be celebrated as a pathfinder. Like, there should be a Disney movie made about me. They made one about Moana. That's fucked up. If you're not making one about me and my taint strap.

[A]

Okay. Lin Manuel Miranda and taint straps. Could you imagine beautiful, magical music about that?

[B]

My God. God, the bangers that would result would be so transformative.

[A]

But you're tough as nails because I saw you get on the bike and you were just wincing the first three minutes, kind of like floating your butt above the seat and it looked painful.

[B]

Yeah. It was not the most pleasant bike I've ever done.

[A]

Is it like a blister where it kind of works its way through as you go on?

[B]

Honestly, I think we can stop talking about it now for the control of our podcast.

[A]

This is good. The thing is, though, this is like real life, like our podcast. You know, the vibes on here are obviously A little weird, a little high, but like this is kind of how we are in normal life.

[B]

True, true. And this is something thing that many people deal with but I feel like we don't need to give explicit words to it. I think people will be better off if we don't talk anymore about my savvy sore.

[A]

I feel like that is our podcast that we're giving explicit words to the things no one wants to talk about. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

[B]

New tagline. Let's go into the great episode. Here's a quick roadmap. We're going to talk about Jim Wamsley in Western states.

[A]

Oh, hell yeah.

[B]

Some more thoughts on Vinnie Mowry, who had the most shocking performance ever. A super shoe lawsuit, a training volume discussion, a hydration review study, a study on ketones and racing and questions on caffeine, Gnomeo and bicarb horses though that might come up sooner. Chatbots and more.

[A]

We've got a lot of questions about horses, bicarb and horses training in horses. Yeah. Do you have answers?

[B]

I don't have that many horse thoughts.

[A]

Yeah, neither do I have.

[B]

But I'll answer them. I'll answer the questions. I might not have that much interesting to say, but I will.

[A]

I didn't even know the Kentucky Derby was going on.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Did you?

[B]

I used to watch it when I was a kid and get really, really into it because it's incredibly exciting. It's like two minutes and everything in that sport is on the line. But then I realized it seems kind of messed up and I don't know if I'm okay with it. And also I should probably watch other things if I have the time.

[A]

I feel like I was watching it. This is such like a girl and woman thing. Even though I was a tomboy, like growing up, I was watching it for the hats. You know how like the women go and wear these like sweet looking hats.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I remember watching the Kentucky Derby and being like, what compilation do they have going on now?

[B]

Interesting. So you're into the fashion.

[A]

I mean, I was. Not anymore. Not anymore. Yeah. That seems like a lot of work.

[B]

Also, is it problematic to say tomboy? I don't know.

[A]

That's a good question.

[B]

I just want to flag it. I'm going to flag it. I'm going to flag it. Not because we're going to delete it, but just in case it is. I want to acknowledge our privilege in our place.

[A]

It probably is. God damn it.

[B]

No, no, I don't think it is. I don't have any Reason to say that I just haven't heard it in a while. And when you haven't heard a term that used to hear all the time, you should probably Google it first.

[A]

We should Google it at the end of this podcast.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I'm sure it's bad.

[B]

Okay, so before we get to the main episode, quick promo for the feed. Go to the feed.com swap swap there. You get 40% off your first order. So do a really big one. But if you're a returning customer, you get 10% off for every $100 spent at freaking rocks. And what I wanted to talk about today was what has been powering you, which are Science and Sport Beta Fuel electrolyte gels. And I tried them too. They are really good. They're kind of addicting. Like, at first they don't taste, like, particularly transformative. And then after, like two or three of them, you look forward to them all the time. No matter how long the event is.

[A]

It's because I feel good with them. And I'm not gonna lie, I took a break from them. I took a hiatus because I was like, I cannot stand the first taste of them. But you gotta get past the first taste. And then you kind of. Your brain kind of acclimates to that surprise in your mouth. And then you go on and it becomes.

[B]

Your brain acclimates to the surprise in your mouth.

[A]

This is textbook.

[B]

Textbook giving explicit words to what people are thinking about anyway.

[A]

But you know what? They work.

[B]

They work.

[A]

And we ordered a bunch because, like, I feel quite good on them. It's been. I mean, I've been doing most of my runs at 120 grams of carbs an hour. And the electrolyte gels and just feeling good.

[B]

Yeah. And the electric gels have 200 milligrams of sodium per gel. So it really simplifies the electrolyte curve. Um, especially if you're someone that cramps or has issues in long races. They are really good with limited palate fatigue. And I. I think they nailed it with that gel. So Science and Sport Beta Fuel electrolyte gel. Other thing I wanted to promote was Enervit Magic Cherry, which is a little powder that you put in your drink post exercise. And there's a tart cherry study that we're probably not even going to talk about this week. But in it, it talks a little bit about how it could reduce inflammation. And I think for anyone dealing with inflammation, Enderfit Magic Cherry. Really, really good. Go for it.

[A]

See, I'm a cherry bundy. Girl, I feel like the Cherry Bundy, the one that you like, squeeze in is a little bit. The taste is better and I look forward to it.

[B]

Does Tate Pogacha use Cherry Bundy or does he use Enderbit? Magic cherry?

[A]

You got me.

[B]

I got you. Yeah, I got you.

[A]

Same with it. You could say the same thing about Enderbit gels. It's kind of wild, actually, the power of elite athletes for selling things. Because I'm a skeptic and I feel like you're somewhat of a skeptic. And it sells it to us.

[B]

I don't know. I like to say I'm a skeptic. I like to present as a skeptic. But I'm so, so gullible at first instinct.

[A]

You actually really are.

[B]

Yeah. And you've helped me so much. You make me inquire about that gullibility a lot more than I do. And then final thing, you're into belts now.

[A]

I'm into belts. I'm that belt girl. What happens?

[B]

Everybody out there vote for belts, especially for your daily training run. Like, vests are so great for a lot of races and stuff. Do you think you're gonna race in belts?

[A]

I am. For shorter races, actually. Probably most races, like I'm go the David Roach style of being like, how can I stuff this UTMB required gear into a belt and make it work? And I think, like, I just didn't get past kind of similar to the electrolyte gels, actually. I needed to get past the first two minutes of running with a bottle and a belt. And then it kind of settles in and becomes less bouncy. And it's the point that, like, I really don't notice it anymore.

[B]

You become accustomed to the feeling of things in your butt. Is that what you're saying?

[A]

Things above the butt?

[B]

Above the butt. Above the butt, yes. True. Okay. The first thing we have to talk about is the news that Jim Walmsley is into Western states on a sponsor spot. So I think that probably comes from hoka, but it could come from another sponsor where they reserve a couple spots to give to people. Usually it's not to professional athletes. Sometimes it is. And so he's in without doing a golden ticket race. The goat is going to be there against the other goat, Killian. It's going to be very, very exciting

[A]

against all the goats, actually. I feel like Peter God in his canyon performance. Canyon's performance established him.

[B]

I get so much shit.

[A]

I'm a goat God.

[B]

I get so much shit for saying everybody's a goat. Let's not do that.

[A]

I mean, but the. The race this year, literally on the men's and women's side, lot of goats. How do you feel about that? Because, like, as a pro athlete, where you're trying, you're like, clawing your way to get to golden ticket races, literally, like tearing off the plantar fascia of your heel.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How do you feel about that? Like, I mean, I imagine, like, I'm so excited seeing Jim Wamsley on the starting line, but I imagine it's a bit different for you.

[B]

Are you teeing me up for a hot take, Megan?

[A]

I feel like I am. I'm just loving it. Like, come on, buddy.

[B]

Okay, so my actual take is this is frick and awesome. And athletes like Jim should be able to do any race they want at any point. He's earned the right. And it's so good for the sport. It's good for young people coming into the sport to have this platform elevated. And I'm into it.

[A]

How much do you think is going to like, boost the live feed and the live stream to have Jim Walmsley racing the other goats in the field?

[B]

This is an icon. Like, this is a Killian level icon. It's a different scope, you know, in the same way that Toddy Pagacha and the gels are.

[A]

Okay, but before I lob it to you, actually, I'm gonna give my hot take, which is, I think prior Western states winners should be invited back every year for the next, like, five to 10 years and have this, like, extra incentive structure for winning the race. And I feel like Jim Omsley at this point, the history that he's given Western states, he deserves that.

[B]

I kind of agree, but I think that that should only apply if also people that got panic attacks at mile 62 are invited back every year if

[A]

you're in the top 10. Getting a forest Hill.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. No, no, just a panic attack, actually.

[A]

It's like a preeminence in cycling.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So sometimes in cycling, on early laps, they'll ring a bell, and whoever gets there first gets some prize, like 25 bucks, 100 bucks, whatever. If you get to Forest Hill and you have adequate enough panic attack on a live stream, you get some reward for life. Right.

[A]

I like it.

[B]

Okay, so my actual fake hot take is that part of the difficulty of western states is that you have to race in with 100K or 100 miler. And, you know, you see in myself and others that that is so tricky because it becomes A health concern. And so Jim talked about that it was a knee injury that has made it very difficult for him to get to a golden ticket race and get to western states. And obviously, if he went to any golden ticket race, he would win. He's that good.

[A]

Um, but he might get injured in the same way that he got injured at Chianti last year.

[B]

And part of the problem is health. Like, that's one of the challenges. I mean, I ran into that last year. I feel like I. I mean, who knows? I think. Think I could get a golden ticket at most golden ticket races when I'm good. Um, but, you know, since October 28th last year, my foot has been damaged. And then I tried to rush back to get to canyons, and now I'm on the bike getting saddle sores and doing weird things with athletic tape. All that said, I don't agree with that take at all. I just had to put it out there so we can get them clicks.

[A]

Okay, Can I give a counter hot take?

[B]

Oh, yes.

[A]

You should just get a better sponsorship. You should get a shoe sponsorship. That's like, David, part of this contract. And this is the thing is like seeing athletes contracts. It's very lucrative to have a clause in your contract about a potential sponsor slot. Athletes often are aware of those clauses. And I'm like, bro, you should just be better at negotiating.

[B]

I honestly should just be better at running.

[A]

No, I mean, a lot would.

[B]

A lot would work out. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, this is the best thing. Um, and it's incredibly exciting. We, we're going to talk about it a ton as it gets closer. And then on race day, I'm already just giddy to see what he does. Because Jim doesn't show up to races anymore. We've learned this about him. Unless he thinks he is ready to do something magical.

[A]

Like, I really respect that, actually. I think it's a very cool part of Jim. You're like. You're like Megan.

[B]

Yeah. No, and obviously Jim is the goat. Who am I to say anything about Jim? We. We have maybe slightly different approaches. I. I think that approach, it's. I don't know. I don't know how approachable it is, at least to me in real life. I'm a little bit less inspired by the goat, like that guy that shows up that way than, I don't know, someone that grinds and some. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm. I realize right now Dim Quicks ain't worth it. It's not worth it.

[A]

I'M about to dunk on you. Maybe he sees that these races are injury risk. And when it's an injury risk, like, you got to be like, you got to be ready to throw down. Otherwise, is it worth taking that risk? And I empathize with him. And, you know, someone that's like, you know, had heart issues, it's like, well, if I'm going to do a race that puts me at massive risk right now, it's like, I gotta be ready to do well.

[B]

You gotta be the most meaningful race possible.

[A]

And that adds pressure, and it adds, like. Like, you know, a level of difficulty and hardness that I feel like sometimes isn't always appreciated when you're, like, bulletproof as an athlete. And so I think that's. To me, I think it humanizes Jim in a way that, like, yeah, it's really special that he's, like, picking races.

[B]

That was beautiful. Megan. Do you want to have some, like, Sesame street sign off there?

[A]

I'm Elmo. I love you.

[B]

Obviously, I agree with you. That's beautiful.

[A]

Tickle me. Actually, I hate being tickled.

[B]

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. But in the context of your heart issues, especially, you know, and the continued struggles we're having with that, like, it makes so much sense. And for Jim, I mean, I think he's going to go do something that lives, like, echoes through time and is so cool. And so that was mainly our excuse to talk about it and make it more than one line. But it's the best thing ever for the sport and everybody else doing it, so it's going to be wild.

[A]

Do you think they're going to do an Unbreakable documentary this year?

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

Remember that was going to be on for last year? And, like, everyone broke and they're like, I don't know.

[B]

I'm so glad they canceled that. Did you imagine if they were doing Unbreakable 2? So I was supposed to be a part of this. It's the Unbreakable, for those that don't know was a documentary from, like, 2012. It was when ultrarunning was really in its nascent phases. I don't know if that's how you say the word. I think so.

[A]

We're going to Google nascent and tomboys at the end of this episode.

[B]

Back when people were called tomboys, this came out.

[A]

I really, really shot the bet on that one.

[B]

It's okay. As long as the saddle store doesn't get infected, we're okay with shooting beds. But, you know, back then, that was on four ultra runners. That was really Iconic. They were going to do Unbreakable 2 last year. Could you imagine if Unbreakable 2, this documentary that's seen by like millions and millions of people is just me, like being at Forest Hill, like breaking down.

[A]

I mean, you kind of did that on your own accord.

[B]

You mean I did that anyway.

[A]

Oh, I released your own YouTube on your own accord doing the same thing. So like, why not give that a little bit more publicity? So.

[B]

And I'm kind of pumped. Like, obviously I tried to be funny as, as I could through that process, but the fact that we called that documentary breakable, I'm going to go to my deathbed and be like, that one joke was worth it. And shockingly, we didn't put that much into that documentary compared to like Leadville or something. It has 300 some thousand views, I believe.

[A]

Oh, he didn't put that much into the documentary. But Cody did.

[B]

No, he released it in like a week and a half.

[A]

Oh, but Cody's hustling his week and a half is.

[B]

Yeah, but like Leadville took like two months. Okay, so next piece of news, I just wanted to reflect again. We talked about this briefly last week when we were talking about marathon breakthroughs on Vinnie Mowry. So the runner from Ohio who ran a 205 marathon in his debut at Class City.

[A]

Okay. Also side note, still living in Ohio, do we know any, like elite pro athletes that are training in Ohio?

[B]

Dude, what are you shitting on Ohio for Ohio? Catching strays.

[A]

I mean, name a pro athlete right now that's a runner that's training in Ohio.

[B]

I don't know. There's probably some radioactive fish that are good athletes. Rivers. No, I don't know. Ohio's amazing, Megan.

[A]

Ohio's great.

[B]

There's great songs, the country.

[A]

I know, but there's like, there's not altitude. There's not like, I guess road running, it matters. Roads are roads. It matters a little bit less. But there's like no big training group there.

[B]

The pop punk song by Hawthorne Heights. Oh, I know I'm not going to sing it, but you get the idea. It's something about Ohio. Ohio is for lovers or something. So Vinnie Mowry 205. I think reflecting on it more, it's the most shocking performance in running history. We've never seen anything like this of an athlete blowing away what was considered feasible just a couple years ago and having no particular indication of that being possible. Like, there are a number of athletes in the NCAA right now in the US who theoretically have better resumes than him and 205. It's one of the best times ever run by an American. And he did it at Class City. And I've heard from listeners that course has turns, it's over sidewalks. So I wanted to reflect on this more and be like, what can we learn from him and what are we seeing? Like, is this the vanguard of a trend that's coming or is this just he happens to be a goat that didn't get to express it younger due to some, like, mistakes in training or just having to learn and grow?

[A]

Well, I thought it was interesting. So let's run. I'm shocked. I went to this website. You actually included a link on here. You found it first. What were you doing going there?

[B]

Sometimes you just got to search godforsaken hellhole.com?

[A]

yeah, okay. But it makes me sad because let's run would be amazing if they didn't have these godforsaken message boards of like, anonymous comments. Because the interviewing, like the articles are great and this was a great article where they interviewed his coach, his former coach at Notre Dame. He's actually self coached right now. Fun fact. Which means he's an outsole standing coach to get himself to this point. But they interviewed his Notre Dame coach and I feel like the tendrils of this performance were there. He just got injured a lot in college. A lot of that seemed to be tied to like, you know, patterns of potential over training. And his coach highlighted like maybe some eating challenges or stress factors, some sort

[B]

of big fueling change. I'm not sure what the coach meant by that. It was all very vague. I think probably he just means fueling the training more.

[A]

Well, he had two ephemeral neck stress fractures. I think it was. I can't remember the exact dates. But his coach was also like, maybe his body just doesn't respond well to running on the track. And Rhodes actually allowed him to like get off of that, like repetitive pounding of running in circles.

[B]

Did you see that? He did a lot of his workouts on the treadmill.

[A]

Oh, epic.

[B]

And he did a lot of them at Planet Fitness in Ohio. Seriously?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

At Planet Fitness, those janky ash treadmills. And maybe it offloaded his body a little bit and allowed him to do this. So that was really interesting. So the fueling change, I think is at the forefront of this. Like, he fueled a lot. He did Bicarbon Gnomeo. He was doing all those things. And probably those incremental changes are starting to impact everybody and you're starting to see more potential There.

[A]

I do think there's particular responders though of like athletes where you like, expose them to higher carb. Whether that's like higher carb in racing or training, we don't exactly know in a situation. And it turns on some kind of like, talent pathway that was there but not quite utilized yet. And to me that's like inspiring. It's like, who has that? And like, what are we seeing when I say that?

[B]

That's so, so cool. And it gets back to some of the points about ultra running and, and even marathoning in the past where we were choosing for super talents that had very specific types of fat oxidation skills. And that is as genetic as anything. Right? Like we've talked about ultra runners and some of the levels that you've seen, especially in women, um, and talking about, you know, unbreakable back in the day in 2012, those athletes all would test off the charts in those numbers. Um, but that's just one talent. What about all the other talents and carbs? Bring it to the forefront. I love that concept that carbs ignited something that was like baseline within his genetics. And honestly, that kind of feels like my journey too. Obviously I'm nowhere close to that level.

[A]

Well, that's kind of what I was alluding. I was lobbing it up. I was like, this feels similar in some way of this like talent that has been there. That's been, you know, you were honing and training that talent for many years. And then carbs gave it like the extra chance to express.

[B]

And as soon as I started doing high carb, it was almost immediate. It like I had a little bit of a learning curve. But as soon as I figured out how to get the GI system to work, all of a sudden I became like an endurance guy and I never really was before. And so, you know, that's at a very low level. I only know what that feels like for myself, why I use it because it's like availability bias, but for him, incredibly cool. And then the other thing that was just a training wrinkle that I'm curious to see what comes of is he does very fast, easy runs. I was going through his entire Strava. The day before his marathon, he did a shakeout run. At what pace? Guess what pace?

[A]

5:15.

[B]

Oh my God. 5:48 minutes. You're like very fast, but 5:48 is a little faster than you usually seem. Interestingly, I also find that for myself that seems to work.

[A]

Was it just the day before or was it like a host of easy runners?

[B]

Oh, he does all of his easy runs fast?

[A]

Yeah. I wonder actually if that's just kind of like a red herring that we're seeing here. And that led to a lot of his injuries in college because it's like, I do feel like that's a collegiate running trait that sometimes very hard to break and sometimes is counterproductive. But maybe he also lives in Ohio at sea level. And, you know, I had the reflection last week, I was in California and I was like, it would actually be very hard for me to train here because of the fact that, like, I'd have to be much higher mileage, given that, you know, an eight mile run in Colorado plays very different. It's like a 12 mile run.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In California, even if they're similar paces,

[B]

like California just flows easier.

[A]

Maybe that equates to 16 in Ohio. Cause it's Ohio.

[B]

Yeah. But either way, I think Vinnie Mowry's story, I'm sure there's more to come. Because unless he just is the next coming of, like, superstar, which is totally possible, this is like the moment in running where it becomes about something broader, like before. I think it's just easy to say it is talent. It is talent alone, but Vinnie is obviously very, very talented. He's 99th percentile overall, but he's not 99.999, which is usually what you see. And I think that is the signal for everybody to look for. Like in ultrarunning, the person I look to is Rod Farvard as the one that changed everything. Because in early 2024 at the Canyons 100k, he came in and totally demolished expectations. And then he talked about it all and it was high carb and hydration and how he was training all that good stuff. But that was the kind of spark that gave everybody else the courage to go for it and just put it out there in that way. I kind of think Vinnie will be the same in marathons and we're going to see just an explosion beyond belief.

[A]

Looking at his training and some of the pace of those easy runs, do you think he'll be healthy to sustain that or do you think, like, he caught lightning in a bottle here?

[B]

I think he's going to be healthy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, because if I said the other answer fucked up,

[A]

you're like, nah, this is the one and done.

[B]

No, I mean, if you do that, you're set. Like, even if you get injured, like, that is just different. It's so different. So, as always, a reminder, we talk about this because you all have talent. Like, everybody Listening has some talent. It's just a question of how it expresses over time. And if someone's talent Expresses when they're 16, we say you're talented. And that's usually VO2 max. But most of our talents take years and years of giving just these gentle tailwinds to, to fully express. And so sometimes it'll take 20 years and high carb and giving your body, all of it need needs for health. It doesn't mean you are less talented, just means you are differently talented.

[A]

Okay, David, mic drop.

[B]

Mic drop.

[A]

That was, I feel like last episode you had a few moments where I was just like that was good. That was well said. And that was another one of those moments about just like, you know, how many athletes too get like, you know, it's just hard to progress when you're not told that you have talent at age 16. And it's like you're just waiting for it. And that's part of the magic of coaching is like waiting for that to express.

[B]

And you see it sometimes in like 55 year old women where all of a sudden they're like, oh my God, I wish somebody told me this at 16 or 18 or 20 or whenever they started running. And you see what happens as soon as they apply it and give themselves that chance and call themselves an athlete. So if you like bristle against that, flip that narrative, see what happens. And let's have Vinnie Mowry as some motivation. Okay, next one is a very interesting fun story that's also a little scary on Abby Steiner, who was a professional runner for Puma, who filed a lawsuit. And here's a quote that was from the Athletic article on it. The lawsuit was filed in Middlesex County Superior Court in Massachusetts on April 24th. Steiner, who is a two time world champion, a four time NCAA champion and holds the US indoor record for 200 meter and 300 meter sprints.

[A]

Okay, hold on. Mic drop. That's the. Quite a resume.

[B]

Yeah. Beast resume alleges the products caused seriously injured her, specifically those with carbon fiber plates and or nitrofoam technologies. So they also included Mercedes on this. So Mercedes involvement is not related to motorsports. It is more technical in nature with engineering insights from the F1 world helping in the design and development of track and field spikes.

[A]

And I thought it was interesting like as to why this lawsuit was happening just because runners obviously get injured all the time and it's hard to point to shoes sometimes as that like specific reason potentially companies are aware of some of the risks surrounding carbon fiber technology. And here's the quote, according to the complaint, the defendants allegedly were aware or had reason to be aware that the products with carbon plated technology altered the biomechanics of runners or the manner in which the stresses of running impact their bodies, cause bone stress injuries or increase the likelihood of foot injuries and caused irregular strain on runners feet.

[B]

Yeah, so it's basically a defective products argument, which is interesting. Legally they're trying to bring in everybody, Mercedes or whatever, to give them some opportunity to like broaden out the scope

[A]

of the lawsuit would also kind of make sense. And I love this because we get this is a rare place where running and law intersect. And I'm like, we got an expert, David, you as a lawyer. But do you think that's also. Because when you introduce Mercedes here, there's just a much larger money making possibility.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, Puma is a big company too. I think it's more just you kind of throw everything at the wall and see what sticks in these types of lawsuits. Is it going anywhere? Probably not, because there's nothing particularly unique about these products. And I mean, maybe they want to get in front of like a sympathetic jury or something. It's just tricky. I mean, athletes get injured. But that being said, I am very sympathetic to this because, you know, I'm currently dealing with a foot injury that probably stems to some of the nature of these shoes. Like very specifically, almost ripping the plantar off the bottom of my foot on a run when I hadn't had any plantar pain before is, you know, granted, it was a 100 mile run.

[A]

I was gonna say granted, I was gonna say introducing mile 53 of that, the jury would be like, nah, that's, that's ultra running.

[B]

But if I was wearing some minivan of a shoe, you know, some 2012 ash shoe, it likely wouldn't have happened.

[A]

Well, it's interesting to hear you say 2012 shoe because I think part of the challenge of athletics now is you have to wear carbon plated shoes at that level. Like at the world championship level. Like you're not gonna, you know, pull a Vinnie Maury and like perform so well in a marathon and a minivan. Ass shoe.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So, uh, we'll keep you updated. I think it's points out that the way shoes change running dynamics actually is pretty substantial. And you know, while we're saying this might not go anywhere, I think there are specific athletes that are directly injured by the shoes and it does not work for their form.

[A]

I was gonna say, I think it really depends upon biomechanics and foot structure and how you're using them within training. Like, I think a lot of times, like, these shoes in some ways are protective to bodies because, like, you know, they're heavily cushioned. You can, like, run a little bit more. Yes, you can run a little bit faster. So there's pros and cons there, but I don't think it's everyone. And that's where it becomes so tricky is like, everyone kind of needs to wear these to compete at the top

[B]

and it changes where the stresses are. So in your feet, there will be more stress at times and likely in your hips and stuff, there will be less, though it varies. Right. Most likely the stress goes down the kinetic chain. And so, you know, if you have foot injuries, you can directly point to shoes. Like, even now, as I was coming back to running and everything felt healthy, I couldn't wear the aggregate speed ultra ones, the shoes that I was obsessed with, because as soon as I put them on, it obviously just hit the exact point that the tear happened. And so.

[A]

And now we have 19 pairs of them hanging out in our basement.

[B]

Oh, my God, Megan.

[A]

I know. We're just staring at them. We got two more of them in our house.

[B]

We have so many new listeners. And you didn't have to say my biggest financial regret. Like, everybody out there listening. You have a financial regret.

[A]

You balanced the 19 shoes with the shockwave machine from Amazon.

[B]

I know it is a terrible financial conundrum I have created for us, Megan.

[A]

Sometimes it's challenging when you've had just like, you know, a year of, like, tricky things happening or just a month of tricky things happening, and you go back into your taxes and you're like, the 19 shoes, the shockwave machine.

[B]

Yeah. Well, the podcast has been popping off. Thank you all for being here. Go give it five stars. Click follow. It's so cool to get to share this with you each week, but a lot of people probably don't know that I have all of these shoes downstairs. And what's even worse, we'd have to

[A]

present that in evidence of a lawsuit.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Well, they would bring it in. The company would be like, hey, so you're saying after you got injured and the shoe was discontinued, you went online to every set third party reseller and ordered 19 pairs. So you really think this is our fault or are you just blaming us now?

[A]

Maybe this is why we're getting so many text messages from fraud company fraud individuals. They're like, we saw those websites you were ordering from.

[B]

So, yeah, I identify with Abby do you?

[A]

What are the chances that you think it settles? Because I think the challenge is like, it's probably not going to settle in my eyes because then otherwise every runner would be suing these companies and you know, you're at like a liability for a massive class action suit. So I feel like there's almost zero chance it settles.

[B]

I think zero chance they settle. They probably want to get in front of a favorable jury though. I don't even. I didn't look at the law too much here. And also former lawyer. I haven't paid attention that much.

[A]

I mean, but better than I am.

[B]

Yeah. Oh my God. I did have to go through a whole process recently where I transferred my bar membership to inactive. Because in classic David forum or just being busy farm back in the day when I stopped practicing, I was just like, oh, I guess I need to do nothing about that rather than going through the process to go from, you know, active lawyer to inactive. And so I did that, but only after I got like a pretty hateful message online.

[A]

Yeah, it's kind of wild that like an Internet troll is going through your history enough to know that. So scary.

[B]

It was scary. It was really scary. So I got tagged in things on a bunch of different social media platforms

[A]

from this, like one person.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know whether it's one person or not. And so I'm like, oops. And I just called them and they're sure, yeah, this is fine. And so, yeah, in other words, not really a lawyer.

[A]

Do we have to take a trip to North Carolina to formally end that?

[B]

No, no, actually, no, you can do it. I would only have to if we are trying to get reinstated. And I hope I do not have to practice law.

[A]

I like that you use the we there. If we are trying to get reinstated. I'm not trying to get reinstated.

[B]

I actually refer to my saddle sore as a third person.

[A]

Me and my saddle have a name.

[B]

Does it have a name?

[A]

I mean, I feel like if you're referring it to in third person, it should have a name.

[B]

Claudia.

[A]

Claudia.

[B]

Claudia. Yeah, Claudia.

[A]

It's Claudia Tomboy.

[B]

Next topic. I. I just. This is very brief, but it was on Sam Long's training volume, so. Sam Long, champion triathlete. A post popped up on my Instagram that highlighted that he did a 45 hour training week in training for Ironman and triathlon and it was very celebrated at some end. And I just want to say to everybody out there, you don't need to do that.

[A]

That's a little much Yeah, I agree, a thousand percent agree. For running and ultra running. In fact, I think that's very much counterproductive. Triathlon, though, is a little bit of a different world. And to what extent do you think in triathlon and cycling, which have different training properties, that you think that's kind of required?

[B]

Okay, triathlon for sure, because bike or swimming is a different sport than biking and running. And it pulls in sideways directions like it's not pulling in the opposite direction. It's just not helping you. So it's all additive if at that level. But cycling, I love that you brought that up and I always like to talk about this because if you talk to any pro athlete, pro runner out there especially, and ask them, hey, what are the best cyclists do? How many hours per week? They'll all say 25, 30 hours per week, because that's all they hear about. Similarly, if you ask, what do the best triathletes do? They'll anchor in this. And it works for Sam Long. He's one of the best in the world, so, you know, his training approach works for him. Okay.

[A]

It was kind of wild though when you broke it down and it was like double swim days, like the hours, like six and a half hour ride into a very long brick. It was, the specifics of it were

[B]

wild, remarkable and just remarkable, like, you know, discipline and like drive. Like we should celebrate that at while at the same time recognizing that it is just a misnomer, it is something that is incorrect about how people think of this training. So we talked about a study last year on the best cyclist and what they do in their build phases before the main part of the season. And men cyclists were at like 17ish hours per week. And this is people that do it for a full time job. And women's cyclists were at 16 hours per week, which is totally reasonable if you're just a cyclist and nowhere close to where people would peg it probably if they were forced to outside of that world, which is almost double that. And it points out that, hey, sometimes the things that have availability are not the things that are being done, including by the very best in the world. And so be careful because the outlier stories get the most publicity and usually it settles in. I mean, this even applies to carbs, right? Like, I got a lot of publicity at 150 grams per hour, but most people are settling in around 100 to 120 at the elite, elite male level. Um, and so, you know, my anchor, or my point is almost more of just a me thing, rather than everybody thing.

[A]

Okay, in triathlon, where would you peg that number to be? So if cycling is like 16 to 17 ish for like the top pro cyclists, where would you peg that for triathlon?

[B]

I honestly don't know.

[A]

Yeah, and that's why, that's like, it's, it's, it's fascinating physiology when you think about it.

[B]

And the problem is, you know, we have, this is where studies have to come in. Um, this is a place where studies can do great job. Because even if you ask an athlete how much do you do, usually they'll give like a weird number.

[A]

Oh yeah. Usually it's some convoluted number. That's not.

[B]

Yeah, it could be low, it could be high, but it usually ties more to their perspective on the world than it does to maybe their actual training. Um, and so, you know, it gets a little complicated. But here's just a vote for you don't need insane training volume. Like training volume adaptations saturate a little bit earlier than is conventionally thought. So training volume is the most important thing to a point. Like we've talked about all the studies that just adding easy training is the easiest way to progress. But once you get into especially like double digit hours, like over 10 hours, it's not the driver. I mean in triathlon, you know, because swimming is a separate thing, you're going to be looking at more. Um, but make sure you're not tracing volume at the exclusion of other things. I mean Ali Ostrander for example this week had a breakthrough race at the US 5K. Ran 15, 17 so fast, top five. And she usually runs four times a week, sometimes five times per week and cross chains on the other day for 90 or minutes or two hours. But you don't need to chase volume like that dragon, it's going to burn you eventually.

[A]

And I think as we're talking about these volume equations, we're also assuming the health of an athlete too. And when you talk about volume and the potential risk for reds on top of that, that's where it becomes like, not only like, is it not productive, it is like extremely dangerous for long term health too. And I think that's where like, you know, as we're having this conversation we're like, oh, we're assuming we're hold, holding health constant and oftentimes like health is not held constant.

[B]

Yeah, it would be very different if sports were like video games and you could just turn injuries off.

[A]

You guys have nine lives.

[B]

Yeah, when I used to play Madden I would do like franchise mode And I would never play a game. I would just be like a general manager, which is maybe the nerdiest thing in the world for a 14 year old to do. Like, I wasn't kissing girls, but I was drafting really good left tackles that were extremely underrated. Um, but in that process, when you were simulating games, you could turn injuries off, and I always would, because as soon as you had injuries on, it just became miserable being such a slog.

[A]

But I mean, as an athlete, it's a good thing because then, like, it would just be a training competition to see how many hours a week we have. And that's quite frankly depressing when you have kids and podcasts and a job and other things. And so I think it's actually good to have injuries on in the real world.

[B]

Oh, for sure.

[A]

Even though it sucks shit as you go through it. But it's like, we don't need sports to be a, like, you know, how many hours a week can you train? Contest.

[B]

Megan, would you turn off injuries if you could? Right now?

[A]

Right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Would I? Yeah.

[A]

So, I mean, I feel like injuries are like. We'll apply that to, like, muscular skills.

[B]

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

[A]

Not like things related to the heart.

[B]

All right, that totally makes sense.

[A]

Yeah. It's just getting fucked in life.

[B]

The Getting Fucked in Life podcast, that's the episode we're recording right now. We're recording on Sunday, actually, to get ahead of special. To get ahead of just how fucked we're getting in life. But it's fun. Okay, here is a very fun story that I had to bring to the podcast. So Megan traveled last week and so I sent her a lot of fun things, actually.

[A]

You are so fun to text. We very rarely text back and forth because we're often in the same room or in the same house or I just text you from downstairs when you're upstairs. You are hilarious over text message.

[B]

Thank you. Thank you.

[A]

It's quite funny. You make me laugh out loud many times.

[B]

This what I texted you here. I don't know if we should be sharing it on the podcast, but now we are because it was hilarious. So Brian Johnson, we've mentioned him before. He's the anti aging crusader, essentially, that kind of wants to live forever. He does a lot of interesting things in the context of that.

[A]

Well, he does. I mean, he measures a lot of things on himself. We talked about the fact that he was measuring his sperm. He's been measuring a lot of different things related to science, related to his body, and I kind of learned sperm.

[B]

His science and body. Sperm, science and body. That's the three.

[A]

I mean, and I feel like if you were to put his name into a Google, those are probably the three things that would come up.

[B]

It's true. And so, you know, one really aside, interesting aside, is that he took a hero's dose of psychedelics and has kind of changed his perspective. And maybe that's where this tweet comes from.

[A]

I was gonna say, has he changed his perspective enough?

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I kind of like this tweet. Is this tweet uplifting of women or not uplifting of women? I haven't decided yet.

[B]

Fair point. We'll. We'll get to that.

[A]

You're like, I'm gonna talk about problematic tomboy shit and you're gonna talk about problematic vaginas. And so we're just meeting in the middle.

[B]

No, vagina is problematic, Megan. You're problematic now. Okay, so he posted about oral sex with his partner. I'm not sure if it's his wife.

[A]

His wife?

[B]

Is it his wife?

[A]

Yeah. I don't know if she co signed this post, but I'm like, eventually she commented. She did.

[B]

Okay, so we'll get to that.

[A]

Okay, well, there's 2.8 thousand comments. And I tried to log into Twitter X this morning to look at it, but my account was like, expired and I couldn't do it. And it's funny that of all things, this is the one thing that was gonna make me log back in. Like, I wanna see the comments.

[B]

For some reason, he posted this, like, as like a tweet and then responded to his own tweet. This is her vaginal microbiome report. 101 out of 100 score, top 1% of all vaginas. And then he provided a graph. Some company is out there graphing your vagina score. Yeah, that's pretty remarkable. And she did reply eventually and talked about, like, getting tested and, like, trying to make it a public health thing, which I thought was interesting. And someone replied to her, damn, so good you had to wait 12 hours before you could come up for air.

[A]

Well, maybe she's like. Maybe she's like, on his team, content wise. Yeah, she's like, this is good content.

[B]

It's paying off for them, I'm sure.

[A]

But do you think they're sponsored by this company?

[B]

I think that's possible.

[A]

They're in the name of big vagina. And they're not. They got to disclose that. I mean, that's got to be. If this is a sponsored vagina post.

[B]

We need to know that's actually true. Sponcon.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This looks exactly like Sponge Con.

[B]

It just says almost 3,000 comments, 99th percentile vagina.com swap.

[A]

Okay, but also, it would be a great, like Spawn Con if this company just went around and gave everyone 99% vaginas.

[B]

That's my big conclusion here is, you know, we never would hear about this company or whatever unless this came.

[A]

We would not be talking about it on a podcast.

[B]

And wouldn't it be interesting though, if she was a 92nd percentile vagina? If you're talking like top 8%, that. I think that would be so much more believable.

[A]

They just elevated everyone.

[B]

Yeah, but, yeah, I understand. And I do say everybody's amazing. So maybe this is my type of company.

[A]

Well, it's like a GPS watch where you're like, you know, you look down on it, it just tells you you're amazing all the time. And then you're gonna go 4%.

[B]

You're gonna get faster. Exactly.

[A]

Her vagina is getting better just by seeing these results.

[B]

Yay.

[A]

Boom.

[B]

So whether this company does it or not, we should start a company that does that. And not just for a vagina. It's for everyone's private areas. Like every. Every single person, every gender, every think. What do you think?

[A]

I agree. We should also just swab your saddles.

[B]

But we need to make it believable. I mean, top 1%. No, like, that would be. If you saw that more than once. You be. All right. Now we're getting either some sort of weird selection bias.

[A]

But the thing is, like, are people going to share that? That's the thing is like, you know, it's one. Probably less than one. One percent of people are actually going to post their vagina, like, you know, findings on the Internet. Even if 99th percentile. So maybe. So it would be believable enough.

[B]

Well, we could have a. No secrets.

[A]

Okay. I'm just saying maybe I should get tested and we should just share this very honestly.

[B]

Yeah, maybe. I. I want to say, Megan, no matter what, your top 1%, to me, that's my valentine to you next year. But when it comes to microbiomes specifically,

[A]

I mean, I feel like our microbiomes are probably related, though.

[B]

That's what I'm saying. Megan, I am sorry, but, like, I think this is probably more of a reflection on their partnership and optimization and realistically.

[A]

And that's. He knows that. And that's my problem with this post is he's like, this is reflecting on me and my decisions and I'm gonna put my wife as like, the masquerade for this.

[B]

Okay, well, I'm going down there with athletic tape and obviously you.

[A]

Athletic tape. I was athletic. You added that, like, sentence clause quite late.

[B]

Yes, but what if I was like, in the bottom 2% of all penises?

[A]

Like, like, you're not.

[B]

But. But what if I am?

[A]

You're not. I confidently not.

[B]

Either way, the. I feel like all of the. All of, like, health optimization is kind of satirized by this one post where, you know, optimization has a point. And so this is my serious, like, comment on this.

[A]

I love how you're taking this post and you're like, here's a serious. It's actually gonna be beautiful. I bet you this is gonna be a mic drum.

[B]

No, but like, you see the graph of it and you can imagine how someone would get this type of data and try to optimize toward the test and the company themselves would be incentivized to push people towards higher scores. And that's why you always need to take a step back with all of this data and be like, all right, how is this serving me? How does this make my life better on a day to day basis? A good example is readiness scores on your watches. Like, how much is that helping you? And if it is helping you, fine. But should you be changing training for it? Probably not. Should you be judging yourself? Probably not. And I think most things are like a vaginal microbiome report where, you know, maybe take it with some grain of salt. But in the optimization culture, let yourself just be. And live your life and be happy with that and.

[A]

And just assume you have a 99th percentile vagina. That's accordingly.

[B]

That's what we say. Assume you have a 100 VO2 max and act accordingly. Assume that the microbiome up all your holes is 99.999%.

[A]

How many holes?

[B]

There's at least 12. 12 to 14, depending on the day.

[A]

Depending on the day.

[B]

Okay. I think we can skip the thing about horses.

[A]

Oh, we should. I mean, we gotta end on horses.

[B]

Yeah. We're recording this episode earlier due to some stuff going on in our lives. We're just having fun. All right. Some horse stuff. So Golden Tempo won the Kentucky Derby yesterday. Came from way behind. It was very interesting from an athletic perspective. They were the horse. I don't. I don't know the gender of the horse. So they were in last place. A non binary horse was in last place. Came up from behind, Actually, you were

[A]

showing me the video, and you gave me the spoiler. You're like, look at this horse. It's gonna win. And I was like, we still had a minute left.

[B]

You weren't gonna watch the whole thing. I was gonna win. So Golden Tempo wins came from behind. But most fun, Sherry Devoe was the trainer. First female trainer, so. First female coach of a horse that wins the Kentucky Derby, so huzzah.

[A]

That's so cool. Yeah.

[B]

And, you know, that. That is just awesome to see, you know, other fields working in that way. Like, I'm sure that that stems back to so much, you know, bullshit in that world.

[A]

Oh, I imagine. Something tells me that in the horse world, it's, like, even worse in other worlds. Like, maybe.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Even like, NFL. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, you could totally see that. I mean, maybe not NFL. I don't think you're seeing a female head coaching, though. You probably will see one in the NBA soon. Yeah. And there probably should have. I mean, there should have been a female head coach already in the NBA, based on some of the articles I've read. And some teams are doing in the NFL are doing programs to move female coaches into better positions of power. But, you know, that's a great point,

[A]

actually, I mentioned the NFL is not a great example because females, by nature just aren't playing football quite as much. The NBA is probably better because there's, like, you know, there's a high prevalence of female basketball players.

[B]

Becky Hammond, I believe. You know, there's been some great coaches that have been in the running for that. Dawn Staley would be a really fun one. She's the coach of South Carolina.

[A]

I love her.

[B]

I feel like she'd be an amazing NBA coach.

[A]

But I saw this video of her get off a bus. Like, a bus, like a team bus, and she was directing a car to parallel parks. There was a car that was, like, struggling to parallel parks. It just got off the bus and helped them. I was like, imagine the pressure. Like, for me, I actually really struggle with parallel parking. And if Don Staley was back there directing me, I'd be like, oh, my God.

[B]

You know, she suffers from recurrent heart issues.

[A]

Yeah, recurrent pericarditis, actually. Yeah.

[B]

So, you know, I think she's better now.

[A]

I need to figure out what she's

[B]

doing, have her coach us through it. Um, okay. And now two questions on horses. Is that okay before we get studies? Um, first, one question that needs to be discussed. Are the horses at the Kentucky Derby taking bicarb?

[A]

Oh, hell yeah. You better believe it. If bicarb works, the horse has been taking it for a long time.

[B]

But they're not allowed. Oh, did you know that?

[A]

I didn't know that. Actually talked about that. Yeah.

[B]

24 hour ban on bicarb points out like one.

[A]

Do you think they're using it in training?

[B]

I don't know whether it's a competition, like in a competition versus.

[A]

Yeah. We went through like the USADA and WADA therapeutic Use exemption applications and we were talking, we were debating whether it was like for human and horse. I imagine the horses have their own doping governing body. Correct.

[B]

I imagine it must be insanely important.

[A]

Oh, insane, yeah. Yeah.

[B]

But bicarb's banned and that's where though you read about it and a lot of it's due to GI issues of the horses and health.

[A]

But get them some more in.

[B]

They were using a fuck ton of it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Even with. So that's clearly one of those signs that the studies are not catching the actual performance benefits. Once again, bicarb is pushing, running forward. Horses, they're not allowed to take it out.

[A]

Do you think they have like a micro dosing of bicarb or do you think they have like some kind of thing that's like, yeah, that is bicarb, but is a derivative. And so it's like escaping testing.

[B]

There is so much money in that.

[A]

Oh. And that's what I'm saying. I'm like, the things that they're doing to these horses are beyond our wildest imaginations. And it actually makes me sad.

[B]

That's why we joke about it. But it's like, probably not okay. Yeah. But I don't know enough to know that. So I will defer to all the horse people out there. But just to say, like, that's why I'm kind of uncomfortable with it. Here's a quote actually from an article I was reading. It was traditionally used as a milkshake. Baking soda, sugar and water via a nasogastric tube, an NG tube to buffer lactic acid in the blood and delay fatigue. So similar, similar use.

[A]

Can you imagine getting a milkshake through your nose? Horses are dealing with something that's going to give you bicob cholera on the way out.

[B]

If you had to train a horse to ride in the Kentucky Derby, what would your approach be? Uh, my approach would be to learn from Sherry Devoe. She don't know much about horse training and I don't think we could learn much about humans.

[A]

I imagine it's similar in the sense that, like, A lot of aerobic training, a little bit of top end training, you know, injury prevention approaches.

[B]

I believe. There's not that much like. It's not like an 80, 20 model, I believe. I think it's a lot more intense than that. I'm not sure exactly, though, so I should probably know.

[A]

We should learn. It's kind of fascinating, actually.

[B]

Yeah. You know, I'm curious about just about everything. Not so curious about horse training.

[A]

Well, you're telling me a stat this morning that most of the horses are genetic descendants of Secretariat, right?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So I think all but one of the horses this year is descended from Secretariat, who won the Kentucky Derby in Triple Crown, I believe, in 1973. Still is the fastest time ever run on that course, though. I was also reading that these are also dad facts.

[A]

So take this with a grain of salt.

[B]

Meghan, do not you dare say that.

[A]

Yeah, you're like, don't dad fact me about horses.

[B]

You take this dad fact with a nasogastric tube. Yeah, it's okay if you shit it out.

[A]

Just take it.

[B]

But, you know. And then last year, all of them were descended from Secretary, though with horse breeding, because it's relatively short timelines, as I understand it, it's kind of like going far enough back in human lineages that like, you know, you start to really converge on everybody being descended from certain individuals or very. A ton of people being descended from certain individuals. My guess. It's a little bit like that, though. Secretariat clearly had, you know, a powerful ability to sire these. These horses and there's others too. So really it's actually not through Secretariat. It's from a certain. Through a couple of Secretariat's daughters that are specifically.

[A]

That is weird.

[B]

No, no, of course, of course.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

It means that's why they probably know

[A]

about their vaginal microbiomes and I don't want to know.

[B]

Probably should stop talking about this.

[A]

I know.

[B]

Right, Quick promo for Patreon. So much fun going down there. What we just released was a keep it simple 100 mile plan and. Or 100k plan, which just distills training theory into the basics. Starts at 25 miles per week on the low end. Goes up to 100 miles per week for the top end. It's three plans in one. So the 25 mile per week people generally will get to 40 or 50 miles per week. So go to patreon.com swap swap. We have all of those plans. I think there's 25 or something bonus episodes. We're up to 190 now you did

[A]

a solo one this week. I was listening to a little bit of it. At one point you're just like, you're going there and you gotta laugh at yourself, make a joke, move on. And at one point you're just like, I don't know, shit, we're gonna move on.

[B]

Yeah, I always kind of hate myself midway through those and then I rally.

[A]

You do a lot more questions without me.

[B]

Yeah, well, without you I just left my own devices. I lean into my worst impulses sometimes. So hey, if you want to go, cancel me.

[A]

What are your worst. You don't have worse. What are your worst impulses?

[B]

Just like to go down dad fact pathways. I need someone to call me on my bullshit. And most of what I say honestly outside of training is probably that I

[A]

still have a fear that they're better without me.

[B]

No. God, no. No. Everyone says the ones with you are great though, you know, the ones with me are different. They're a lot different.

[A]

Different flavor.

[B]

And you get a lot of like, you know, some of the training theory wrinkles that you would call bullshit on that some people want to hear about, I don't know. So. Patreon.com swap Here's a message I wanted to say. Thank you. I just ran my last run of the Power Builder plan, which is a six week training plan. I had to modify it a little bit to keep fatigue down, but holy crap, I feel as though I have made more gains in six weeks than the past year and a half. I went Z2 from around 9:30 pace to about 8:30. I've never felt stronger, faster and bomb proof. So thank you.

[A]

That is an impressive evolution of C2 pace.

[B]

Yeah, we've got so many incredible messages like that.

[A]

So actually, interestingly, a lot of them center around. Actually I guess a lot of them are PRs, but a lot of them do center around. Z2 pace drop.

[B]

Well that's the main goal I think,

[A]

which is like the mainstay of, you know, getting to a PR too.

[B]

Everything comes from the aerobic system. And so all of our training plans are designed with that in mind so you can basically string any of them together in the ideal world to make it all work. And so $10 tier do heart rate zones. If you can't afford it, just let us know and we'll let you in. So patreon.com swap now let's just do a little bit of science today because we talked about a lot of stuff

[A]

already and I feel like let's keep some of these at like the snack level. Because these are, some of, these are a little bit more like this. Hydration 1 is a little bit. No shit esque.

[B]

Okay, so here's a snack.

[A]

Yeah, maybe that wasn't the best, the most like sexy teas for a science snack, but I do think hydration is actually quite important.

[B]

So we're gonna. Three snacks here.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

One on hydration, two on ketones, and third, sitting across to me on his mic

[A]

top.

[B]

1%, baby. Maybe actually fives.

[A]

Fives. Believe it. Actually. I mean, honestly, we both know, I

[B]

mean, our hygiene sometimes leaves something to be desired.

[A]

It really does.

[B]

So it depends on what metric you're using.

[A]

And that's like a compilation together.

[B]

Oh no. For sure.

[A]

Sometimes you bring it down, sometimes I bring it down, sometimes Leo brings it down.

[B]

Yeah, we're all basically playing tug of war, but we're all tugging in one direction and it's not the right one. Okay, so quick on the hydration article. It's called Athlete Hydration Beyond Performance toward Long Term Health. And it was a short communication that argued that habitual 24 hour low water intake may represent an underappreciated long term risk in athletes, a health risk in particular. So what they find is that in non athletic populations you often see this, this leads to all that advice of have so many cups of water per day. But in athletic populations you also see it, which is a bit counterintuitive to me, that athletes are a little bit on the lower intake when it comes to hydration.

[A]

And the theory too being that it might even be more important in the athletic population is that, you know, in athletics, if you're having this habitual low water intake, perhaps you're amplifying the stress response. And you know, if you're already getting these significant stressors from training and you're amplifying the stress response through kind of this like chronic dehydration pathway, what is that doing to the body?

[B]

That's the most interesting part to me is how much stress, stress is connected to hydration. We've talked about this in past episodes in detail, so we don't need to get into it now. But human stress responses have a hydration pathway. So you really see this in dehydrated people. There's some fascinating studies, not necessarily on athletes, but including on athletes, where if you dehydrate someone, they're so much less able to deal with like difficult questions and things like that. Makes sense. We've all felt that to a certain extent, but we're not necessarily having feedback all the time. So here's a quote. In non athletic populations, chronic low water intake has been associated with kidney stone formation, insulin resistance, low grade inflammation, mood disturbances and increased risk of chronic disease.

[A]

And some of those I'm like, oh my goodness, guys, we have so many confounding variables there. So many. But I do think at the same time, like as I say that, you know, I've had a big push to increase hydration focus and I do think it makes a difference.

[B]

Yeah. And then finally there was a study on competitive athletes that use seven day records and they determined that 58% of participants were classified as low drinkers. And that's pretty relevant. So you're seeing this in athletes. Athletes, um, why does it matter? We're just giving you a little plug for paying attention to your hydration around training in particular and outside of training. I'm really, I ascribe to mostly just do it based on feel. Um, listen to your third mechanism. But I do think that sometimes athletes find themselves just not drinking water out, you know, outside of training.

[A]

You know, I think sometimes that's connected to like reds or low energy availability or disordered eating because sometimes as you drink water, it increases the sensation of being full.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And athletes, athletes don't love that feeling. And so I've seen that. I've also, I've also seen, also seen some athletes that don't love drinking pure water or vice versa, like don't love drinking anything that has like electrolyte mix in it. And so I feel like sometimes those things are connected to like dietary patterns in ways that you really need a therapist to like get at the roots of.

[B]

Yeah, but that's a little beyond our snack today.

[A]

Yeah, we're like, we don't need therapists, need snacks for a meal.

[B]

I mean, it's a good point though. It just, it's not just eating that is tied to background. Like drinking is too. Um, and our observation, like my most interesting one on this is training at altitude. So at altitude you can feel like you're hydrated and you know, on the watch you'll get stress response readouts.

[A]

So on Garmin they actually have like, you know, I actually don't know the exact duration, but it's short, it's on the order of like, you know, every one minute it's pinging a stress bar as to a level and it's a compilation. I believe that that's primarily like HRV driven, but it is a metric of stress and you'll see that elevated for periods of time after like, you know, a hard workout or a training session.

[B]

And both of us have seen when we hydrate well, it really pushes it down.

[A]

Oh, it looks fundamentally different. It goes from like these like high orange bars to dropping into blue. And it really seems to be a hydration driver.

[B]

So forget everything I said about optimization earlier because I'm like looking at my watch and being, oh, I guess I should drink more. But it makes a pretty darn big difference. And, and that's just a microcosm of a broader understanding of, hey, make sure in the afternoon you're drinking a little bit, don't overthink it too much. But especially earlier in the day, I feel like hydrating later in the day, like catching up. You're just gonna be peeing at night and that can be a problem.

[A]

Oh my gosh, that's me in a nutshell. I like panic hydrate. Like I didn't hydrate enough today and then I drink too much at 6:30, 7:00 and then I'm peeing all night. My recommendation for it is to find some kind of like vessel or large cup that you can fill quite high and just drink throughout the day. And to me that makes a big difference with hydration. Sometimes I'll just like drink out of like the little cute glasses in our house. And I need quite a lot of those to get the hydration.

[B]

Yeah, Megan. But all of our big old cups now are stained with the stench of your drinks.

[A]

My protein powder.

[B]

Your protein powders. Talk about our microbiome really jacking up there.

[A]

Those things really get sticky.

[B]

They get sticky and they point. You know, it's just hard. It's hard to clean stuff out.

[A]

You know, I need a single dedicated protein mug.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it has to be big. The thing is, like, I do beta recovery and there's three scoops in there, so it has to be quite big.

[B]

And the problem is it's going to just be janky. It's going to be so stank.

[A]

Okay, but I need to just commit to drinking it and then immediately fully washing it.

[B]

That's never going to happen for one to day.

[A]

Like oftentimes I like put it in the sink with like water and soap, but it still doesn't like remove the jankiness.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Well, here's something I talked about in the bonus episode that I want to bring to the main episode.

[A]

Oh, I'm excited.

[B]

Which is last year I realized that I was having trouble getting back to sleep after I went pee. So I decided I'm not going to pee at night anymore. And I think it's probably just 5% of nights now. I wake up to pee. And I want to point out a lot of urination is. So there are hormones involved in this process, but a lot of it is psychological in ways that we don't always discuss. And so author I love named Drew Madrid wrote about this, that he was a over urinator, essentially where he always needed to empty his bladder. So he'd be peeing like 20 times and a ton of times at night too. And that's what motivated me because it was so cool that you opened up about it. And I was like, look, this isn't actually serving me either. Sometimes I'd be peeing two times at night, and I was always struggling getting back to sleep. And I realized it'd be better to sit there and have to pee and try to get back to sleep, because I'd be much more likely to. And so here's a vote. If you're out there and you don't have prostate issues and it's possible hydrate well, still don't over hydrate at night. And then try to let yourself go through a few tough nights of just being like, okay, brain, this is all right. And you reprogram. It's so shockingly interesting to me. I still have to pee like a racehorse when I wake up, but something has changed in the way the hormones are released that until I get up, it's not a big problem. And my sleep has gotten way better as a result.

[A]

I feel like you need to give that advice with a disclosure that you're athletic. Taping your crotch.

[B]

What does that mean? What does that mean?

[A]

Yeah, I feel like it's all connected in some way.

[B]

Connected?

[A]

Yeah. Maybe if you athletic take yourself down there, it might be. I mean, don't do that, obviously.

[B]

But, like, I mean, maybe.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I guess for me, like, I do struggle with sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night. Like, getting back to sleep.

[A]

No. And actually, like, as a partner, you really have stuck to that. Like, I. Look thinking back in the last, like, three weeks, I can't recall a night where you woke up to pee.

[B]

Yeah. And not to say like, obviously, I probably have piss privilege. I want to check that at the door. But. But if you're like me and you would often be up for an hour after getting up to pee, that is not destiny. Um, and so it's not that I don't wake up still and have to go to the bathroom. I just think it is slightly Trainable over time. And you know, again, this could be a place for a therapist if you are an over. Hey, this is maybe the best thing to talk about here. If you're an O. If you find yourself as an over urinator. That is a thing that I did not know existed.

[A]

It actually probably tracks, I imagine with other personality traits like anxiety and maybe not that that's a personality trait, it's a better way to frame it, but like it probably tracks with other characteristics of who you are. And I think like, you know, working on all of those.

[B]

Yeah, working on everything is great, but I think probably ties a lot to childhood. Most likely. Like a lot of these things are formed when you're very young.

[A]

I feel like I'm an over urinator.

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

You don't think so.

[B]

You, you have traits with it that we don't need to get into here. You always go to the bathroom before you eat. You always put.

[A]

I guess I do. Yeah. I really do.

[B]

Yeah. Which is probably tied to something when you were a kid.

[A]

Yeah. And it's not even like I don't even know why I do that.

[B]

No one does. No one does.

[A]

I feel like sometimes you get so annoyed because dinner's on the table and I'm like, wait, I gotta pee. And you're like, God damn it, Megan, this burger's hot. Only for another minute.

[B]

Everything is a question for a therapist and sometimes it's a question for a couple's therapist.

[A]

Okay, this is the most pressing question we have to answer in our relationship.

[B]

Quick study on ketones and racing. We've been teasing this for a couple weeks, but it's very, very fascinating. It's called ketone mono ester. Reduces blood glucose exogenous carbohydrate oxidation and oxidation efficiency in trained male cyclists when fed 120 grams of carbs during exercise. So what's so interesting about this is we've heard for a long time are ketones being used in racing and studies have found that ketones are not ergogenic. If you take ketones before exercise or during is probably going to worsen performance or be neutral rather than benefit it. Um, but you hear all these rumors and whispers and then people are sponsored and they say they take it. So what actually is the right thing to do?

[A]

And you also wonder is that different in the time of high carb? Because you know, as we talked about with post exercise ketones, usually that seems to work best from an adaptation and long term stress response when combined with higher carb intakes and so the question that I often had was like, okay, what happens if you combine ketones during exercise with like 120 grams of carbs? Is that mimicking some of the pathways that we're seeing post exercise? My theory was no, but it was like, I still want to understand, like, what happens when you do this and

[B]

you hear rumors from the cycling peloton. You're like, oh, are they using it? And if they are, but then you hear that they're not, and then your post exercise. So there's a lot going on. And so it was a randomized crossover design. And eight male cyclists after 36 hour carb loads. They had a lot of carbs on board. Uh, the first group did 0 grams of carbs per hour. The second group did 120 grams per hour. And then the third group did 120 grams per hour and 75 grams of ketones. Um, and then they did 33 hours of cycling at 95% of LT LT1. So very high zone two, which is high power for these guys, followed by an exhaustion test at 150% of that level. Um, and then the results were pretty direct here that the carbs group was the best rather than the carbs and ketones group. So it doesn't debunk it. It's not like it was way worse. Um, but it does point out this is not some hack to better fatigue resistance.

[A]

And I think the numbers behind those results to me were kind of fascinating. So the carbs group, and in this time to exhaustion test, you want to cycle longer so that you're spending time before you actually hit that point of full exhaustion hit, hit 349 seconds. And then the carbs and ketone group was next at 319 seconds. And then the placebo group was worse. And this is actually an interesting take on carbs versus no, carbs was a lot worse at 75 seconds. Um, and I kind of wish too that they had an extra group here looking at somewhere around like 40 to 60 grams of carbs an hour. So we kind of have like two studies in one.

[B]

What I wish they had is a group at 10 grams per hour. So we could just give it to those, you know, the low carb researchers, the low carb researchers who say, you just need to refill the blood glucose store and say, hey, actually not. Here's an obvious study to do it. Someone needs to test that. The problem is, as we talked about with those researchers, no one tests their questions because the questions are so dumb and answered at this Point. But because there's a gap in answering those specific questions, it is used as confirmation that then, while I don't care what specific researchers necessarily are saying, I do care about the downstream impacts of young athletes who might see it and think, oh, if studies say this, it is right. When in reality studies are not saying that because studies. It'd be like asking, hey, scientific Journal, is the Earth round? It's like, well, some people say it's not, but we're not really talking about that in nature anymore. Um, and so that's kind of where we're at there. Um, and interestingly, the carb group, the difference, the 3:49-3:19, was huge errors, error bars there. So it wasn't a significant difference. It. The carbs and the carbs and ketones group were basically the same. Um, and so the other fun findings were the ketones reduced blood glucose and carboxidation and oxidation efficiency. So it could also theoretically worsen performance over time because it's making exogenous carb intake lower because it's using different pathways. So, long story short, ketones during exercise, probably not the answer.

[A]

Also, do you think when combined with high carb, that would lead to downstream GI effects? Hmm. Maybe with a, like the carboxidation? Yeah.

[B]

It's also complicated how that works and where that's coming from, so I don't think we know.

[A]

And there's some other studies out there looking at how ketones theoretically reduce blood glucose concentration during exercise. And a theory around those, which is like, similar to what the study confirmed, is that it reduces the availability of carbohydrates for oxidation. And so, you know, this also gets back to another great study of, like, carbs matter for performance. When we're looking at the performance data surrounding this.

[B]

Absolutely. Okay. Do you wanna get onto a question? Answer?

[A]

Let's see, you're saying skip the tart cherry.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

We can summarize that in like, one sentence, which was there was like, some evidence of tart cherry for helping with, like, inflammation after hard activity, but it was low quality evidence.

[B]

I liked it. I thought it was great evidence. And I'm taking that magic cherry.

[A]

You're like, it's delicious. Tate takes it. That's my bias.

[B]

Riding it to the moon. Uh, okay, so let's do some questions. Anything to talk about before we get there?

[A]

No.

[B]

All right, let's do it. First one caffeine random question. If someone has the. If someone has the leg strength for long distance running, but not the cardio support, it to support it, can they hack the body to do more zone 2 cardio by ingesting insane amounts of caffeine? Let's say we all get rid of the negative side effects of which there are many. Could this be a non exercise way of increasing your zone 2 fitness? But we definitely should leave the high that comes from huge doses of caffeine because that's amazing. Like an out of body experience kind of thing.

[A]

This question is wild.

[B]

No, I loved this one.

[A]

I love this question. It kind of reminds me of a great book by Phil Guymon and I think it was in Draft Animals where he talked about a teammate that would just drink a ton of coffee.

[B]

Pro cycling on $10 a day.

[A]

Yeah, I was at Bucky's two books, Draft Animals and that one. And it was a. I think it was either him or a teammate that like early season would just ingest a ton of caffeine and could just ride at super low watts, like hitting their like expected heart rate because of this principle.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I love this because this person really likes coffee. Oh, gosh.

[A]

Okay. I get it. I've been back on the coffee train recently and it's delicious.

[B]

I mean, you're chugging the smallest little train.

[A]

I am. I know I'm taking the smallest amounts of coffee, but it's so good and I missed it. Yeah, Duncan got me. It got me back on the train.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean basically they're talking about coffee like people talk about heroin. So it's probably a good little connection there.

[A]

But no, I think this will be bad in the sense that like, you know, Z2. A lot of what's magical about Z2 is working to put out higher power in Z2. And that's where like cycling comes in is like, you know, I as a runner like can sustain like, you know, for me Z2 is actually pretty high watts as like in cycling. And it's actually like a lot of work to do a quality Z2 ride, but that's a productive thing. And so I think trying to hijack your heart rate to be higher and hit lower wattage just doesn't lead to adaptation.

[B]

Yeah. And I think this question, while it's very funny, is also good from a physiological primer perspective. So when you're looking at heart rate, you're looking at a proxy variable. You're not looking at the end point goal, heart rate, weight. Like it's not what you're trying to optimize for.

[A]

Which actually that by itself is really important because I feel like. Because it's like one of the primary readouts that we have, aside from lactate and running. So many athletes are like, this is the direct stimulus that we're looking at. And it is approximately.

[B]

It is not. And it varies a lot in day to day, even in the same person, for this and other reasons. But the proxies that you're looking at are one, output, as Megan mentioned, but two, the actual chemical context of the cells. You know, so lactate being the main process there, but also just energy generation overall. And caffeine is not touching those systems either one. Um, so while the heart rate is increasing, it is not changing the proxy variables that you're looking at with heart rate. And so that elevation is one that will make you feel quite good, might make you send a very interesting question into a podcast, but will probably not help your fitness. And honestly, if you're raising your heart rate enough to get into zone two from coffee, you might want to dial back just a smidge.

[A]

Just try some delicious decaf coffee. What do you think of the corollary of this question? So what happens if you decrease heart rate through products like citrulline or perhaps nomia, which might depress heart rate a little bit in C2 or some of these other things? Do you think that's then productive because you're putting out more watts as like in something that's like a proxy variable?

[B]

Yes, because I think it's touching both of the things that heart rate is a proxy for. It is likely touching output where you're putting on a slightly more output, but also the place where it's acting. If you're looking at something like Gnomeo is in the chemical context of the cell. And so the downstream that you're looking at is actually good, whereas caffeine is not changing anything about lactate kinetics on this level or anything like that. So I like this. Basically, yes. My answer is do it. Do it for the story, do it for the plot.

[A]

Just do it through Duncan. Make sure that it's served with a touch of hate. Hate. Whoa. You went hate? Oh, no. They.

[B]

They.

[A]

I was going to say disdain, but I feel like hate feels stronger.

[B]

They hate me. I love it. Inject that into my veins. That is the ultimate performance enhancer. Okay, next up on Nomio and Bicarb. Hey guys, I've got my hands on some Gnomeo and bicarb. Well, it's fly carb because I'm cheap, but I thought I'd give it a shot. Do you any have any thoughts about combining the two I have a 10k coming up on Friday, and I've raced well on Gnomeo before, but haven't tried bicarb. Should I risk the sharts and use both? Any experience with the combo? Thank you so much.

[A]

Well, we're getting more data on the combo and I feel like this is an area where I was skeptical at first, actually. I was like, just use bicarb. It's the gold standard. We know it works. But I feel like we've had more data of athletes either taking Gnomeo with bicarb or taking Gnomeo the night before and then taking bicarb the morning of. And I'm a little tickled by that data.

[B]

Yeah, it is ticklish, man.

[A]

Yeah, it does. I mean, mean, it's. It's early stages. You know, it's really hard to know with Gnomeo because we just don't have a lot of, like, broad athlete data on it. But it seems good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which kind of scares me. But it seems good.

[B]

I said initially, take Gnomeo in bicarb and you'll heal generational trauma. And that was a joke, but it kind of seems true based on some of the results we're seeing now. So you guys have probably seen, if you're following on social media, some of the swap athlete results. Not all of them are nomio and bicarb, but most are one of the two and some are both. And we're hearing from other athletes that so many are taking Gnomeo and bicarb before their big events. It seems like it might be the magical concoction, actually.

[A]

Have you done both? You've only done both once. That was before in Western states, right? Yes.

[B]

Yeah. So my, my data point is panic attack at mile 62.

[A]

Certainly that wasn't the broccoli sprout, but

[B]

I do still have questions, actually.

[A]

But then you returned to heal your generational trauma.

[B]

It's true.

[A]

Yeah. So maybe you came. You came full circle.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

You just did it. A therapeutic route.

[B]

I come from a long line of anxious people, and so I was reaching to my great, great, great grandfather, who probably suffered from pretty severe anxiety and would have had a panic attack while crossing the Great Plains or whatever and said, it's okay, we're enough. And that was all because of Nomeo Bicar.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

My panic attack having problematically So I still have questions about Gnomeo and Ultras. I have not seen great data on it.

[A]

Have you seen it, though? And this is where I actually have not recommended to my ultra athletes to take Gnomeo and Bicarb together. Because of that concern, I haven't seen

[B]

good results with Gnomeo in Ultra.

[A]

Agreed.

[B]

It's weird. I don't get it. I don't know what we're seeing there. I have theories about lactate as a fuel source and maybe there's some downstream impact that starts to happen later.

[A]

But then I wonder, if you add bicarb on top of that, does that change the dynamics? And my question, my thinking is no, but that is like, it seems to work for shorter events.

[B]

For 10k for sure.

[A]

For 10k for sure. Even marathon? Potentially for sure.

[B]

Yeah, for marathon for sure.

[A]

But I feel like I just haven't seen it applied to ultras and I don't have the swag to be like, someone gave me a data point point.

[B]

Well, I. I want more data. I want more understanding. Hey, if you're out there and you've had kick ass ultras in Gnomeo, this is where I wish people were. No secrets. Like, I wish we could ask, like, the superstar pros, you know, who are having breakthrough performances, what did you do? And they would tell us, like, honestly, because it would just be so good to know.

[A]

So have you done both outside of western states?

[B]

I did it sometimes in the lead up to western states.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I had breakthrough workouts, but they were all short. Right.

[A]

And I do think there's something. To me, it's like the four hour mark is kind of where that starts to happen sometimes, maybe even in three. And we're not seeing that obviously, in elite marathoning. And so I start to have questions in ultras.

[B]

Here's my hottest take. I think Gnomeo timing doesn't really matter.

[A]

Do you think it matters whether you take it at night or the morning off?

[B]

I think you can just basically take it anytime and it gives you some benefit. I think it works weird and I think it works through mitochondria. I think that we're going to learn stuff about this weird broccoli juice that boggles the mind. Did I have some before I recorded this podcast? Yes, I did.

[A]

Is it a rest day?

[B]

Yes, yes. You better believe it.

[A]

I thought I was like, you should go get your butt on that bike trainer and then you have Gnomeo in your system.

[B]

My butt is going nowhere.

[A]

Yeah, your butt is not sitting on anything besides a donut.

[B]

Absolutely. Okay, um, I think we just skipped the zone.

[A]

Oh, let's go. I actually like the zone compression.

[B]

Okay, here's a question that's really interesting from a training theory perspective. Um, hi, David and Megan. I have a Swap question about zone compression. I'm assuming you guys saw the London Marathon where two athletes broke two hours for the first time? Yes, talked about it last week. Uh, doing the math, that's about a 4:33 minute per mile pace over the marathon.

[A]

Wild.

[B]

If their mile times are probably somewhere in the 3:50 range or so, there's less than a minute difference between their mile pace and their two hour pace. Um, as an amateur athlete with two to three minutes between mile pace and two hour pace, there's a huge difference in feel between the two paces. However, does an athlete with that insane level of zone compression feel as much difference between their top end and lower paces as less developed athletes? Or do the paces feel pretty similar? I know you guys have coached high level athletes like this. Additionally, do you high level athletes have to be more or less vigilant with their pacing and workouts to elicit the desired adaptations?

[A]

Well, I love this question because when you think about like high level elite performance at that like breaking to performance and even across the board in elite athletics, it is all about zone compression and how you can shift those zones closer together and it's. I think it's like.

[B]

Yeah. And which zones you're trying to shift. So in ultras, we're trying to compress zone 2 up against regular threat lactate threshold 2. So zone 2 into zone 3, zone 4. 4. We're trying to push that up. In marathons, we're trying to push zone 4 like you know your, your threshold up towards VO2. And so it is a very strange physiological hack. If you want to hear more about how to do it. I went into great detail on the Patreon bonus episode.

[A]

Oh, did you? I missed that.

[B]

Um, it's. Yeah, it just got into exactly how to do it for ultras in particular, and then how they do it in marathons too, and how we're trying to push the marathons forward. And we've had so much success at marathon recently and I think that's part of why.

[A]

Okay, just give me one thesis statement on your breakdown there of the difference between doing it in ultras. When you're thinking about those different zones, compressions versus doing it marathons.

[B]

So in ultras, it's mostly about blunt force trauma against the top end of zone two. Once an athlete's really fast, really intuitive

[A]

in marathon, what do you mean by blunt force trauma?

[B]

You're, you're doing it in a very economical way in a very repeatable way that you can really hone in. So you know the types of Examples were like, I'm running around the neighborhood over and over again.

[A]

That would be blunt force trauma by definition.

[B]

And get so good at shuttling out all the lactate as it comes in. And it has to be controlled, I think in. But in marathons it's much less about like the blunt force trauma threshold. It's much more about teaching the body to shuttle the lactate at higher outputs than threshold. So you spend time at threshold, you will go above threshold, you come back down and you do that alteration over and over and over until the body stops being responsive to the outputs above of LT2.

[A]

And that's why pace change workouts are so effective for marathon athletes in particular, because you're practicing that over and over

[B]

and over and over again and the cells get better at the shuttling. Um, so that's the big overarching theory. But you can delve into that more

[A]

which then I think, sorry, that this is going into too much. But I think it becomes fascinating when you take a very elite level road marathoner and take them to the trails and think about zone compression on different zones and how do you train that and harness the ability of, you know, that higher threshold.

[B]

But I think what's most interesting and what unites it like, oh, if you

[A]

go get the other direction, you know

[B]

the old pemdas thing where it's like you distribute how you do math. Both are united by top end output. Like if top end output is not obscenely high, you can't compress the zones because it is all compressing based on how close, far away that ceiling ends up being. Um, and so the ceiling is extremely important in zone compression. And sometimes ultra athletes just do so much of it that they end up having their ceiling almost hit their zone too. Yeah.

[A]

And that's a problem. It becomes a huge problem because then you're limiting yourself. And that limitation I feel like, feel like, like distributes across years to the point that like the ceiling becomes lower and lower.

[B]

Damn, I love how much you're so smart.

[A]

You're like, I just like it. Cause that's what I was going to say.

[B]

You're just amazing. Um, and so with. How does it feels? Yes, it doesn't feel bad to these athletes to run this fast, as crazy as that is. But they are on much more of a razor's edge when it comes to paces. So you know, if they start going too hard, especially by like even three

[A]

or four seconds a mile.

[B]

Yeah, you're going to mess up the zone compression frame rate works. Um, whereas most athletes are nowhere near that type of edge. Um, including like very good athletes who aren't at this pace.

[A]

And that transfers. They asked about workouts. That transfers to workouts especially. And that's where like, you know, with elite level marathoners, like honing in much more on splits. Like for trail athletes, it's very vibey when we're talking about hills and, you know, splits and things like that. With elite level road marathoners it is

[B]

like much more important. Okay, last one here. This is just a little commentary from last week. We talked about about my chat GPT asked me how does David Roach feel about. Or do you want to know how David Rich feels about this? And I talked about it. I was worried I was an. But we got one message from a listener, Real talk. My chat GPT asked me if I want to make things sound more like David Roach. It makes me feel better. One, it's kind of cool.

[A]

But two, you actually got a few questions. A few.

[B]

Like, oh, so many people writing in, which is weird.

[A]

That's wild.

[B]

Well, no, I think that they've probably prompted it before about me and some, I don't think it's doing this for like people that have haven't ever expressed an interest. I, I, I think though, either way, it's kind of a weird, strange moment. Here's another message on a similar topic. Thank you both so much for everything you do for the community. The main pot and bonus app are two of the highlights of my weeks. I do have a question, but first I wanted to say the discussion on the main pot about ChatGPT telling you how David Roach would approach it was killing me because I definitely asked ChatGPT a question about bicarbon, then asked it what it thought about your article on it, which is on Patreon. It said, and I quote, ha ha. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Classic roach article. 50% elite physiology insight. 50%. What if endurance science was written by a caffeinated goblin?

[A]

Ouch.

[B]

I feel like goblin is a bit harsh, but I hope it meant it. Well, I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt because it did say nice things about the article itself. So what's so interesting? I talked about this on the David Only episode on Patreon and there was a bug essentially in ChatGPT that was having it talk about goblins all the time.

[A]

Wait, what?

[B]

Yeah, goblins and other mythical.

[A]

It got the goblin disease. Yeah, it got invaded by smut.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's going

[A]

in that direction as soon as you

[B]

introduce, I don't know if they were smutty Goblins.

[A]

I mean, I feel like as soon as you start putting this into, like, these large language models, it's going that direction.

[B]

Top 1%. Goblins.

[A]

These are some good Goblins, dude.

[B]

That's our startup name. Goblin. It can work in multiple ways.

[A]

It really can.

[B]

Goblin.

[A]

Goblin. And. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, my God. That's the best. I don't know if that's a frustration look or an excitement.

[A]

That's an excitement look. No, no. I was holding my eyeballs like, what just happened?

[B]

Goblin. The vagina app.

[A]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

[B]

Our lives have been kind of difficult, so we're having fun with this episode. So that was interesting. A lot of listeners said that. So, hey, if anybody else has experiences with it, let us know. It should be talking a lot more about Megan Roach. Honestly.

[A]

No. It's like David would have a lot more interesting, interesting points to say on these articles.

[B]

Okay, let's go on to Listener Corner. Anything to talk about before we get there. John g. John G. J-A-N-I.com there, or is it.com swap?

[A]

Just go to john g.com. give their main website the love. Yeah, no, I think it is.com swap.

[B]

Try swap. I think it's a special.

[A]

Okay, I'm going there right now. I'm going there.

[B]

Okay, Megan's going there right now.

[A]

I'm doing our investigative journalism.

[B]

Boom. And she searched it and let's see. Is it something then?

[A]

It is. It is something hurt. Rocks are there.

[B]

Just go to this website to see Megan's art.

[A]

Okay, well, these were done. Actually. The date is on the rock. 9121 was when I painted these heart rocks. And guess what? All the paint has been eroded away.

[B]

Paint has been rode away. That was also a couple months before. Your heart.

[A]

You are loved and be love. Those are.

[B]

Yeah. This was on our front porch to

[A]

show also when I had a lot more time in life, I was painting heart rocks.

[B]

Yeah, Megan. Yeah, yeah, I get it.

[A]

The only heart rocks that are painted right now are done with, like splatter paint that's like across the counter and on our walls on our floor.

[B]

Oh, it's a cute. And then there's tons of products there. The men's.

[A]

Oh, our favorites.

[B]

Yeah, the men's multi short. Other things, bras. Lots of great stuff. So go to john.com swap and Megan, go back to our website. Our website.

[A]

I'm loving the long bra right now. And the trail short. Amazing. It's like between the belt and the trail short. I Can carry so many things.

[B]

It's such good stuff.

[A]

Also, the RG bra, you can stick a bottle, so theoretically you could have a hand top, a flask, and a belt and a flask in your bra. And that's three bottles right there without carrying a vest.

[B]

Oh, my God. I'm making the same face that you made a goblin.

[A]

Goblin. That's gonna be the name of our bra.

[B]

No, that's the name of our underwear.

[A]

Our underwear with the.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Built in waist belt.

[B]

Okay, onto a snare corner. This is a very special comment that was on a video of Megan and I running together at Leadville.

[A]

Oh, so fun that you shared that. Yeah, it was the video of me pacing you where I, like, blocked the wind coming off of Twin Lakes. And I was like, I am in for the day of my life facing you right now.

[B]

It's so beautiful. And I. I just love you so much. And I'm just so thankful that we got to experience that together and. Yeah. And also just thankful to everybody out there listening like, it is, you know, a little bit of a time in our lives right now. And it is so fun to share this with you. And so, you know, we'll stop being vague on Patreon.

[A]

I know, dude, I'm like, you're releasing so much.

[B]

I want to have an excuse for my shit, man.

[A]

You've been great. Own it.

[B]

I don't want to own some of

[A]

the things I said you like. I apologize for my goblins.

[B]

I actually stand by that. Goblin would be an amazing name for a vaginal probiotic evaluation card.

[A]

It really would.

[B]

Also, you could just give yourself, like, a badge. You know how NSF Safe for Sport has an NSF badge?

[A]

You should have a Goblin badge.

[B]

You can have a Goblin top 1% badge for your, like, dating profile. It's a great idea.

[A]

It's incredible.

[B]

Okay, but here's the message or the comment. As a relative newcomer to trail running, I've been learning about the history of the sport through the giants Killian, Anton, Scott, Courtney, and others who changed what seemed possible. But I genuinely believe you and Megan are shaping another kind of history, too, through openness, honesty, generosity, and above all, love for each other, for the sport, and for this community. You may not fully realize it from the inside at the moment, but from the outside, it feels historic. A proper milestone for the sport. And many of us are very grateful to witness it.

[A]

Heart, man. That is beautiful. I'm, like, honored. I feel like if we could leave one legacy, love is a pretty good thing to leave. And Sometimes it's hard. Not every week, it feels like. But I feel like showing up authentically. Hopefully that tracks in time.

[B]

Yeah. You know, it's all nonlinear, and we don't know what we're doing, and, I don't know. We all die, no matter what. It's just the nature of it. And so for this person, Pat, to come in and say this, we love you, Pat. Pat. We fucking love you.

[A]

And also, that's a lot of things to write out on the Internet. On Instagram, I know.

[B]

I actually put a screenshot. So it's the whole thing. And to everybody out there, like, we know you're going through stuff. It's just the nature of being human. And. And we love you for that stuff. And just know, if you need a Goblin badge, if you need a top

[A]

1% badge, ChatGPT can design it for us.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Actually, we should get our own. We should get. We have artist connections. We should get an artist.

[B]

Oh, yeah, we should. We should really uplift the artists in our Goblin initiative. But, you know, if you need it. If you just need that little lift me up, you can put it on your big stank protein bottle.

[A]

Our sushi. Just get multiple ones. Kind of like a Girl Scout vest where you collect badges for different things, and they're all the fairy creatures.

[B]

Do you remember the movie Office Space? Did you ever see that?

[A]

No, of course I haven't seen.

[B]

The Jennifer Aniston character wears flare, which are, like, little badges across her shirt when she's working at, like, Applebee's or something.

[A]

Wouldn't it be fun to collect flare?

[B]

Yeah. And all of them are related to your private parts.

[A]

No, no, no, no, no, no.

[B]

Every single one.

[A]

You just want to be like some random thing that we said on the Salt podcast. We should create a podcast. Related flair.

[B]

No one. No app has ever yet evaluated my butthole.

[A]

But I'm not sure there's an app out there for that.

[B]

That's what I'm saying.

[A]

You just haven't looked closely enough. That's what. And you haven't let me look closely enough.

[B]

That's the tagline for Goblin. You just haven't looked closely enough. Until now. We love you all.

[A]

Oh, goodness.