321. Why Hydration Unlocks Endurance, A Creatine Experiment, Tour de France Takeaways, and Athletic Identity Crisis!

Summary

Some Work, All Play - Episode 321 Summary

Episode Title: Why Hydration Unlocks Endurance, A Creatine Experiment, Tour de France Takeaways, and Athletic Identity Crisis!
Hosts: Megan Roche, M.D. & David Roche
Date: July 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode is packed with science-driven insights, personal anecdotes, and plenty of banter from Megan and David Roche. The core themes include experimenting with creatine, a deep dive into hydration and carbohydrate oxidation for endurance, reflections from this year's Tour de France (and upcoming Femmes edition), the intersection of athletic identity with injury and aging, and addressing listener questions spanning nutrition, psychological challenges, and training specificity. As always, the tone blends love, humor, and science, making complex topics engaging and full of practical takeaways for athletes of all backgrounds.

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Key Topics, Insights, and Memorable Quotes

1. The Creatine Experiment

[10:05 – 16:35]

• David begins a personal N=1 creatine experiment during a period of reduced running due to a foot issue, seeking to collect data for athletes considering creatine (especially as it relates to endurance, aging, and performance).

  • Notable Quote:
    • “I don't want to do this while I'm at my peak...I want to kind of do it when I'm at a valley and have nothing to lose.” — David [10:36]

• Observations after a few days:

  • Dramatic drop in David’s resting and exercise heart rate (possibly more related to accumulated fatigue or external factors than creatine itself, due to the time needed for full muscle saturation).
  • Significant salt loss during workouts, prompting caution regarding creatine’s role in hydration and electrolyte management.
  • Megan skeptically attributes some of David's physiological changes to training modifications, not solely to creatine.

• Who should consider creatine?

  • Megan and David agree: it seems most effective for vegetarian athletes, older athletes, and those struggling to build or maintain power.
  • Much less common among male endurance professionals, more so among female elites. Real-life reports from pro-cyclists show off-season use, rarely pre-race.

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2. Hydration & Carbohydrate Oxidation (Science of Endurance Nutrition)

[16:35 – 24:12]

• Study Review: Dehydration reduces exogenous glucose oxidation during prolonged cycling.

  • U-hydrated cyclists had 12–15% greater carb oxidation rates. Even slight dehydration undermines carb absorption and performance.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • “Hydration is the gateway to carbs.” — Vic Johnson via David [18:50]
    • “If you do high carb with dehydration, you’re probably gonna have GI issues.” — David [19:38]

• Real-World Applications:

  • Both Megan and David adjust their own fueling, focusing on increasing fluid intake (up to a liter/hour) with great results.
  • Warning against relying on super concentrated drink mixes, especially in long distance running — can significantly reduce gastric emptying and hydration effectiveness.
  • Gut training is not just about carbs — fluid volume training helps blunt bloat/gut distress, and adaptations come within a few weeks of higher-volume intake.

• Practical Tip:

  • “No matter how much you focus on carbs, it won’t work if your hydration isn’t dialed.”

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3. Tour de France Recap & Endurance Paradigms

[27:49 – 47:26]

• Insane athlete progression: Modern carb/bicarb fueling and training advances mean even young new riders are outpacing former legends, shattering old power/speed records.

  • Notable Quote:
    • “Paul Secsas...would have won every single Tour de France before 2024.” — David [30:00]

• Controversy around late-night doping tests:

  • David criticizes the lack of transparency in selective 2am drug tests, arguing it fuels suspicion and lacks due process.
  • Megan acknowledges the credibility issues facing cycling and proposes mass testing (Top 10 at once) for fairness.
  • Insight: “If you go with one mile to go...no person ready to sprint wants to chase...that's exactly what happens in the Tour.” — David on ‘second group syndrome’ and the power of first movers [40:46]

• Life metaphors from cycling:

  • Peloton tactics = how acting first in life unlocks more possibilities than waiting in the “second group.”
  • Delights of the groupetto—a metaphor for community and enjoying the journey even if not up front.
  • Emo reflection on Parker Valby and the psychology of always leading vs. drafting.

• Look-ahead: Strong encouragement to support and follow the Tour de France Femmes, with both hosts making their picks (Demi Vollering, Kasia Niewiadoma).

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4. AI, Math, and Creativity

[46:27 – 53:00]

• AI milestones: AI has started solving advanced math conjectures that have stymied humans for decades, often via “please keep going” prompts and brute computational power.

  • Raise caution against blind faith in AI and over-reliance for creative or coaching processes.
  • Notable Quote:
    • “It gets back to our argument that AI risks being the apocalypse for creativity. Unless we're constantly uplifting creativity and also failure...” — David [52:49]

• Math is about process, not just solutions: Quoting mathematicians, Megan emphasizes the value in the building, not just checking off conjectures.

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5. Tendon Healing & Accepting Biological Timelines

[53:00 – 59:05]

• JAMA personal reflection: Insightful article from a physician-athlete with a ruptured Achilles tendon — “My tendon doesn’t care...some things heal on their own clock. Push at the wrong time and the effort becomes the injury.”

  • Notable Quotes:
    • “The impatience that serves me everywhere else becomes the one thing most likely to set me back. I hate that this is the lesson, because it is exactly the sort of lesson I am least inclined to learn.” — JAMA author via David [54:44]
    • “The body is a constraint in running and sports...in academics, you can work forever—so in a way, the body keeps us healthy.” — Megan [55:31]

• Hosts reflect on the frustration of injury: Balancing doer (David) vs. thinker (Megan), and the bittersweet lessons that come with forced patience and adapting goals.

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6. Athletic Identity Crisis & Long-Term Uncertainty

[62:42 – 67:52]

• Listener Q: How do you handle recurring injury, missed goals, and the sense of an athlete’s identity fading (esp. with age/illness)?
  • Both hosts offer candid personal stories dealing with their own health/injury, stress the importance of day-to-day joy in training, and advise not reducing one’s identity to outcomes or missed races.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • “Always push back against the dark night...do it as long as you still find meaning.” — David [64:10]
    • “Think about the life you want to lead on a day-to-day basis and let that guide your decision about pursuing goals or stepping back.” — Megan [65:07]
  • Acceptance: Running accelerates the human reckoning with mortality and fragility—a “warm hug” for joining the existential club early.

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7. Listener Q&A (Training & Nutrition Deep Dives)

[70:16 – 93:55]

• Stairs vs. Bike for climbing ultra training:

  • David: Stair-mill (moving stairs) is superior for ultras heavy on hiking—hyper-specific, especially in race build-up.
  • Megan: For one session a week, bike is fun, builds FTP, and is appropriate for strong cyclists. Use both as relevant to phase/goals.
  • Structured stair-mill intervals: e.g., 30s hard/90s recovery over 30min.

• Biking Zone 1 vs. Zone 2 on recovery days:

  • After back-to-back hard bike workouts, Zone 1 is fine for recovery; but for fitness purposes, focus on higher tension (Zone 2) most of the time.
  • “Tension in the chain”—that’s where the adaptation happens. [86:00]

• Hydration logistics:

  • Carrying fluids is logistically challenging but non-negotiable for performance.
  • Fun anecdote: Megan drinking “face first from the hose,” which may not be safe (cue laughter about trusting the “Mimi & Grandpa” water supply).

• On breaks during long runs:

  • If it’s social, enjoy! But frequent/long stops raise questions; generally, better for adaptation to keep breaks short and purposeful.

• Chronically low iron and under-fueling:

  • Low energy availability is a top cause, even more than dietary iron; sometimes GI issues are involved, but usually fueling fixes help.
  • Share satisfaction-bomb meal photos for accountability and celebration.

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8. Memorable Banter & Running Gags

• Mercury being (or not being) in retrograde gets blamed for bicarb “bails.”
• Host couple's gym “splash zones” and elliptical/arc trainer battles.
• “Send us satisfaction bomb meal photos”—sort-of-a-joke, sort-of-serious.
• Cheez-It and smoked oyster, mochi rice nuggets, and Trader Joe’s snack adventures.
• Laugh-out-loud riffing on “dongle” and creative fuel ideas (plus a callback to “jizz of the commentary” in reference to Malcolm Gladwell’s comments — [77:54]).
• Their hypothetical immortality poll sparks philosophical differences (“Would you freeze time at 25 or 37?”).
• Sweet listener letters about shifting from self-punishment to joy through trail running.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (w/ Timestamps)

• “Hydration is the gateway to carbs.” — Vic Johnson via David [18:50]
• “My tendon doesn’t care...some things heal on their own clock.” — JAMA article [54:44]
• “Always push back against the dark night...do it as long as you still find meaning in it.” — David [64:10]
• “The goals are just a means to an end. It does not matter if you achieve them or not. We're all going to that long sleep anyway.” — David [95:27]

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Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–10:05 | Intro, banter, Mercury in retro shade, bicarb stories | | 10:05–16:35 | Creatine Experiment — Rationale, observations | | 16:35–24:12 | Hydration & Carb Oxidation, Endurance Science | | 27:49–47:26 | Tour de France Recap, Fuel Science, Life Lessons | | 46:27–53:00 | AI & Math, Process vs. Solution, Creativity | | 53:00–59:05 | Tendon Healing, Accepting Injury Timelines | | 62:42–67:52 | Identity Crisis, Injury/Aging, Day-to-Day Living | | 70:16–93:55 | Listener Q&A (Stairmill, Bike Zones, Iron, Meals) | | 93:55–End | Listener Letters, Gratitude, Final Encouragement |

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Final Takeaways

This episode delivers:

• Evidence-backed perspectives on creatine, hydration, and fueling.
• Insights on the real-life impact of technology in sport (AI, data, supplement advances).
• Candid emotional honesty about injury and shifting athletic identity.
• Motivational reminders to focus on daily meaning, process, and fun, in sport and life.

As always, the Roches create a welcoming, relatable, and laugh-out-loud environment that makes even the deepest science or most existential musings feel like part of a shared adventure.

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Listen if you want:

• The latest science-backed endurance nutrition takeaways
• Honest discussion on identity, setbacks, and resilience as an athlete
• Laughs about gym fails, snack obsessions, and podcasting with your spouse
• To feel both encouraged and challenged—by science, by life, and by your own best self

“Woohoo! Huzzah!” — Megan & David [96:55]

Transcript

[A]

Woohoo.

[B]

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

[A]

Happy Tuesday.

[B]

It's Tuesday and I have an important

[A]

fact on this Tuesday, an important fact

[B]

I can't wait to hear.

[A]

This is an astronomy fact. Perhaps the only astronomy fact I do indeed know.

[B]

Is this on black holes. Are we talking about quasars? Where are we going?

[A]

It is not on black holes. I barely know what quasars are. It's the fact that Mercury is no longer in retrograde. It is a big deal. After the week we had last week, I'm like, that's a big fucking deal.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Actually we both had very similar experiences. So on Tuesday, director Cody came over. He was gonna film my first speed workout. I took bicarb. I got all lathered up and ready to go and then I bailed. And a bicarb bail is really, really sad. So the outside of my foot hurt, which I think is a compensation injury from the plantar. Classic thing that happens. And yeah, so I had all the bicarb in my system and I just let it go to waste.

[A]

I saw you walking back down the driveway about six minutes after you left and I was just like, oh, no, that's not good.

[B]

At least I didn't go for it with the camera there. You know, that would have been even more embarrassing if I tried to just limp through a speed workout for the sake of you.

[A]

Yeah, I'm proud of you for that, actually. But then you came back and you went, we had Tuesday date night and you did that. You did some things, the elliptical that were wild. Yeah.

[B]

You can't unsee what you saw in the gym. I did an elliptical workout. This is very, very long after the bicarb, but I think bicarb stays in the system for quite a while. I think, you know, you get six to eight hours on it. So I was still using that sweet stuff. But then on Wednesday you had a very similar problem where you bailed on bicarb.

[A]

I did. I was going down for an uphill treadmill workout, a 10 by 5. And those are massive undertakings. And I feel like the like, deep dark corners of your brain are not prepared for that. It's a little bit challenging, especially once

[B]

you get to like minute one or two and it just feels like, oh my gosh, I have so much mountain left to run up. And you know, for you, you just basically stare at the wall when you do these sessions.

[A]

And I usually love that. But on Wednesday I was like, this is a little much for the moment. So I took that bicarb and I went outside for a hot girl walk. It's like, this is going to be a great use of the bicarb right now. But then I actually got inspired by your workout on Tuesday, and I came back and did the elliptical on Wednesday. And so much fun.

[B]

I like it because often the same woman, Jill here at Lifetime Fitness is on the elliptical next to us or the arc chainer next to us, and

[A]

she's reading a library book, literally a foot and a half from you. And you are just sweating in this arc that's probably three feet and raining on her.

[B]

I clear out a radius for sure. There's a splash zone. This is like SeaWorld over here. And after I finished on Tuesday, she's like, well, that's the workout of the day. Sorry, Jill. Didn't mean to do that to you. But then she gets to see you. And so I told her on Tuesday, say hi to my wife Megan for you. But I didn't think you were going to be coming with the bicarb energy.

[A]

Yeah, it was fun, actually. I feel like I still felt the bicarb at like 2:30 on Wednesday. It was great. But I had the addition. Like, I feel like I walked into the gym and I was sweating everywhere. But because I fell the week before too, I was just like, my cut somehow opened. So I was just like, sweaty, bloody, absolute hot mess in the gym. And I was like, God, they must hate me in here so much.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You're not bringing the big influencer energy to Lifetime Phoenix over here.

[A]

No, actually, when I finished on the elliptical, there was literally like rivers running through the foot pedals to the point that, like, in the final few efforts, I actually was just like, sliding around so much. I was like, I might tear my hamstring.

[B]

I totally get that. And you sent a picture of that to me. And that's our version of sex day.

[A]

Yeah. I was like, look at this drip.

[B]

I just had a realization that we used the same packet of bicarb since we ordered the higher dose and we split it. Maybe it was just a defective packet.

[A]

Oh, for sure.

[B]

Or maybe it was delayed action.

[A]

It was absolutely related to the bicarb. It's a lot more fun to blame it on bicarb than being a little bitch. Which was for sure my reason.

[B]

Definitely my reason, too. And so because we had this big bitch energy, I was talking to our amazing nanny, Maya, and I asked. I was like, maybe Mercury's in retrograde or something like that. And she Said, yes, I saw it on TikTok or something like that. So yes, Mercury was in retrograde, which should perhaps explain our bicarb bales.

[A]

Okay. Astronomically, do you know what that means? I feel like you are our like, dad fact astronomy resident here. You should know what that means.

[B]

I imagine it has something to do with how Mercury appears in the sky to the naked eye, but probably isn't necessarily astronomically relevant for anything here on Earth.

[A]

I think you're right. I think it's the fact that like Mercury is like moving backwards from Earth's perspective, but actually is not. It's one of those things of like, it appears to be kind of an

[B]

illusion in the night sky. Interesting. That being said, I totally am convinced at this point. I am. I'm bailing on astronomy. I'm bailing on quasars and black holes. That shit's gone to me. That's dead. I am fully astrological now.

[A]

Okay, well, we need to know the schedule. When am I going to feel like bicarb is not working in the future?

[B]

Sometime at the end of October, I believe.

[A]

The end of October? Yeah. Like during javelina.

[B]

During javelina.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

But maybe that'll be an advantage. You now have micro dosed Mercury retrograde, so now you're ready for the macro dose. There.

[A]

I am prepared. Maybe I should step up my bicarb levels. Like we tone it down a little bit. Relevant to studies. And maybe I should just like sprinkle a little bit more, which in theory is actually how we do it. We just kind of like pour a little bit out based on vibes. Maybe we should just dump a lot more.

[B]

I like it. The swap astrology chart tells you how much bicarb, Gnomeo, Coremzee and carbs to take.

[A]

You know, we should do that.

[B]

Okay. Before the episode, I was looking a little bit more up on this and I saw in Vogue they had an astrologer that said this was a particularly terrible Mercury retrograde. So we're seeing data here.

[A]

Are you going to give the name of the astrologer? Which I'm actually not entirely sure what it was, but it was something along lines of like, Jessica Stardust.

[B]

What was? Lisa Stardust.

[A]

Lisa Stardust. Sorry, Jessica. Sorry, Lisa.

[B]

And here's the quote from her article, but be careful because the retro shade which lasts from July 23 to August 6, is going to be a whole lot messier. So we're currently in that the full moon in Aquarius on July 29 will be intense, bringing a reckoning of all that has happened during the retrograde. So tread lightly, be kind, and stay in your lane.

[A]

Oh, shit. We're still in the retro shade.

[B]

I didn't realize that. Also, Leisa, they'll tell women to stay in their lane. I mean, I'm not just women, but men. Men can stay in your lane.

[A]

Okay, this is a problem. Why is she talking only to women when we're talking to astrology?

[B]

I realize I am the problem now.

[A]

That is a big problem.

[B]

Sorry.

[A]

And also, okay, maybe it's fair because it is vogue.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I give you that. But, like. But yeah, I understand.

[B]

And everybody out there, we fully uplift your views of astrology and everything.

[A]

Like, honestly, we just don't know anything about it.

[B]

We don't know anything about anything, so. And also, the humans barely know anything about anything. This could all actually be the ways that our cells polarize or something like that. I've read a lot of different descriptions. So this week, Megan, things are looking up. The bicarb's gonna hit. And we got this.

[A]

Oh, I feel it. We're. We're in retro shade. And we're bringing it.

[B]

And we have the best episode for today. A quick roadmap. We're gonna talk about week one of my creatine experiment.

[A]

And you had thoughts within a few hours of taking creatine. And I was like, david, I don't know about that.

[B]

Yeah, we'll see. We're gonna start this update as we go. We're gonna keep it short today and see if there's any change over four to six weeks since I have so much data. And I'm currently at a point where it's interesting to do an experiment on something that has a lot of scientific data but a little bit of mixed use in the field. Next up, a study on hydration and carboxation. Then Tour de France wrap up thoughts. That's a big discussion.

[A]

What are we going to do without the Tour de France in our lives? Actually, because we're stepping up to the femmes, which is going to be even more exciting. But it's been so fun to watch it.

[B]

Tour de France femmes, August 1st, I believe that'll be so fun. Then weird AI updates on AI solving math conjectures. A cool article on tendon healing that it was in jama. And questions on stairs. An athletic identity crisis. Stopping on runs weekly structure and more.

[A]

Well, a little preview to the athletic identity crisis. I feel like they could tell that Mercury was in retrograde. And they're like, I feel like this is a good time to ask this question to the roach race. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Honestly, the identity crises, quite good at any time, but especially as a 38 year old athlete. But before we get to the crazy experiment, a quick promo for the feed. Go to the feed.com swap sw first order, 40% off every hundred dollars spent. $10 off the best deal on the market. Just stock the heck up right now. It is so good.

[A]

Okay, I have an important thought as it relates to this.

[B]

Okay. Is this the thought that you were telling me about that you wouldn't actually give me before we got to the podcast?

[A]

I couldn't tell you. I was like, this is too spicy, David.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So I was riding my bike on Saturday and I realized I've been loving the betafuel electrolyte gels for some reason they just make me feel really good. I think the added electrolytes are helpful for me. On the Patreon, I did a riff and I was like, they're acidic. I gotta throw them back. You know what? They're not acidic.

[B]

They're not acidic. Boom, boom.

[A]

We did like a four minute argument and I was like, David, they're so acidic. People are going to agree with me. And I had the realization. I was like, man, I was wrong.

[B]

They're not acidic at all. They are a little salty, they're a little.

[A]

The taste is interesting, but they make me feel good so it's worth it. But they're definitely not acidic. And I had the realization. I was like, David was so right.

[B]

I don't think you have the most sophisticated palate, you know.

[A]

Well, sometimes I just like, I think I just put it down a little hastily and I'm like, this is performance. I'm not really going to think about it. And then I had big thoughts and feelings on something I didn't really think about.

[B]

You're an enthusiastic sipper. That puts it down hastily, apparently. Yeah. The beta fuel electrolyte gels are going to be what I use in races. I strongly Recommend these. They're 40 grams of carbs per gel. They go down really well for me when I'm craving something while exercising. And they're a mixed bag for some people. I think they're a little bit of an acquired taste, but once you get used to them, they are the most fun gel to slurp I've ever had.

[A]

Do you think you're going to mix them? Because if you know you're doing high carb fueling, that's a lot to add. In addition to the precision tabs, are you just going to add those electrolytes or are you going to take it away from somewhere else?

[B]

Think I'll just do scratch in my bottles or some sort of hydration drink rather than needing to supplement electrolytes because I have 200 milligrams extra per gel. So science and sport beta fuel electrolyte gels then Gnomeo is crazy. Want to keep saying that? We're getting more and more information from athletes taking Gnomeo the evening before breakthrough races. It just seems like it is so prevalent now, and I do not fully think we have isolated the variables for why. I think a lot of it comes down probably to adaptation and mitochondrial response rather than the ergogenic response from. But it is super interesting.

[A]

And that's the structure we've kind of set on. Is Gnomeo the night before a race and bicarb the morning of and seeing good performances with that.

[B]

Yeah, it is so, so wild. And now let's move on from that. The feed.com swap and go on to the creatine experiment, which is kind of related because I am personally using the feed lab creatine, which seems like a really good source, but you can use whatever you'd like. Um, okay. So, Megan, do you have any takes on my creatine experiment before we start? I think I'm on day five or six right now.

[A]

Well, I just appreciated the fact that you took creatine starting on Wednesday. What? Well, first of all, like, what made you start taking creatine?

[B]

Well, desperation.

[A]

Yeah. This was after the Tuesday bicarb fail.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You know, I thought I've always wanted to do an N equals one experiment. I've tried in the past, but I realized as I was doing it, I don't think this is wise for me given the responses I've seen in other pro athletes. Very few pro men do it. And while the science is quite good, while the studies are quite good, I was concerned that I don't want to do this while I'm at my peak. I want to kind of do it when I'm at a valley and have nothing to lose. And that's where I'm at right now. Where, you know, the foot is up and down. The plantar itself is good. I'm having other issues. So I thought, okay, well, I have all this data on myself. What a good time to get more data to then give to people to let them know. Here is how you might respond when you have, like, all of my numbers are dialed into 1%.

[A]

You sound like Brian Johnson over here. You're like here's the data.

[B]

What are you talking about?

[A]

You're like, we're still sleeping in the same bed. Same.

[B]

That being said, on the way over here, we had a legitimate conversation.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. You're gonna bring this to the podcast.

[B]

Megan asked, do I have the dongle, which is like the connector of the mic to the computer? And I said, yeah, I did.

[A]

You shockingly did. It was great.

[B]

And it brought up a whole conversation on dongles. And I said, well, at least I don't need Shockwave in my.

[A]

My own dongle yet, which is legitimately a thing. They just shockwave everything these days.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, they do shockwave it if you have issues with erectile dysfunction or similar. And Megan said, oh, David, it would be so much better if this was in your dongle than in your foot. And I'm like, what are you talking about? You want to transition? You think plantar fasciitis is worse than meeting Shockwave in my situation?

[A]

Well, I mean, the thing is, we'd be great. We would, like, find workarounds. We'd have so much fun. It would be awesome.

[B]

It's like Jurassic Park. Nature finds a way.

[A]

Nature finds a way. You always find a way. Actually, there's never been an issue, and it's been great. But the thing is, I just think it would be awesome. And then you could run with your foot. And it's a little bit more like, I feel like the plantar is just so unknown that I was like, you know, nature will find a way unless it's in your plantar.

[B]

Okay. Megan's a coach through and through over here. Thought that was very funny. Okay. So I wanted to do this experiment, and I've been using the feed lab creatine. Seems like it's worked really well. It's really inexpensive. So what I've noticed so far, we're going to keep this really short because you need to be doing it longer to get the elevated creatine levels in your muscles first. I've had extremely low resting heart rate every day. I don't know why exactly. I trained quite hard last week. In fact, let's bring it up. I didn't look at my heart rate last night. Megan can see this on the pod. Look at that. So my resting heart rate has been 36 every day and went 35 last night, which for me is. Is low.

[A]

And that was 36 at 8,500ft, too, which is.

[B]

That's.

[A]

That's really low.

[B]

While training hard, I did a big breakthrough workout yesterday on the Treadmill foot's a little sore today, but so that's strange. I. I feel like that has never happened before. That is probably a creatine response. Um, next. I had extremely low heart rate on the bike, literally the first time I used it. I don't know exactly what that is. I'll just keep you updated. It was shockingly low. My watts to heart rate ratio showed heart rate suppression rather than a fitness signal. Um, and I. I just don't know where that comes from.

[A]

Well, I think that comes from the fact. So you did that on Wednesday. The fact that you did the elliptical dirty on Tuesday night. And I think if you're going in from a massive elliptical workout in the way that you did, which is also a new power stimulus for you, I think you're probably just carrying a little fatigue on Wednesday, but still felt fresh because you're offloading your body, which is an actually interesting thing to think about for athletes is like, you know, doing a big stimulus in the night and then doubling back in the norm in the morning is often an interesting physiology context.

[B]

And just fatigue and training causes heart rate suppression. That's not a fitness signal. Usually. That's just a fatigue signal. Otherwise, kind of feel normal. Do I look any different?

[A]

You look bangin.

[B]

Bangin.

[A]

I talked about this on our Patreon episode. I'm like, it's working. It looks. Yeah, it's working. I would be into it no matter what happened to the dongle.

[B]

The negative, though, the negatives so far is that I have seen insane salt rings on myself. After my ride on Saturday, I was so covered in salt that it was shocking. I've never seen anything like it. And I wasn't that dehydrated. Similarly, on Sunday, I was plenty hydrated on the treadmill covered in salt after. So not sure of that connection, but something to monitor as we go through this experiment.

[A]

Okay, I'm a little skeptical because with creatine, it does take a while to build those stores within your body, especially when you're not doing a loading dose. So you're just doing five grams a day, which is just like the typical,

[B]

you know, me, typical. How many grams do you think I'm doing?

[A]

46.

[B]

Probably six or seven, just based on the rounded scoops.

[A]

But you're still pretty far off from a loading dose, and it takes a while to build those phosphocreatine stores within the body. So I have two theories. One is that you just dialed back your running, and like, outdoor running has a lot of biomechanical Impact and thus dialing it back would probably lead to some of those changes of like, you know, drops in resting heart rate, how you're feeling. And then my second theory is maybe you just got your period.

[B]

That's. That's a great explanation, honestly. Glad you said it. That's.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You had a big period jump last week, right? Like.

[A]

Well, actually, I can always tell my. My resting heart rate drops 3 beats per minute on the morning that I'm going to get my period. And it's always like, it's always interesting to see that. And I'm like, I always forget about it. Even though it's like in the timeframe and even though it's this consistent signal, I'm like, oh, God, yeah. And then I get my period. I'm like, oh, that's why.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, it's interesting to be a woman. A lot of challenges. But we'll keep you updated on creatine, as always. We generally do recomm it for vegetarian athletes, aging athletes, which a bucket that I'm falling into for athletes that find themselves power limited. And we're unsure on the professional end of the spectrum because as we talked about before, while the studies indicate there should be some adoption, the in practice it seems very low. And so I've been reaching out to a bunch of professionals who we don't coach to ask them if they take it. I've heard from some pro cyclists that they do sometimes take it, especially in the off season and less so around races. We'll see what we see from runners and things. But for now, you very rarely see it in professional runners.

[A]

I was gonna say I do see it more often though. If I do see it in professional runners in female athletes, and I think that gets the power piece, is that it can be so helpful in building power. And that's often a place where female athletes, like, once you build that power reservoir, it's so helpful.

[B]

Yeah, but the heart rate response stuff is weird. Like, I trained hard last week. When you look at how like the amount of time I spend in zone three, zone four, and some really hard effort for my heart rate to be that low, it is definitely anomalous. Like, I have so much data. I've never seen a week like that before, especially when I'm a little bit fried. So we'll see. Might be good, might be bad, might be in between, might be period. Next up is a study on hydration as it relates to carbohydrate oxidation. Here it is. Exercise induced dehydration decreases exogenous Glucose oxidation during prolonged cycling in a temperate environment. It took nine trains, male cyclists and triathletes and it had them do two trials of 160 minutes of cycling. They had 60 grams per hour of glucose in both. So just single source carbohydrates. One of the trials was dehydrated and one was U hydrated. So plenty of hydration on board.

[A]

And in the dehydrated group they did just 15 milliliters of water after doing the carbs every 20 grams every 20 minutes. And then in the U hydrated group, they were doing two plus liters per water average across the session, which is a substantial amount of hydration. And what they found is that, and this, this is kind of what we would hypothesize is that the peak and mean glucose oxidation went down in the group that was dehydrated. And the peak and mean it was about 12 to 15% for each.

[B]

Yeah, and I did some back of the envelope math on that. 12 to 15%. So who knows if those are the exact numbers, but it's in that range, you know. And also they decrease their plasma volume, which makes sense with dehydration. So this is a very simple study design and it is very much a study design looking for effect size because on one hand you're having people be extremely dehydrated, on the other hand you're having them be fully you hydrated, like tons of hydration on board relative to the work they were doing because it was pretty low intensity. So the question is, what happens when you look at a little bit more marginal dehydration? Does that matter? And I always come back to the text I got the night before Leadville 2024. So this was from Vic Johnson, who's nutritionist to the stars in trail running.

[A]

We love Vic. He's also, I hung out with him a lot at Western states. He's also just a great guy.

[B]

Yeah, he's great. He's caring, very good human. Actually, after the H drop discussion week, he sent a follow up that they have a program that they're using with the data. So I need to learn more about that. Unfortunately, I don't think I respond. Life with kids is sometimes a shit show.

[A]

Hi Vic, here's your response. He's got a kid too.

[B]

Yeah, he gets it, he gets it. And now we're giving you a plug. But that text, you know, I've never worked with him officially though we, I, we have worked with the same athletes. So like pro athletes that work with both of us. Was hydration is the gateway to carbs. And then he went on to say, just focus on your hydration out there. And I took that with me into the unknown in 2024 and it made a huge difference. And I think that that is a signal from what we're seeing at the top end that often athletes think carbs are the most important. But in reality, hydration is way more important than carbs. It is so important that we don't even talk about it that much. Just assuming that everybody knows, because it will sabotage and undercut your performance independent of carbs long before anything else. But then if it also reduces carboxidation rate, that will be a massive hit for how you're able to absorb the carbs that are coming in. So if you do high carb with dehydration, you're probably gonna have GI issues.

[A]

And this has been game changing for me. So actually, since wearing the H drop, I've been focusing more on hydration levels. And this is where I think the H drop is sometimes useful is it's not a one to run replacement, but often you do hydrate a little bit more. And this weekend, in my long run, I did a liter of fluid an hour, which is a lot more like I'm just a slow sipper traditionally. Like, I'm just out there sipping slowly, maybe getting in 500 milliliters an hour, which is not a ton.

[B]

But it's enthusiastic.

[A]

It's enthusiastic, yes. I'm all about it. It's so great. But then I felt the way that I, I, I did that in the bike on Saturday and then on my long run on Sunday, and I just felt so much better after. And to me, that was like, that was the, the, the point to be like, okay, I need to continue doing this in the future.

[B]

Yeah. And it's something I had to learn too. I think a lot of the things that held me back in the past were dehydration related in races rather than carbs. And then once I figured out hydration, I was able to figure out carbs. But before that, if I tried to figure out carbs, it wouldn't have worked anyway. And so, yeah, here's just another vote for hydration coming first and thinking about that as a primary driver of your performance and then going to carbs. And I think that this also underscores one of my biggest pet peeves, which is drinks mixes that are extremely high carb in your bottles. At that point, it is probably not fully hydrating. We need studies on this. And I Think that if you do that, if you rely on that, it could lead you down dark paths where you have lack of gastric emptying, you have GI issues, so you think you're getting hydration, but in reality the effective rate of that hyd is lower than the fluid that you're getting in.

[A]

I totally agree and have anecdotally seen some athlete races just go south from having that. Do you think it matters? So I get the question from athletes like, hey, it would be more convenient to carry this high carb bottle with me for this one hour of the race and I'm going to do that four times within a 26 hour race. Do you think that situation matters where you're not relying on it, but you're still getting this like high carb kind of gut bomb for an hour in there?

[B]

I think if you think of it as a gel maybe, but then it's just totally different. Like thinking that it's like a gel flask rather than a drink flask. I don't know, I just don't think for running it's the best. I think for cycling it makes a lot of sense. I think for short running races, things like high carb Martin mix clearly can work. But as you start to go longer, the risk with slowing down gastric emptying gets so high that you just kind of have it sit there and going a little bit lower concentration and having your fluid focused on just the hydration component I think is probably the right way to go for most athletes. I mean, we get so much detail on this via Patreon messages, you know, so this isn't just athletes. We coach our own bias, we hear everybody's terrible gut stories and actually.

[A]

Honored.

[B]

Honored. Yeah.

[A]

Thank you. People have sent us things that they're always like, this is tmi. And I'm like, we're the TMI queens. Send it our ways.

[B]

Yeah, that phrase that it's a warm hug, this is a warm something else. And we get a lot of them and, and you know, often they'll tie it to carbs. And then the first question I always ask is, are you doing extremely concentrated drink mix? And I think that that stuff can often be amazing during training especially, but once you transition to racing and the strain on the gut becomes higher, it becomes a slight risk.

[A]

So I also do think as you talk about strain in the gut, that taking in that volume of liquid is also a different strain on the gut. Like I felt that this weekend where a liter of fluid an hour on the bike versus running feels quite different. Like I had that sensation of more gut fullness as I would like stomach fullness as I was out running. And that's important to train just as much as like carb training.

[B]

And what some of the most fascinating studies on gut training point at how quickly the bloat can be trained away. So those adaptations take just like two to three weeks usually for getting used to that. So as always, hydration is also our gateway to gut training where you take in more fluid at once than you usually normally would. And if you do that, it trains your body for the bloat and then you use carbs to train your body for gut transporters which are specific to digesting the carbs. But the bloat has to be trained too. So yeah, I love this study because it's super duper simple. But it points out the thing that might be the missing link for how a lot of people consider it. We are so carb heavy in the way we focus on things that I think often we're missing. It is all pre assuming that hydration needs are met as the first like absolute requirement to get in the door.

[A]

Well, I think sometimes the hard part about hydration needs too is it's logistics.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

Like you have to carry. I don't love carrying so much fluid. Like this weekend I structured my lung around, around going to your parents house and just drinking face first from the hose, which I had to like alter my route and I required a hose at Mimi and grandpa's house. But I think like, you know, thinking and pre planning those logistics helps a ton.

[B]

You trust the hose at Mimi and grandpa's house?

[A]

You know I thought about that for a second. Yeah. You know Grandpa, I was Grandpa the other week was like, maybe I have cyclospora. And I was like, maybe this is the source.

[B]

No, exactly. I love my parents so much and I love dad so much, but I would not trust any water source that is not being sourced from a municipal supply.

[A]

I agree. I was like, I don't know where this hose is coming from. But you know what, when you're so thirsty, I was like, it doesn't matter.

[B]

That's true. We had someone on Patreon write in that we read on the bonus episode this week that said they got so thirsty that they sucked the salt like the, the water off their shirt that they had sweated out. So that's an extreme version of a very similar process.

[A]

You know, that might be better than your parents hose.

[B]

It might be. Yeah.

[A]

In a. Would you rather game. I Might rather like I know the source and the source is me.

[B]

Yeah, evolution is the filter rather than whatever dad put on the hose.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, let's get on the next topic. Before we do that, a quick promo for Patreon. So here's a quote from a comment that I think you need to see because someone did our marketing for us. I pasted this in. Oh, oh, sorry. Just knocked down something. Here it is from our boy Rob, who just subscribed. My goodness. Subscribe today specifically to read this article and wtf. You are massively underselling what you're offering on here on the pod. Thank you for this article. I will be referencing constantly and for the best running listen in the game. So this was on the 99 Lessons from Professional Road Running article, which is an incredibly long one that really digs into the nooks and crannies of training theory.

[A]

That means a ton. I also wonder if as they were typing this up, they're like, this is going to be on the podcast. Maybe it's like chatgpt. They need to sprinkle in enough compliments that they're like, this one's going to come.

[B]

No, honestly, as much as I appreciate Rob for doing this, if he just subscribed, I don't think he cares that much.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like, we've talked about this shit for years and have tried to sell it as hard as we can. So, Rob, appreciate you being here, but like, come on, man. No. So that article was there and then maybe the biggest one last week was. Is improving bike power for runners, which digs into 12 lessons on how to actually get your bike power higher, which is a very tricky question for runners. And so a lot of people said that one will change the way they train forever.

[A]

And I think you had. I think one of the most important points in here was like, it did a great job of like summarizing why we think about bike power and how we structure workouts the way that we do is that I think oftentimes we talk about like easy training as it relates to running can be whatever pace like you go out there. And if you're running six minutes slower than your marathon pace, you are still benefiting yourself aerobically by biomechanically. But I do think cycling is a little bit different. Yes.

[B]

If someone's FTP is 2:50, biking at 90 watts is going to do almost nothing for you. And so it gets into the exact rationale for that and why cycling is different and why you need to do things in a much more focused way than a lot of runners understand. Um, but I think it also makes biking way more fun because runners are equipped to be very good on a low volume of bike training. So go check that one out.

[A]

And also why Z2Biking Matters, which is like, one of my favorite things, is just to go out and romp and see to on the bike. And I think those days are great.

[B]

And spoiler alert, your biking heart rate zones are not 10 to 15 beats per minute lower than your running ones. That shows a training limitation. And so here's another quote from a listener. Holy crap. 200 bonus episodes. So that was the other week. We're at 2.01now. Didn't even notice, but congrats. I don't know exactly what's changed, but the podcast has gone from really amazing in a raw, rough around the edges kind of way to a chef's kiss times a million kind of maturity and excellence. 200/320 main episodes of Practice really has an impact. That kind of feels like a neg.

[A]

I was going to say. I don't know how they feel about maturity after we talked about the dongle. You brought that up. That one's on you.

[B]

Yeah, it's true.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

So go to patreon.com swapswp Also, tons of training plans there for every distance. And if you can't afford it, we will get you in for free. So just email us. Okay, now we're on to Tour de France. Thoughts? This is less about cycling if you're not a cycling fan. This is more about the things we witnessed at the ultimate test of endurance, which was this year's Tour de France. It was one of the best races I've ever seen.

[A]

It is kind of wild. I love Phil Gaiman. He does great recaps. He wrote draft animals and he was talking about. He's like, you know, think back to where you were on stage one of the Tour and just how much life we've lived. Like, you know, Mercury probably wasn't in retrograde when the Tour started.

[B]

I actually think it was.

[A]

Was it?

[B]

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Yeah, you're gonna need to do an iPhone notes app apology.

[A]

Yeah. Sorry, guys.

[B]

Yeah. Sorry, guys.

[A]

Sorry, guys.

[B]

Sorry to all.

[A]

I didn't know. I don't know my merch.

[B]

Gross. It's okay. I'll.

[A]

I'll.

[B]

I'll make sure she's okay next time.

[A]

We're all good. Uh, but think about that, like, just how much life these guys have been living on the Bike and there was just a lot of like stories from the Tour. I feel like as a result.

[B]

Yeah, so, so cool. So we're going to start with just the things that we listed as we went first. They put Whoop dead on the screen, which primarily looked at athletes sleep and resting heart rate and things. And I'm almost positive that they lied about all this whoop data because it constantly said like Tade Pogacha was getting 9 hours 43 minutes of sleep. I don't think that's true at all. Do you think they were telling the truth?

[A]

You know, sometimes I just think if you wear Whoop when you're lying in bed, it's like, here's a great sleep score.

[B]

I don't know, Whoop usually is pretty rough on your sleep scores relative to Garmin or something, right?

[A]

Yeah, but I think they're all giving you some bonus. Like if you're just hanging out in bed, just chilling, I feel like it gives you. But I mean, Toddy was averaging like 9 hours and 30 minutes of sleep. I'm like, how is he doing that?

[B]

I'm so confused. I think that it's all a scam. I just want to go on the record and say that they are lying on those telecasts and all of that data is fake.

[A]

You know, UAE has big bucks for investment and maybe there's just hiring someone to sleep in the whoops of the riders. So the writers aren't actually wearing them, but they have like a sham person and they're like, I like it. It'd be hard to recruit that. They need a resting heart rate of like 35.

[B]

Tadde was 42, so was he reasonable? I mean, theoretically he was getting to 198 max heart rate plus so. So he has a very wide range of heart rates, which I think is.

[A]

They showed his HR V too and it was over a hundred consistently.

[B]

Yeah, everybody's different. The, the absolute MA numbers don't matter so much, but yeah, so big conspiracy. All the whoop data faked on the telecast. Uh, number two, the high speed of all of these races. So it is just bonkers to see how much the sport has progressed in such a short time. So getting away from speed. Speed could be a product of, I don't know, a tailwind, the good bikes or whatever. Let's get to power. Paul Secsas, 19 year old, the youngest athlete to do the tour since 1937 in fourth place, would have won every single Tour de France before 2024. This includes some of the Tade and Jonas Tours, which shows how much the power numbers have increased because he was, you know, 10 plus minutes behind this year. So the power numbers have had a fundamental jump, not just at the front of the pack, but across. It is truly wild. It is probably mostly a carb signal, but we're not really sure.

[A]

And I think carbs, and we talked about this a little bit, are changing how athletes are racing in the sense that, like, if a break gets away, you can't actually let that break away for too long because, you know, with carbs, your fatigue resistance is much higher and you can push that effort for longer. But I wonder if that pulls the speed of the entire peloton.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Because, you know, if the peloton now has to close in on breaks earlier and not let them get too far away, is it just. It pulls the speed of everyone along?

[B]

Yeah. The most fun time in all these races is called break formation, which is usually off the telecast if you just start watching near the end. But it's in the first hour, hour and a half, where over and over, people try to get off the front of the peloton. And often it's like, like 30, 40 of these moves. And it's also the fastest time in the race. And if people are more hesitant to let a break get away, that makes it faster. But the climbs themselves at the end of these races are just going insane. It is so shocking. And it gets back to t PA at the Alp d'.

[A]

Huz.

[B]

So the most famous climb in cycling, he broke the record by Marco Pontani, who set it in 95, I believe, in the middle of the EPO era, you know, known doper, and he obviously has a better bike and all of that. But it was such a huge reset that it led to so much skepticism online. And I think the solace we all have is that it's not just tade, you know, it's. It's. All of these athletes are progressing. And so, yes, it's a carb signal. It's obviously a bicarb signal. I think it's mostly high carb plus bicarb. But then it's also just the level of training has increased. Everything has improved. And so you would expect to break records from 1995, even when they were doped to the gills.

[A]

How much do you think he could have broken it by? Because he looked relatively pedestrian at the start. And then to see him, I mean, he did have. He had the help up there. Who was. Was. It was Adam Yates. Adam Yates who came back after having a stomach virus to be a satellite rider up there. But I feel like Tade could have. I could. I think he could have gone, like, 45 seconds faster.

[B]

Megan. He averaged 7 watts per kilogram. So it was objectively either the first or second best cycling performance of all time. His other performance on Plateau Debay was the best. So. Yeah, I don't know exactly. Um, and that actually brings us to a message from a listener here, which gets to our discussion last week on the 2am tests where Tadeh Pagacha and Jonas Vinagard got tested at 2am and we pushed back against that because we said that if they have this standard that requires serious and specific evidence, and they do not present at least some of that evidence, and they just, like, let us insinuate that it is the fact that their power numbers are so high, it will not create more certainty, it will just create more suspicion. And I think Alpe d' Huez proved that times a million. Because after Alpe d', have we, as everyone cited, oh, look at those 2am Tests, of course he's cheating. And it's like, that is the exact opposite of what the intent should have been.

[A]

Okay, well, I'm going to push back against the pushback in the sense that, like, if you present that evidence that is not fully formed, that's like releasing rumors to the public. And can you imagine, like, how that would be taken and how that would be distorted? So I feel like if you have minimal evidence, you need to act on it, but you can't present the evidence until you have the full facts.

[B]

It's called the law. It's called due process.

[A]

Okay, okay. I'm not arguing with a lawyer. I should just step back and be like, it's not acidic.

[B]

The whole point of due process is that you need to have evidence and

[A]

obviously to present the evidence until you're in court. Like, it's like, you know, presenting.

[B]

Yeah, Megan, go to hell. So here's the message from the listener, who's an incredibly smart person, and we went back and forth a lot on this. I have to say that I agree with you on most points, but when it comes to the doping test in connection with the Tour de France, I have to disagree. Of course, what happened to Vinegard, where he crashed the next day, is extremely tragic. But cycling has a history. It still hasn't shaken off and must continue to work on rebuilding its credibility. Extraordinary performance on Alpe d'.

[A]

Huez.

[B]

I completely agree with you that this must never come at the expense of the athlete's health. And that such a test must not be a mere show of activism. However, the fact that a court had to approve the test is important. The testers couldn't have done this on a mere impulse. I would have been in favor of testing not just individual riders, but, for example, the top 10. And all at the same time to avoid unfairness. I think it's unrealistic to tell the teams what the rationale is that would render the fight against doping ineffective because they know what the testers are looking for. Assuming that doping is actually taking place, this would only increase the team's information advantage. So very valid disagreement. I push back against every point, though.

[A]

I actually agree with that. I would. Okay. I would make the argument, though, that the teams do know what they're looking for, and I think everyone knows what they're looking for, which is microdoping of some kind of substance that would occur in the middle of the night. And so that. I think that is less relevant. But I do think that if they're going to do this, they need to test the top 10. And I understand why they're not sharing the rationale. That makes sense.

[B]

And again, that gets back to my point. If you're testing everybody, including the French writer Paul, sacrifice us. I'm in support of that because I understand then the rationale, which is you're just doing a broad sweep, right? Like in. In law that actually has a nature. Like if you're doing some set way of searching, like at a checkpoint or something, that is fine. But if you just go and search someone with terrible evidence, that is bad. And then the other argument that I really wanted to push back against is that these riders are paying to make the sport more accountable for what riders did 20 years ago. That reminds me so much. Much of the arguments where it's like, this kid was bad at lunch, so no one's going to get recess. Except that kid was in school 20 years ago. That's irrelevant. And as we learned without Duez, it didn't actually create any more sense of certainty. It just brought more suspicion into the game and made everyone doubt the writers more.

[A]

I do agree with you on that. Point is, I think because of this, everyone's like, you know, what is it? What is actually evidence that they have? They must have evidence. And I think it's created, along with the power and the performance, a broad sense of skepticism that probably needs to be talked about better. So I agree with you on that. Boom.

[B]

And that's what I'm saying. Just give some evidence. Even if that Evidence is just. These writers are super strong. We want to test for this. That would be great, actually, because even if you say you don't actually have

[A]

much evidence, but that makes me think that they actually have evidence they're not sharing.

[B]

That's the thing. That's the point, though, because, see, exactly. You're showing where the suspicion comes from. But if their evidence is actually. Look, just really, we want to bring more certainty to the sport. That would make everybody feel more comfortable, but in the empty spaces they fill in the Lance Armstrong narrative or whatever, even though there is no smoke around these athletes other than their power performances. Like, unlike back in the day when everybody knew that there was shit going on all the time, now even at the top end, everybody's like, well, these are crazy power numbers. But you know what? No one really has any information.

[A]

Well, and I think that actually is relevant is we are in the era of the cell phone too, where if anyone did have information, I feel like that would be leaked in smoke ways that we actually have not heard, unless we're not privy to those conversations. But, like, which is probable. Which is. Which is very probable. You know, I do think that point is relevant.

[B]

And I. I just always come back to, like, evidence is a good thing. Like, you're not. You're not surprising anybody, I promise. Like, if they were cheating in a way that would be caught at 2am, you're not surprising them by testing at 2am because they're far beyond that in sophistication. And so, you know, by being open, you're helping people understand that, like, look, this can all be above board. We don't have to assume this is some underground mafia thing. Okay, next up here. I wanted to say the Gruppetto sounds delightful. Megan, do you want to be in the Groupetto?

[A]

I do. So the Groupetto is often the group off the back of the peloton composed of sprinters. Usually, yeah.

[B]

And any rider that doesn't want to compete up front, all you have to do is beat the time cut or

[A]

anyone that has a stomach virus. Probably not a great place to be in.

[B]

True. Actually, the Groupetto is a petri dish.

[A]

Yeah, it's grandpa's hose back there.

[B]

But you just get to go back at the start of the first climb and hang out. And, yes, it's not easy easy, but you do get to ride around France in a beautiful way, which for these athletes, they're so strong that I kind of want to get good enough in another life to be in the Tour de France, just so I Can ride the groupetto. I'm going to dedicate my entire life to that because that is my dream.

[A]

It's kind of like I feel like there's some, like, good bromance going on back there too. They're, like, pouring water on each other, even not as teammates. And I'm like, that looks fun.

[B]

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, yeah. So groupetto. Yeah. Me and my astrology bros are going to go in there.

[A]

We need a heated rivalry Tour de France edition. There's plenty of opportunity.

[B]

Oh, my goodness.

[A]

Actually, choose your. Choose your pick. We got Jonas and Tade. We got Tade and Isaac.

[B]

Isaac del Toro.

[A]

Yeah. I'm trying to think. We got the people in the Groupetto. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The entire Groupetto.

[B]

Absolutely the Groupetto. The amount that it hurts up front looks really rough, Granted, still hurt me, obviously, in the back, but I really want that then. Next fun story. Timon Arnesman, one of the best riders on ineos, which had a terrible tour. He missed his start time time for the time trial. So it said go, and he wasn't there.

[A]

He was just missing. And then 15 seconds later, he appears, but they actually kind of like, stopped him. He was just trying to roll through because he knew he was late, and they, like, stopped him and made him come to a stop and then go on. I would be so pissed. Yeah.

[B]

But pros, they're just like us.

[A]

Yeah, man. I'd be 10 minutes early to every.

[B]

Yeah, it's true, actually.

[A]

I'm chronically early to the point that it's actually, like, not productive.

[B]

Yeah, we had a lot of disagreements in our office. I'm a chronically early person, too. But you put me to shame so much because I will not care about it for the sake of no reason. Like, I won't be like, if this is a friend that doesn't care, I'll show up on time or a minute late and it won't matter.

[A]

But you have. You are. So. I just feel like, savvy in cutting it close that I'm just a little bit like, we should be leaving. We should be getting out the door right now.

[B]

I've never been late for anything. Do you have nightmares all the time that you are late for a start line or something?

[A]

No, because I'm always early. That's true. Okay.

[B]

Maybe if I was less savvy, I would not have those nightmares anymore. Okay, Final thing I wanted to mention here, that's just like a broader life point is second group syndrome. So this is an element of cycling tactics, especially if you don't understand cycling tactics, that forms the basis of all of it. So the draft is very strong, which usually means you want to be in a group. Right. But if you get off the front of a group, everyone, unless they have teammates in that second group, is incentivized not to be on the front of it. So the theory is, in second group syndrome, no one actually wants to push, because if you push to some leader, you are giving away your race. So unless you're giving away your race for a teammate, there's almost always incentive to be the first mover. The first mover is the one that has the opportunity to win and usually would. And so here's just a vote in life, because I think that's a great metaphor, actually.

[A]

I was. That's exactly where I was taking it is like, think about that in life, of the power of being the first mover and going for it and seeing what happens, rather than just holding back and forth, be like, nothing's gonna happen.

[B]

And to make this about really important things. Every Zwift race I've ever won came from this principle. It's never not because I'm the best sprinter or the strongest. Um, it's because if you go with one mile to go, and it makes it so that no person that is ready to sprint wants to chase, and so they might let you get far enough ahead that you don't get caught. And that's exactly what happens in the Tour de France, too. But it also happens at the U.S. championships this year on the track. Did you see those times?

[A]

Actually, that's exactly where I was going. Is obviously, like, the draft matters a little bit less running, but it still matters, which is actually a point that we bring up a lot to our athletes. Even in places like the Boston Marathon, drafting matters a ton.

[B]

I do say that a lot. Draft your ass off. And then I saw Emily venters at the 6k and 8k literally spend 0 seconds behind anyone. She's like, david's gonna hate me for this. She told me after the six game. I'm like, nah, man, it was obvious you were ready.

[A]

Actually, I do think psychologically, there's some athletes that benefit less from the draft that benefit. Like, I think I'm actually. I fall into that category is I think I actually perform better when I am the one leading. And I think that's a psychological thing. And I probably make up difference, like the small difference in running draft from the psychological benefits.

[B]

Yeah. You can see anyone who comes from a cycling background in running because they Just sit on people's asses.

[A]

They just lock in and kick.

[B]

Yeah. So the 10k with for women went out in 1:40, which is just the slowest first lap I've ever seen or conceived of. And then they closed incredibly hard in the second 5K. And that shows just like how this stuff works. It happened the same in the men's 10K. Meanwhile in the women's 5K K, Parker Valby led for 4600 meters because I think her theory was she's best in front, but then she got passed by two athletes at the line. So like it shows where the incentive comes that you either if you're the first mover, you have to break away. You can't just do a soft move, you can't just run your own pace because then people will sit on you and benefit from the draft. You have to be the first mover and you have to go hard until you get off the away from the draft.

[A]

I wonder psychologically how often like Parker Valby is probably like you look at. Statistically, she's probably almost always the first mover in a race.

[B]

She always does that.

[A]

Yeah, she always does that. And like, you know, does that align like to me she's, and I say this with the utmost respect, she's a bit of a killer when it comes to racing. And that's like a great thing. Like she's, she's going for it and I feel like that's related to being a first mover maybe.

[B]

Yeah. The other week I was in the sauna with her after. So we, we had our date night double and then I went to the sauna and saw her there. She had no idea who I was. Was. And I totally butt into a conversation and was like, I heard you mention Florida. You're Parker Valvie.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And it was like I got out of that sauna so fast because she was delightful. She was so kind to me. But as I was saying that, I was like, man, this is creepy. For everybody else that's in the sauna who heard that, they're just like cringing so far inside their souls right now that I have to get outta here immediately.

[A]

Well, I've actually realized that having conversations in the sauna really drops my rpe. Like it's so much easier for me to stay in the sauna when I'm having conversations as an introvert is wild.

[B]

Well, it's also weird because when I'm in the sauna with you, you refuse to talk to me after five minutes.

[A]

I'm working. I'M sweating.

[B]

Yeah. But why don't you talk to me? That would roll your rp.

[A]

I should, I should. I really should.

[B]

Boom.

[A]

More. We've been in the sauna. Like, that was when I was early in my heat training days.

[B]

You know what we could do? We could role play where you sit on the other side of the sauna from me. Oh, fine. And then I overhear part of your conversation, and then I come in and say, oh, I heard this. Are you Megan Roach?

[A]

Who are you?

[B]

I heard about your nose ring and your various bottoms. Bodily excretions on the SWAT podcast.

[A]

Well, everyone in the gym already knows about my bodily excretions.

[B]

They can see this.

[A]

Actually, I walked into the sauna on Wednesday and there was a person in there that saw my elliptical, and they're like, what are you doing in here? Oh, yeah, you already did your sauna on the floor of the gym.

[B]

Sweaty enough. But the Tour de France was incredible. And just vote for the Tour de France Femmes. Let's follow that coming up. I mean, the more support that it gets, the better. So August 1st to August 9th broadcast live in the moment. But then watch all the recaps. We'll keep you updated on where to get that.

[A]

Give me your pick. Who's going to win the Tour de France? Femmes shall go first. Demi Vollering.

[B]

Yeah, you pick the. The superstar. I mean, Pauline who won last year, she hasn't had the best year. And there are a lot of reasons possibly for that, but, like, you know, champion last year, that's usually the best bet in things is to go with whatever happened yesterday. And so that's my logical pick, but my emotional pick. Kashya Niyodama, she is the. The best. She's my favorite athlete other than Kate Courtney, and so that's my pick.

[A]

Yeah, she always pulls down her jersey, and whenever I'm out riding and it's hot, I'm like, I'm gonna show some sports bra here.

[B]

When I say she's my favorite athlete, immediately say, she pulls down her jersey. Has nothing to do with that. With her partner, Taylor Finney, on the Tour de France, she was doing stage recaps. And they are the best, and I want to be their best friends. They have no idea who we are, of course, but, like, they were so funny on every single one. And something about their vibe together. Together is just calming but also exciting at the same time. That's why Megan, not because the zipper,

[A]

I. I like it. It's like the vibes that I channel when I'M out riding. I'm like, we're gonna show some sports bra here. But they do. They probably talk two times slower than we do in a really charismatic way. Like, should we slow down our talking even?

[B]

Honestly, there is a very sensual vibe.

[A]

Yeah, it's. There's something about it. And I'm like, I. We just sound like chipmunks and they're over there being sensual. Yeah.

[B]

When I want a sensual vibe, I just do the little zipper thing, but all my bib shorts on the back of them.

[A]

Oh, you have a great window, though, because, like, your bib shorts are a little short and your. Your bike jersey is a little short too. So you have this got this, like, circular window of your. Of your abdomen when you ride. And I like it.

[B]

It's like a FUPA sunroof.

[A]

It's like your Kashia fupa.

[B]

Okay. At first I was like, she. She just didn't like, give me credit for fupa sunroof. And then I'm like, kasha, FUPA is actually really good.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, let's very quickly do the AI fun point, because this was very strange and kind of took over social media. If you're in the places I am where you just like reading about science and AI and things. First is something called the Jacobian Conjecture, which was solved by Claude Fable, I believe.

[A]

Claude Fable, yep.

[B]

And I just think it's very interesting because this conjecture has been around for a while. Claude found a counterexample and disprove it, essentially. And, you know, obviously AI comes with a lot of issues, but we're seeing these types of leaps that were promised, at least in fields that are starting to get farther astray from binary code. And obviously mathematics is also numerical, also proof based. But to me, this seems like the type of thing that is just super weird and interesting. Since we're only in 2026, this is still ahead of schedule, especially as it relates to AI skeptics, which I have increasingly become one. But then I see something like this and I'm like, oh, well, I don't understand exactly what this is, but it seems very interesting.

[A]

I can't imagine being a mathematician right now and seeing AI coming in. It reminds me a lot of actually being within the endurance world and seeing all of this new technology come in. Like, we're talking about lactate gels, we're talking about bicarbonomyo. Like, where does this stop? And unfortunately, AI is not stopping, it's just coming. And it has to be just a wild era to be within, like, to Be within math. And to be thinking about this. But actually, as I was reading the article, I realized that I'm not serious about math because they use it in the plural. Everything is about the men. Maths.

[B]

Oh, maths.

[A]

The maths. And I don't think I. I don't think I ever stepped up enough to, like, be in the. The math. I was only in the singular math world. I was never in the plural math world. Okay, did you ever make it to maths or did you stop at math?

[B]

Oh, God, no.

[A]

Yeah. I'm like, we're not doing maths, man.

[B]

Yeah, No, I mean, math was my thing when I was young.

[A]

Same when I was young. And then in college, I was like, yeah, this is. It's a little too three article for me.

[B]

Yeah. As I got farther along, I'm like, oh, my goodness. Goodness. The fact that human brains can conceive of this is bonkers to me. I prefer just not to know how things work. When it gets that theoretical and which is interesting, AI is kind of bridging that gap between theory and practice and then just raw output in the amount of work that can be done. Which brings to the next one, which is called Dynix. Garg, Gomens, the mathematicians out there are all cringing out of their souls. None of these are like conjectures or things that define the way we think about the world. This is all just kind of canaries in the coal mine. So the most interesting part of this one that was solved is the person that was prompting AI, and I think this was ChatGPT 5.6.

[A]

Yes, correct.

[B]

Only used four prompts for it. About this theorem. The first prompt, you should do a breakthrough and find a structured counterexample to this theorem. It worked for 52 minutes. Which shows that level of work with that level of computing is the amount that a human brain would take. I mean, maybe a lifetime to do. Maybe many, many, many lifetimes. Next prompt. We're going to get to a very funny one soon. Please continue research and find a complete counter. Unconditional counterexample.

[A]

Well, I love that they use please.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I feel like sometimes when I talk to ChatGPT, I find myself using like, please. Thank you. I appreciate you. You're amazing.

[B]

And then it worked for 89 minutes. Continue the search. It said, the person said, have a clear strategy obtained from deeper understanding of the problem structures. So no actual information has been added to this prompting other than to say, work harder, you bitch, or to think more clearly, you bitch.

[A]

I was gonna say, I feel like even though they're using please, it's a little bit of gaslighting, like just keep going.

[B]

And then 93 minutes on that one and then the final one here. It's enough of partial results. So clearly getting a little impatient in the prompt. Let's finish with a complete unconditional counter example. Then it worked for 88 minutes and pooped it out.

[A]

Did it give after it pooped it out at 88 minutes and it was this big deal thing. Did they follow up in our. Like, you're incredible, you did this.

[B]

That's what broke my heart. There was nothing after. So it ended on that final prompt where it, you know, they said it's enough of partial results. It didn't say I fucking love you,

[A]

didn't say you're enough. Not much enough.

[B]

Exactly. So yeah, I mean just a very strange world we're living in. And yeah, I mean just urge. So the one thing I'm starting to see, especially amongst the types of audiences we talk to, is either complete blind adoption of AI in ways that it might be oversimplifying this incredibly complex machine where it's like coaching being a good example where like obviously it's going to be a great coach, but it needs so much more information than it currently has. So unless you're the one giving it, you got to be very, very careful with what it poops out because you're going to be seeing things that don't really follow from the capability of the tools. But then on the other hand there are people saying that, well, all applications of AI are bad and not going to happen in extreme scale skeptics and that I'm like, clearly that's just not the way it's going, you know, and not, not to say that like we shouldn't want that because the entire economy is based on it now and that would cause a crash like you couldn't believe.

[A]

And I feel like there's so many fields that are in this evolution of AI whether they like it or not. And a lot of people feel resistant to that or in evolutions of other things like we're seeing in the performance world. And I've talked about like at times I feel existential sadness for that evolution. But I love. There was actually a quote in the Jacobian conjecture article from, from a mathematician and they talked about just now we have to double down on the process. And it felt so much like how we talk about the process in running. And here's the quote. And often the interesting stuff in maths isn't oh We've ticked off this conjecture. Yay. It's more the stuff you have to build along the way in order to solve the conjecture. So talking just like, you know, as AI is coming in and disrupting the field, it's still about the process. And I was like, there's so many parallels there.

[B]

And I've heard from mathematicians, like, reading some think pieces on it. That also gets back to the beauty of math, is not solving a conjecture, because that doesn't actually change the world. In any. Any case, it's the creativity of the process that leads to that that then could lead to breakthroughs outside of that area of reasoning. So, yeah, it gets back to our argument that AI risks being the apocalypse for creativity. So even as it seems to narrow fields and solve problems might actually cause more issues in the future. Unless we're constantly uplifting creativity and also failure in that process, because that's where creativity is forged. So always find the creativity in your space and lean into that so hard. Often that means being weird, it means being a first mover, and it certainly means not leaning on AI outside of computational style processes that it is way better than you at. Do not lean on it for creativity, because as soon as you do that, it's a slippery slope to, like, actually making yourself obsolete for things that are

[A]

worse than you and also just making it a whole lot harder to have fun in the process of creating. And that is what matters. The maths, man, the maths. I can't, I can't, I can't. I can't unsee it all about those maths.

[B]

Okay, final thing before we get to questions is an incredible article that was sent in by a listener in jama. So a medical journal called My Tendon Will Tell Me When.

[A]

And I love JAMA because they actually have po. There's a poetry section of jama, which I love.

[B]

I had no idea.

[A]

Yeah, medical. I think we've read some of the JAMA poetry on here before, Megan.

[B]

Honestly, every time you talk about poetry, I black out.

[A]

You're like, I'm out.

[B]

It's just, you know, we talked about supreme suppressed heart rate earlier. That's my suppressed heart rate version of the podcast.

[A]

You're like, I don't want to think about this, but they also publish a lot of just beautiful writing pieces about reflections on medicine. And this was one of them. And I read it this morning, and it was beautiful. It was well written, and I think it just. It spoke to me a lot about, like, how we think about, like, pushing our bodies and pushing Our limits in an important way.

[B]

Yeah, this doctor had a ruptured Achilles tendon, went through the surgical process and then was looking for every little window to get through. So here's a quote. My professional life will rewards compression. Write the manuscript faster. Finish the progress notes before leaving. Squeeze in one more invited lecture before a week of clinical service. Get the answer before the meeting. Much of what earns recognition in academic medicine is some version of speed. And I have built a successful career on being quick. So when I found myself facing a constraint, my first instinct was still to search for a workaround, some way to accelerate my progress and get back to normal, whatever that may now be. And then to finish up, my tendon doesn't care. There is no version of harder, smarter or more committed. That shortens the biology. Push it early and the reward is re rupture and an even longer road. So the impatience that serves me everywhere else becomes the one thing most likely to set me back. I hate that this is the lesson, because it exact is exactly the sort of lesson I am least inclined to learn. Some things heal on their own clock. Push at the wrong time and the effort itself becomes intense injury. I suspect that this is true of more than just tendons.

[A]

Okay. I love how they wrote this because it made me think about the field of medicine and academics in general and the fact that there actually are very few constraints on that field in terms of what an individual can accomplish. And it brings you think about like doctors out there hustling. And unlike in running or sports where the body is a constraint, like the body can actually break down and that is what keeps us from doing 60 hours of training a week, you don't have that in medicine. And so in academia you can spend hundred hours working a week and there's no limitation besides your own mental health and well being. And it makes me think about actually how grateful I am that in many ways the human body is a constraint in running and in sports and the field that we do because like, you know, it actually is nice to have a constraint from stopping us from training that long.

[B]

Meanwhile, you're saying you want to take out my plantar fascia injury and put it in my penis in your dongle.

[A]

So I'm just saying you can take multitudes square this.

[B]

Um, no, no, I, I totally agree with you. And you know, I think the, the professional reflection there, obviously this is directly on the nose for me. Moving fast was always my biggest skill. Right. Like it's always just doing the thing. Um, and it's actually a Place. We've had professional, slight disagreements at the time, at times where I'm just like, well, do it now. Do the thing now.

[A]

I'm like, well, let's think about this. Let's take a. Take a step back, think about a plan. You're like, just do it now.

[B]

But. But my biggest. I don't think think swap would be swap without that, because that's the thing that led swap to being created in the first place.

[A]

Well, I think it's a. We have a great balance between us because it's like, you know, there's almost like. It's almost like you're more the doer and I'm more the thinker, and we combine that together and do both of those things at the same time. And that's important.

[B]

I'm the AI machine and you're the one saying, do your work, bitch. No, no, I'm just kidding.

[A]

Please do your work.

[B]

Almost every great idea has been your idea, and almost every implementation has been a mix. But I. I don't want to largely be a little unbalanced.

[A]

You shouldn't put percentages on this.

[B]

But, yeah, I mean, you know, because of that. And also that was rewarded athletically for me forever, where, you know, every single time I push through something my biology just said, good, good. I mean, in my ankle mri, every single one of my ligaments was fucked all to hell.

[A]

That's the medical term, I think, except for one. I can't remember which one. But it was the lone. The lone standing survivor.

[B]

It was bad, you know, but every single time, I was fine. And, you know, as a coach, you learn to always be cautious and to take your time. But as an athlete, I learned the lesson that move fast and you're not going to break the rings. And then with this foot, it's been the exact opposite, where I've gotten so much better, and usually it feels good on the day, and then the next morning, I figure out, oh, shit, too much. But all like, the too much follows this nonlinear path. And so, you know, I identify so much with my tendon, doesn't care. You know, the. The plantar fascia is just in a. A healing process that is going to follow its own timeline. And I just don't know how to get it there, because it's not. If I shut down and go in a boot for six months, everybody tells me that it's not gonna be healed. Um, so it is just so tricky being an athlete and navigating these dueling spheres of intellectual on one side where totally different Things are rewarded or, and this can also be thinking about training theory. And on the other side, you are bones and gristle in me. Meat in a decaying meat sack. And like, how do you reconcile those two, especially in long term injury.

[A]

And it's heartbreaking as a partner to see you go through that. Like, you know, seeing heartbreaking. It's hard. I mean, well, maybe we shouldn't. I should never use that, that term ever again. Soul breaking.

[B]

Okay, okay. Don't bring up your heart.

[A]

It breaks my soul. But it's like, you know, seeing you walk back down that driveway after being out for six minutes, it's like, you know, and I think the hard part is like I, I believe in you so much and like that's objective belief, like what you've done in the last two years as an ultra runner. And I just so want to get. And it is really hard to see you go through that. And I think people that have navigated these processes alongside a loved one, like, it is, it's really hard too.

[B]

Yeah, well, I mean your heart, you know, similar trajectory where you just don't know what you're going to get. Right. Like as soon as you start racing, who knows? It's all questionable. Yeah, biology's tough, basically. Like, you know the way.

[A]

But you think about that like in some ways like that fear and I bring this back to medicine. Like if we didn't have that fear, we would just be unchecked as humans training all day long. And that probably would not be a productive thing mentally. Yeah.

[B]

That kind of reminds me of the same intellectual process people do to say you would never want to be immortal because if you didn't die, you would have no reason to enjoy your temporary time.

[A]

It's a great metaphor.

[B]

And I'm always like, actually I think it would be pretty sweet to be immortal.

[A]

You're like, actually I want to be Brian Johnson. Yeah.

[B]

All these sci fi things are like, oh man, that person immortal is really hard on them. I'm like, dude, it sounds kind of sweet. Could you just imagine play every video game forever? It'd be great.

[A]

I actually, it's funny because I actually don't want that. What? Yeah. Isn't that, isn't that wild? We've never, we've actually never talked about this.

[B]

We're going to revisit this when we're 95 years old. Okay.

[A]

Okay. But we're going to be tired. I feel like we're going to get to 95 and just be so fucking tired that you're going to revisit this discussion, you're going to be like, megan, let's go out into the ether holding hands. That sounds great.

[B]

Wants to go into the wrong sleep. Apparently.

[A]

I don't have to. I don't sleep like today.

[B]

Just so you know, we have two kids.

[A]

Yeah, man.

[B]

But seriously, what if you could just be, you know, 35 forever?

[A]

I don't think I would take it.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I think, like, I've already gained a lot of wisdom from just getting older and feeling like I'm getting older and. Yeah. At some point, I mean, maybe when I'm 60 and having some, hopefully 60 and having some, like, medical ailment, I'll think otherwise.

[B]

But like, you were literally just in the hospital with heart issues that could have been very serious.

[A]

But it's like it restructures how I think about life.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

You know, I feel like this is

[B]

one of those moments where to me, it is such a no brainer and every listener is going to agree with you.

[A]

I'm actually curious, I'd be really curious if we put up a poll of our podcast listeners who would want to be immortal and who would not.

[B]

Yeah, immortal. At whatever your favorite age was, what

[A]

do you think your favorite age would be?

[B]

To be immortal, I mean, well, it depends because, like, the context of life changes throughout.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, do you give me, like, so the life that, you know now, where would you freeze time and be immortal?

[B]

Problem is, if you're immortal, you're probably also not adapting to training. So I would choose 37 because that was last year when I was at my athletic peak. But in a vacuum, if I could also adapt, I would choose 25.

[A]

25?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, 25 is the age when, like, your power peaks.

[A]

Okay. Do your kids become immortal at their age? How does that work? There's too many questions. I'm like, once you start going to that, you're like, don't want to be immortal.

[B]

Questions that every sci fi author asks all the time. But the answer is if the choice is between death and not death. And like, you're not that tired yet.

[A]

I mean, you're going to be pretty darn tired.

[B]

Moving on.

[A]

Actually, we should go on. I feel like this question here is a great question.

[B]

Wait, which one?

[A]

The identity crisis question.

[B]

My God. Okay, before we get to questions, go Give the podcast 5 stars and click follow. Especially on Apple and Spotify, that's the place that helps people find it. There's not that much of an algorithmic boost boost in podcasts, but it does really, really help. That's why every podcast you listen to says it. So don't just do ours, do your other favorite podcast, but give it that bump.

[A]

Now, if we're going to be immortal, are we going to record the podcast forever?

[B]

That's a good question, actually.

[A]

How long is that? What are we going to do for work? How are we going to sustain ourselves?

[B]

What if you stayed immortal and I just aged into a long sleeve? Would we still record together?

[A]

Oh, of course.

[B]

Right until the end.

[A]

Yeah. Right until the end, yeah. You'd be really tired, I guess.

[B]

Super tired. Okay, next question. I'm definitely not ready to throw in the town, give up on running altogether. This comes after a lot of context that was personal to them. But I am grappling with whether I should put any races on my calendar for next year that include running. It's now been so many years since I've actually made it through a full trading cycle leading to a running race or triathlon. It's become so common that I have to either walk the run portion or pull out of the race after the bike that being a perpetually injured athlete is becoming my identity. I really hate this. I love sport because it makes me feel strong and capable and this injury cycle is making me feel exactly the opposite. Limited, fragile and capable. Are they talking to me right now?

[A]

I feel like this question builds.

[B]

Well, my question and ask for advice is this. Do you have any advice for managing this identity crisis? Transitioning from a once fierce, focused, highly competitive athlete to being a more casual runner with low slash no race expectations, no burning drive to push yourself to what fitness you could be capable of? Or is it worth trying to remain defiantly optimistic, telling myself next year will be my year without major injury, just disruptions. Imagine you two have reflected on this with your own injury slash illness slash aging realities, or have had friends and athletes navigate this as they transition to a different stage of life.

[A]

This is a beautiful question and one sending so much love. Like we have been there in the many phases of feeling limited, fragile and incapable. And it's just like part of being a human and also part of being an athlete and an aging athlete too. Yeah, this is human and we're all aging, you know.

[B]

Yeah, all aging. And this is just so human. I mean, you think about I always come back to running. Like so much of running, running judgment stems from the fact that we do have availability of what the best are able to do and all of that. But as always, if we had availability of what the best we're able to do in any field, we'd be like, holy crap, I feel behind, I feel like I'm lacking, I feel like I'm fragile. And so it's just about trying to find a way to accept yourself a little bit more while having the purpose to believe in yourself, to practice those things in this uncertain, chaotic world. And that answer does vary by the person. But my answer is, oh, always you push back against the dark night. Like you do not go into that long sleep lightly and do it as long as you still find meaning in it.

[A]

And I think for me, I've thought about this a lot because I think in many ways my heart, while not like, you know, recurrent pericarditis, is not necessarily a mortality problem.

[B]

But you were told in the hospital many times by doctors that were concerned about other things.

[A]

But it is in many ways, like, if you think about it like I've had to process my running mortality and what that could look like many different times of like, I may not be able to do this anymore. And I think in many ways that full processing of that has made me really appreciate like what running has done for me, but what running does for me on a day to day basis. And I think, think to your day to day. And for me, like my day to day is so much more fun when I'm training and when I'm believing in something. And I've had the full absence of that of like times when I'm not training at all and I'm not believing in something. And for me it's really that life is a lot less fun. And I think, you know, think about what kind of day to day structure you want and make decisions around that. And for me, the day to day to day day, it's, it's so much fun to train and believe and to go for it. And that's when I wake up the most excited and that's how I've structured decisions even when there is uncertainty and I feel incapable.

[B]

And that's why you're not in medicine, right?

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Yeah. You made that decision because of the life, the day you want to lead. And maybe that's the best framing here is look at the day rather than the cycle or the block or whatever. So, you know, it's very easy to focus on races as the thing you want to do. And when you're uncertain, every race you put on the calendar will be questionable. This gets back to your heart, you know. And how many races have I now canceled? I think I'm at 4 now. That I haven't done that I've been registered for since javelina last year. So I feel that so hard. And you know, if you focus instead on, all right, well what is that day if it includes training in a focused way for something, you know, keep giving yourself a shot and you know, understand that the injuries happen and don't let that be some huge obstacle to exploring that. Um, but at the same time that can have of like negative flip side, which is for me focusing so much on that day that I enjoy and pushing has maybe led to me not doing PRP or something that would involve a bunch of days I didn't enjoy as much. And so, you know, it also becomes

[A]

a double edged sword and I think it's important to think about those things. But also that day, then that focusing on that day may not take you exactly where you want to go, but it might also lead you to another beautiful place too. Like I made the decision to leave clinical medicine and I love clinical medicine so much and I still miss it. I really miss working with people and what that day to day looks like to be involved in patients lives and academic medicine and all those cool things. And I made that decision for running and I think now and it's like, oh my running at times has gotten fucked 10 times over because of these heart issues. And I didn't know that when I made that decision. But the thing is I would still make that decision again and again and not necessarily just for running, but because now we have kids. And the decision that I made to structure my life around running in a way that I thought would be fun has now allowed me to be the mom that I want to play play doh at 3:30 in the afternoon, to have a little bit more of that flexibility in the way I want. And it's like I'm so grateful for it. But it wasn't, that was a decision that was made in a different way that has now become something beautiful. And so I think make the decision, make it right for yourself. Even if it looks different, worth it

[B]

to go for it for its own sake. And hey, if you're interested, first half of our book actually is all on this question, which is interesting that we were already grappling with this, you know, over a decade ago, which is, you know, I think it just points out that like every runner is probably thinking these thoughts partially because it makes you so aware of your fragility, even if you feel superhuman, like it is a breakdown almost every time even when you're not injured. And so just Know that this is the warm hug. Like, as an athlete, like, you're basically going through the equivalent of midlife crises that people have for no reason just because they haven't pondered their life enough later on. And as a runner, you are forced to ponder your life so much sooner. And that is where the abyss comments all come from.

[A]

The abyss.

[B]

The abyss.

[A]

Well, I feel like runners, it's not just injury too, that think, you know, people contemplate the abyss. Like, I feel like oftentimes I see it in big life changes, like new jobs starting. There's a lot of stress, you know, having kids and having that introduction in life. It's like there's so many different points because running does take so much time to contemplate that. And that's a valuable thing too.

[B]

Yeah, you order fish sticks. Trader Joe's.

[A]

Okay, give me your Trader Joe. Joe's update.

[B]

Oh, yeah, we need to Trader Joe's update. New segment of the podcast is going to come at random times.

[A]

You replace fish sticks with fish nuggets. Did you try them?

[B]

I haven't tried them yet. Haven't tried them yet. But the recommendation that I have is the Trader Joe's Frozen Naan. So if you're looking for something that you can just have in the morning, you put these, just like heat them up and then have some butter on it, which might be sacrilege, but it's so good and it feels so good. I'm looking forward to it even at 5am when I'm not usually craving other things. So a vote for Trader Joe's non.

[A]

Okay, what did you get last night that is new and that is going to kickstart this new wave of foot healing.

[B]

Yeah, almost forgot. Mochi rice nuggets, which sound weird and counterintuitive, but they are a salty, crunchy treat. And they are certainly not, like, nutritionally

[A]

valuable, probably in any way, but they're delicious.

[B]

But they've been incredibly valuable to me and my soul. Me and my beautiful soul. And they are so good that we have to hide them from Leo because it is all he will want. He will get hyper fixated on them. So clearly there's something genetic going on here. So mochi rice nuggets. If you're looking for that, like, crunchy, salty snack to have, like after your run or right when you wake up or at midnight or literally just to stick up your butt, it's the mochi rice nuggets.

[A]

I feel like mercury can never be in retrograde when we have mochi rice nuggets. In the house.

[B]

Oh, it's true.

[A]

They're just, like, pushing Mercury forward. They're just a slow tailwind or. Yeah, slow tailwind. Mercury.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. They're like a quasar. They have that level of gravitational influence on Mercury. Okay. Do you have any Trader Joe's picks?

[A]

I'm still going to the spaghetti bolognese and the ravioli. The ravioli are great too.

[B]

Okay, give us some. Give something else. Anything else. You're gonna say fruit or something. What are you gonna say?

[A]

I just. I really like the frozen meals. I don't do a ton of the snacks. Oh, actually, the chocolate Dunkaroos. The Dunkers. They're really good. I eat a lot of those. They're like a cookie that's covered in chocolate.

[B]

Can't go wrong.

[A]

Can't go wrong.

[B]

As always. This is just because we are two young kids and literally just surviving and

[A]

they were two immortal young children.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, God. Pretty sure the mochi rice nuggets aren't helping my. My journey to the long sleep. Okay, next up on stairs. One of my runners is training for a long ultra that involves a lot of hiking. Uh, he lives in a flat area, and we've historically used the StairMaster weekly and dosing downhill sessions on specific terrain two to three times before events about eight weeks out. The question. Question is he is a very experienced cyclist, and we're thinking of experimenting with power focuses on the bike in place of the StairMaster. Just looking for a little guidance. Is this the right session or are we better sticking with the StairMaster bike? More fun and convenient. And also here, they don't mean the StairMaster, they mean the moving stairs.

[A]

Actually, I was just about to ask that. There's a huge distinction between the StairMaster, which is the little like machine, the zoom, zoom, zoom, and the Stair Mill, which is a revolving set of stairs. And that sound, that's just a constant engine purring of power. It's a power.

[B]

You know what it is? It's that. What's that rap song.

[A]

Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about.

[B]

Creaking bed.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Um, didn't really work because I'm not very good with sounds, apparently. Um, okay, so what's your answer here? Moving stairway or bike?

[A]

You know, I think if this is one session a week, it actually doesn't matter all that much. Like, both are a great power stimulus in a different way. Um, and I think if it were Stair Master, I would say definitely the bike. If it's Stair Mill, I think there's not too much of a difference. But given that this is a like a strong cyclist and they have that background and it's fun and enjoyable. I think building FTP is always the direction I would go if given a small choice and so I might go that way.

[B]

Interesting. I actually have the opposite answer.

[A]

Yeah. I don't think it actually matters that much. Is it one session a week?

[B]

Their ultra involves so much hiking.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

We don't know how many sessions it is, but if they're involved, ultra involves a lot of hiking. The moving stairway is incredibly hyper specific and you do that every night on

[A]

date night now, but just once a week.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and I don't think my training would be fundamentally different between the stair mill and a good bike that day.

[B]

I don't know. You're not hiking that much in races. I think if you did this stair mill is so much more direct than biking and moving athletes to that. Obviously if you're going longer, the good things about the bike is one, you can build FTP. You could still build a similar metric on the stairs, but you can't do the stereo that long without risking all of your other training. Biking you can get big fatigue resistance stimuli. So I think biking for long sessions or if you're doing it a more focused way, stair mill for doubles, things like that. I think we don't talk about the stairmail much, but it is a wonderful tool.

[A]

We don't talk about it much because. Have you ever done it before?

[B]

No. That's one I'm never gonna do.

[A]

I, I, I'm like, maybe you should try it before.

[B]

Megan. I uplift my mental health and my joy in the process.

[A]

I think there's a solid chance you would fall fall off the stairmill.

[B]

Why do you say that?

[A]

Because you're going to be putting immediate to put out massive power output and quick speed through the stairmill. And I've also seen you on other like balance related things and it has not ended well.

[B]

Anything else you want to say that's terrible about me? Should bring a therapist into this one.

[A]

No.

[B]

Yeah. So I think it varies. If you're doing just doubles and you know your race involves a lot of hiking in a specific phase. I would do the stair mill also.

[A]

The stem is so fun.

[B]

But outside of specific phase, get better at biking because FTP can increase forever. Stairmill will cap you out because is it so much muscular strain? Very similar to the climbing paradox. So biking is magical because you can get stronger and stronger and stronger. As the article on Patreon gets into.

[A]

And I think if you're doing this as doubles, I really like actually doing a little bit of like over under intervals on the stairmail. And so the way that I do it is I do 30 second faster efforts where I'm like really running up that stair mill and then 90 seconds recovery over the duration of 30 minutes. And it's a fun way to structure it.

[B]

You're actually running up it though, right? You're just hiking fast.

[A]

I'm running.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Oh, yeah, I'm behind you.

[B]

I haven't been able to see. Yeah.

[A]

So our date night structure is. I'm on the stereo, which is behind the elliptical. So you can't actually see what I'm doing.

[B]

I know. I. I'm really heartbroken about it actually, because Lifetime Fitness is really cool here in Boulder. A very bougie gym and very fun to go to partially because of the people watching. So sometimes you get the coolest flora and fauna you have ever seen of all varying types.

[A]

What do you. What are you. I mean, what do you mean by flora and fauna? I feel like this has a. A broader meaning.

[B]

I'm a wildlife researcher, Megan, and my area of research is Lifetime Fitness in Boulder. Hopefully that's not cooked out, but. No, no. What breaks my heart is I can't look at you because if I could look at you, I just look at you the whole time. But you get to look at me and it's unfair.

[A]

Oh, and you're doing that elliptical so dirty. I'm like, this. Ellipticals are third at this point. It's the elliptical that I. You know when you like go in the gym and there's only one machine that you like because it's the one that you've consistently been on, it's like calibrated to you, but we use the same machine. And I'm like, this really. This really is our third.

[B]

Yeah. Things I do that are elliptical are illegal in at least 27 states. That was my Strava title, so reusing a joke there, but important. Uh, okay, next one. I was listening to the most recent bonus episode when you were discussing fish sticks. We. This has been a topic of conversation off the main episode too. Apparently while fish sticks are disgusting. Give. Hear me out. Canned smoked oysters on Cheez. Its preferably the parmesan ones a try. While most people think gross, it's actually good and has 12 to 15 grams of protein.

[A]

Okay. Do you think you would go for this?

[B]

No.

[A]

What?

[B]

What? Canned smoked oysters.

[A]

Okay. Give me anything on a Cheez. It A Parmesan Cheez it and I'm game.

[B]

A piece of shit on a Cheez It. Would you want that?

[A]

It's like straight. This is your thing is David doesn't like seafood because it's like all straight river. This is like straight river on a Cheez it we had. But it's. Here's the thing, it's smoked. If you give me smoked river on a Cheez it, I feel like I'm down. And it's. It's got protein and it's probably. Oysters, I think, are really high in iron.

[B]

How much work is the smoke doing?

[A]

I mean, quite a bit.

[B]

Quite a bit.

[A]

It's got a power. It's got to overpower a lot of river.

[B]

Okay. We had great oysters. They were like top of the line oysters in Boston. Boston. When we were having dinner with Jess McLean's family, I had one and it was so bad.

[A]

Hey, don't drink down the oyster at family dinner.

[B]

No, no, I mean, it was an oyster.

[A]

You were so lucky to have that oyster.

[B]

I understand, but it is, like the same consistency as Morton Gels. But it tastes like mud.

[A]

That's fair, right? Okay. You just dunked. Okay, but you know what? If you put the same consistency as Morton Gels on a Parmesan Cheez it, I'm so game and smoking.

[B]

So for our listeners here.

[A]

Okay, I just need to spell this up. We just need to smoke some Morton. I need to spell out smoked Morton would be so much better than regular Morton.

[B]

I was making a joke that only a few listeners got. Megan just tagged that joke. Not that many listeners probably got it. Megan is saying that she wants to Cheez it covered in smoked cum.

[A]

I mean, and she'd be fine with it.

[B]

Moving on.

[A]

Still better than plantar fasciitis.

[B]

Okay. It's still better than plantar fish. All right, next one. Who's there? I kept meaning to write after the. Just to think about all the. All the kids listening to this episode.

[A]

I mean, they were. They've been gone a long time ago.

[B]

It is marked explicit.

[A]

So is it?

[B]

No, it is. Yeah.

[A]

Thank you. You did the work on that one.

[B]

Our numbers have gone up since we marked it explicit, so I think that might play a big role. Also, it's right around when the Rich Roll episode come out. So. Yeah, I don't know. It's actually interesting how much of a bump Rich Roll was. So.

[A]

Thank you, Rich.

[B]

Yeah, thank you, Rich. And I also. That's actually relevant to another question. I'll skip ahead to that one and where is it? I skipped it. Shoot.

[A]

Okay, I'll just read it. I'll summarize it. You were mentioned by Malcolm Gladwell on the ritual podcast. David, that is so cool.

[B]

So many people have messaged us about this and I still haven't listened, but sounds like it must have been a long discussion.

[A]

I think you're afraid to listen.

[B]

Oh, yeah, no, no. I can't put myself into a place where I ever hear commentary on me.

[A]

But basically the gist of the commentary was that Malcolm Gladwell was praising your openness as an athlete. Like openness and sharing the scientific process and like how you think about training. And I love that. I love that about you. Also, I don't think Malcolm Glad while quite understands that that's our job.

[B]

Did you just say the jizz of the commentary?

[A]

The gist. The smoked gist on a parmesan cheese.

[B]

Might be the best joke in podcast. You just nailed. Is very weird though. You know Malcolm Gladwell reading God and now.

[A]

And now we're having this conversation around him. I hope he doesn't just come for this part.

[B]

He's coming for this part. He really liked that joke.

[A]

He did. He liked the cracker. He's such a cool guy. I've loved his stuff for years.

[B]

Yeah. But it's interesting just to reflect seriously on the fact that Malcolm Gladwell, you know, reading his stuff when I was a kid, to be even within in his brain is just super strange.

[A]

So I love that everyone thinks that you're doing this just for like the good of humanity, which you absolutely are. Like, you're just sharing this because it's

[B]

really helpful for like super helpful Megan.

[A]

That's super helpful for like all the athletes out there. And you're just making it relatable. But at the same time, it's like, this is our job.

[B]

Well, yeah, but it wasn't our job initially.

[A]

True. Yeah, right.

[B]

Like it was a. It became basically you do what you love and hopefully that becomes your job eventually if you do it fast and hard and long and all that good stuff. Okay, next up on nose hair.

[A]

Wow, these are some good questions.

[B]

I kept meaning to write after the episode where you talked about never trimming nose hair and getting sidetracked. As the person who was trying to get everyone to wear nose strips last year, I am shocked. Feel free to share on the pod of the bonus episode as this is performance enhancing advice. I trim my nose hair before every race and can breathe noticeably easier through my nose. You are leaving performance on the table. If you don't clear out that inner nose hair.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. I can't believe a podcast listener sent this to you. David.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Have you done this yet? I'm surprised you haven't.

[B]

No. But it seems is brilliant. Right? Like, obviously if you have nose hair, you should trim it. Right. Because if you're trying to get every single ounce of oxygen in, some resistance must come from the nose hair.

[A]

Maybe you should just pierce your nose many, many, many times and then you're creating more holes through which you can get oxygen in.

[B]

Oh, I see.

[A]

Yeah. You're aerating your nose.

[B]

I'm sure. I think the exact design would matter because if you aerate too much, then there's not enough tension to bring the air in it.

[A]

Yeah, you have to like.

[B]

But I could get plastic surgery.

[A]

This reminds me, we just got Leo a race car. Like a remote controlled race car and it drives up the walls. Yes. And there's something that is very weird about that and scientifically strange. And I feel like that's the same way with aerating your nose.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It also only goes in circles. I think that this is a dad mistake.

[A]

Did you install it wrong?

[B]

I don't know. But he seems to not know the

[A]

difference, so he's pretty stoked.

[B]

Okay, next one. I'm dealing with a foot thing and have been following the bike training plan. Normally on my bike days, I'm able to do high zone 2 rides for 90 minutes. However, when I'm doing back to back bike sessions, I find this to be a tough challenge. Is it okay to have my easy bike days be in zone one or should I really focus on getting into zone two most of the time? Thank you.

[A]

Well, I think this underscores a point that like Z2 power when you're developed on the bike can be a substantial amount of power.

[B]

It's a workout.

[A]

It's a workout. Like I did Z2 day on Saturday this week on the bike and 50 miles and we have a really fun route where there's a lot of punchy climbs and as a result, like my heart rate gets down on the descents and then it takes a while for me to get into zone two as well, heart rate wise. And so I'm often pushing Z3 or Z4 power in zone 2 heart rate. And those are big days. And so if you're doing your Z4 2 bike bike days, well, it makes sense that the day after often is a Z one day.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. It's good to listen to your body. I think there's some benefit into improving fatigue resistance to do Z2 days when you're a little bit fatigued. That's the weird part about biking and running, and that gets into the heart of the article that I just posted, is that biking zone 2 is a much harder workout than running zone 2, unless someone is a very top level professional runner, in which case Top End Zone 2 also becomes quite challenging. Um, and if you look at professional cyclists training, a lot of the area where it's evolved in the last few years is in higher doses of sustained Zone two work. So Todd, a most famous for this, he'll do rides above 300 watts, where he'll go out for hours and hours and hours at that power, which is his zone too. But the mechanical and muscular demand of that is so high that it seems unthinkable unless you're in that world. And I've actually gotten to the point where because I've been biking so much, I've been able to raise my zone 2 bike power in a similar way. Obviously, I'm nowhere near top taught a raw power, but as a relative relation to my top end, my zone 2 is extremely high now. And it's then translated so well to running. Which one of the reasons I'm heartbroken that my foot isn't healing like I'm able to do outputs now on the uphill treadmill that I never could have dreamed of before. And I think it comes a lot from this quality cycling.

[A]

You are a bike monster. In fact, actually, I rode solo on Saturday because I wanted you to have a high Z2 day where I actually now can't hold your wheel the entire time on a high Z2 day. Like, I'm just gonna get dropped. But I wanted you to see. I was like, let's get a Korea to data points.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

I was like, my boy is bathing in creatine. I wanna see how it works.

[B]

I did go a little faster, but I was also so covered in salt. Um, so I, I coach one professional level cyclist. Um, she has a 300 watt FTP. She's absolute monster. Nicole, you're incredible. Um, and we've been transitioning a lot more to Zone 2 throughout the year. So she does a lot of indoor racing throughout the year, which is insanely competitive. Like, the power at the front end of indoor racing now is as strong as the power in the World Tour at the top end.

[A]

Yeah. How come we're not seeing that direct directly? Like, you take a lot of those riders indoors and throw them outdoors and they'd Be World Tour riders. Why are we not seeing that pipeline quite as much?

[B]

The translation is complicated. Yeah, because you know, you're not just a power metric. And when things like arrows start mattering, I can put it way more power indoors than outdoors. Like it's massive.

[A]

Well, I feel like you've also kind of like indoor power is a little bit different in terms of how you put it out. Like it's lower cadence for you. You're often out of the saddle. It's different.

[B]

The difference is now I can do hikings indoors. I average 94 kings cadence on a ride with two 65 watts and one 34. 135 heart rate, which is bonkers, which is zone one for me. But that type of power would indicate professional level. I mean low professional, like continental professional, um, if that indoor translates outdoor. But it doesn't. Like I can do good numbers outdoors and get segments and things, but not anywhere near that. And why exactly that is? I think a lot of it has to do with positioning, how bike handling. Yeah, well, yeah, just how you feel on the bike, but also how the bike is set up. So the Global Cycling Network GCP, they have great YouTube videos. They posted one the other day which was Jason Osborne, who's the best indoor cyclist in the world for men.

[A]

But he almost never does anything outdoors to my knowledge.

[B]

And he was doing the outdoors, trying to go for the record and he crapped out at 18 minutes.

[A]

Outdoors.

[B]

Yeah, outdoors and you know, indoors that probably wouldn't be a problem for him. The same power in. In outdoors, it's not like aerodynamics matter or whatever. He's just riding out of the saddle. So it's clearly complicated. But for Nicole, we're doing a lot of these zone 2 type days where she puts out monstrous like insane power, power. And it has really helped continue to level up her FTP like her top end power as we've trained through the season with these intense races. So long story short, yes, zone one is fine. After biking, like listen to your body push sometimes into that, but usually I. Recycling. If you're doing cycling only two days on, one day off is like kind of the max you want to do. Unless you're training for some specific like multi stage event.

[A]

And this gets to your Patreon article where we were Talking about why Z1 biking, like low Z1 biking may not be as beneficial for runners. But do you think if you're a cyclist, you kind of need that sometimes by necessity, just for recovery purposes. But if you're running, it's like, you might as well just go for a walk at that point. Like, it's not even worth really the Z, like the low Z1 focus. Yeah.

[B]

And it might be worth it. It's just not. It's nowhere near as much as it could be. Whereas like three miles running is basically three miles running. So, like, if you're going out on your three mile run at 14 minute pace and 10 minute pace, our theory is that it's the same thing aerobically. Um, and you don't need to sweat it too much. Just do what feels right. No pace is too slow. Biking doesn't work that way. You know, 20 miles of a bike at in zone two versus 20 miles of a bike in low zone one. Fully different stimuli. And, you know, I think that becomes a huge problem in cycling because their training theory, much like running training theory, is interpolated from the top outliers. And so just like running training theory has a lot of gaps. The biggest cycling training theory gap is that, you know, an athlete with a lower or like a normal person or a really good athlete, FTP should not be doing these very gentle spins all the time unless they're going for pure recovery around a workout. It should probably be a little bit more tension in the chain all the time.

[A]

Tension in the chain is such a fun way to think about it. And you know, after sometimes these two days that I'm pushing, it's like running feels like so much less tension in the chain. I think that's some of the magic of how cycling translates to running too.

[B]

In another life, maybe in a future life, depending on how things work out, maybe we could coach a bike team or something.

[A]

That would be professional cyclists. Ooh, that would be fun. Yeah.

[B]

Good success with cyclists, but, you know, having gotten quite the same level. But now we're getting to do track and road, which is the most fun experience.

[A]

I was gonna say, that's like way more fun than slicer.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Honestly?

[B]

Yeah, I don't know. Should we do a Boulder team? Yeah, I think it might end up happening. I think it's like we've spoke that into existence. We manifested that at some part of our astrological chart because it seems like it could happen. Yeah, we'll see.

[A]

I know we're gonna talk some good things to Mercury and see what happens.

[B]

We'll see. Okay, next question. Hi, David and Megan. I finally have a question for your next page. Patreon episode. Long runs in elapsed time. Is there any hurt in taking some breaks mid long runs? I'M all for keeping it moving. However, many who I run with stop at water stations and chat before moving on. Over a 2.5 hour run, this ends up creating 20 to 30 minutes of standing time. Is there any benefit to that? I feel crazy running with less than 5 minutes elapsed time while my companions are taking breaks mid workouts. Thanks.

[A]

Um, I definitely don't think there's a benefit to that. Um, I think there's no reason to hang around for 30 minutes in a long run. Like, I think, you know, I've been certainly in group formats where that's just part of the dynamic. So sometimes it's fun. Enjoy those days. Those are great. But I think intentionally structuring it in and even if you had that consistently every weekend, I think that just gets to the point where it's bordering on too much and it's better to have the more consistent stimuli throughout.

[B]

Yeah, I think it becomes a red flag if this is a constant thing for an athlete. If you're with a group, just do what the group does, have fun with it. It doesn't change the stimulus that much. Um, but I look into files and if I see these huge off sets, sometimes you're seeing red flags that need to be talked about, like in therapy, honestly. Um, so in this situation, just have fun with your group. There's no reason for them to be doing it, but it's fun and whatever, it's fine. Um, for yourself, like it's fine to stop and get water to chill and things. But if you find yourself stopping a lot, like think about why exactly that is happening.

[A]

Especially like sometimes I find myself like, like, oh, I'll take a gel, I'll just stop for a second. And it's so much better to practice taking that gel on the move to keep going. And so, so I think like, you know, oftentimes on a long run, I might have five or ten minutes of stoppage time. Like it's fun to take pictures. It's fun, you know, I'm drinking out of your parents hose. Like I'm doing my side short pee. There's a lot of different things that happen and that's great. But I think each of those breaks is relatively smaller and it just kind of keeps the momentum going.

[B]

Yeah, every existential crisis takes me like one to two minutes. So if I have quick, if I have 12 existential crises on a run, then we're getting into the 20 to 30 minute range. Um, so every time you've seen me have a run like that, which many people probably have. That's either like existential crisis psychologically or with my colon, one of those two. But basically, don't sweat it. Just be yourself, have fun, enjoy it. Whatever makes you enjoy the time you're out there the most is the best. And as always, we always connect it to distance run, kind of being a good proxy for these things. And so if the distance is the same, I don't think it really matters aerobically. Do you agree?

[A]

Agree. And sometimes it's nice. Like, if you're with a group of staff stopping a lot, that's totally fine. Just enjoy the group dynamics and have fun.

[B]

I get impatient with Megan sometimes.

[A]

What?

[B]

I mean, I'm patient, but, like, oh, you do.

[A]

Actually, I went to stop on the other bike, on the bike the other day, and I have arrow bottles in my bike right now. And I. I love my bike. It's like my dream bike. But when I'm on your wheel and I'm like, pushing on the climbs and then we're descending at 40 miles an hour, I have a really hard time getting my water out without getting dropped. Yeah. And so I stopped for water. And you were so pissed.

[B]

I wasn't pissed. I just like, why are we. Why are we waiting? And then you take.

[A]

So you're such a. I was drinking.

[B]

You're such a sipper.

[A]

I had to drink my whole. I'm trying to hydrate a liter an hour.

[B]

The down and more faster.

[A]

You're like, girl, girl.

[B]

No, no. I mean, obviously you have no.

[A]

You were so pissed and I was.

[B]

I wasn't pissed, Megan. I was just trying to be interesting for the podcast.

[A]

You were pissed.

[B]

Okay, last one here. First and foremost, thank you for all of your work. I've been sidelined since February due to extremely low ferritin 3 infusions and have been encouraged by your simultaneous return to run. Both of you, thank you for showing persistent hope in progress, even if the progress isn't linear or conventional. Ultimately, after many tests, I believe my lifelong ferritin issue is due to under fueling outside of workouts, and I'm hoping to stay fueled going forward. I'm so inspired by the work you do for your athletes and the good news of carbohydrates that you spread that and satisfaction bombs. Thank you.

[A]

I'm so glad this athlete has figured this out. It's a big deal, I think, to like, you know, to be in this place. And it makes me think about how excited I am for their performance to take off from the fueling itself and from the Iron and getting that all figured out. And you asked me once, actually, to estimate how often I see, like, chronically low iron numbers as a result of low energy availability. And I gave you an estimate that was so high that you're like, you should not quote that. And I'm still going to stand by.

[B]

Why are you calling it back?

[A]

I'm embarrassed for you.

[B]

Needless to say, a lot of cases of chronically low iron, even with supplementation, are caused by GI issues. So that could be one thing. There's like a chronic GI issue or gut issue. So get all that tested. Make sure you're not bleeding. Also make. Make sure, you know, doing the GI testing can be helpful.

[A]

But also, often those GI issues themselves are caused by low energy availability, which is, you know, something. It's like this almost this, like, love triangle of GI issues. Low iron. Low low iron and low energy.

[B]

Yeah, I would say way fewer of the GI issues are caused by it than low iron is caused by low energy availability. And so the many cases, though, are caused just by low energy availability. And as soon as athletes bring that up, there's a lot of good studies on this. Iron stores go up very rapidly, even without dietary changes. Outside of increasing your total intake, which is weird, it's not like the iron levels go up. It's just your body's ability to store it goes up.

[A]

Specifically, intake of carbs, too. Actually, I haven't seen a study about that, about carbs. I've seen, like, total energy. I don't know if I've seen total carbs and iron. Um, but carbs seem to be the primary driver there.

[B]

And getting back to satisfaction bombs, as they say. As always, the biggest clue here that an athlete still is having struggles is when they have issues having the types of meals that they. They could, like, send a picture to of to me, which is something I always ask in situations where I'm a little uncertain, just to, like, get them comfortable with understanding that there's some accountability on the actual decisions being made. And once those decisions become satisfaction bombs, as we've talked about before, almost always some of those chronic issues, even if they don't clear up, they get better almost instantaneously after being bad for many years. And I think have a tough conversation with yourself if you have a history of eating disorders or other issues, like, is this the type of meal I would send to David and be proud of within training?

[A]

Okay, I'm gonna pull up my text messages right now and show you an athlete sent me the coolest satisfaction bomb

[B]

picture I'M so pumped.

[A]

Okay. I think it's on my computer.

[B]

Oh, my gosh.

[A]

Let me see.

[B]

Your computer is used for.

[A]

Look at this.

[B]

Okay. Okay. Oh, my goodness.

[A]

Describe this satisfaction bomb.

[B]

Okay. We got a burger with cheese just dripping down the side.

[A]

That cheese is dripping.

[B]

That toothpick is doing a lot of work holding that burger together.

[A]

It is. Look at that fry pile. That looks great. And then they have what looks like five different sauces there. Do you see the beauty of those sauces?

[B]

Oh, does that come with the burger, or is that just on the table

[A]

that comes with the burger?

[B]

Oh, yeah. This is on a hotel bed.

[A]

This is on a hotel bed.

[B]

Oh, my goodness.

[A]

That is mayonnaise and mustard and ketchup and hot sauce and some unidentified sauce in the corner of there. Doesn't that look so good?

[B]

Oh, my goodness gracious.

[A]

Also, that's. There's a salad there, too, which is like. It's dripping. But look at that. There's, like. It's beautiful.

[B]

It's dripping. It's driven. That cyclospore is coming straight off the edge.

[A]

Oh, yeah, look at that.

[B]

Okay, go back to our outline. Thank you.

[A]

Isn't that a great satisfaction bomb?

[B]

Seriously? I mean, I.

[A]

Actually, that was just sent totally unprompted, and I was like, I'm so here for this.

[B]

We both kind of have the same kink, which is people sending us pictures of massive meals. As a kid, I really liked watching the Food Network and stuff.

[A]

Actually, I. It's really fun to train and watch the Food Network for some reason. I don't know why.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Maybe it, like, activates certain neuronal pathways or whatever. So, yeah, I'm just starting to realize that me saying, send me this picture is probably not that much different than other people saying, send me your pictures of your feet.

[A]

I was about to. I was like, david, this is a little. We should maybe have a conversation about this. But you know what?

[B]

Do we edit it out?

[A]

Satisfaction bobs.

[B]

No, nothing counts over 90 minutes.

[A]

No, we're good.

[B]

Nothing. Okay, onto the snare corner. Before that, what do we got to talk about?

[A]

John Ganji, check out this long bra.

[B]

Oh, so good.

[A]

The long bras. I just wear these every single run. And honestly, now I just wear them every single day throughout day.

[B]

Daily life, people are obsessed with a long bra.

[A]

Yeah, it's been. I just. I mean, it's actually great because in many situations, it's shirt. But in a lot of situations, like running, I feel empowered. Like, it's a bra.

[B]

I like it. So, John G.com swap SWP. You can find all our favorite things there. I love the RD short. You can just put your phone in it. Some gels. Their pants are great. All their shorts, their shirts.

[A]

The RD shirt is so flowy that it's like. Again, it's like the one shirt now that I'm like, I have to wear this shirt. Except I crashed. I. I was descending like a monster truck and crashing it the other week, and I think I need to get a new one.

[B]

Yeah, well, doesn't hurt to get new ones.

[A]

I know, I know.

[B]

And all it messes with this color. It's still holding together. Well, it's not ripped or anything.

[A]

No, I just got mud everywhere.

[B]

Okay. On to listener corner. Anything talk about before we get there?

[A]

No, let's do it.

[B]

All right. Hi, David and Megan. I was just recently thinking about how I originally got into ultra running and realized that it was really fueled by negative thoughts about myself and trying to, quote, earn self love and wanting to feel like I was enough. But then I started listening to your podcast and it's really impacted my why? And it's become more about the joy of running in nature. Improving every day, working so hard for a goal and being proud of myself for pushing myself, especially when it's hard and I don't want to. I figured I'd just share this as a way of saying thank you. And I hope you guys realize that you truly are having such a positive impact on so many people's lives. Hard pants.

[A]

That means so much.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's also really fun to think about this person pushing themselves and finding that joy of running in the nature, which is like the best thing.

[B]

And it gets back to the identity crisis answer. Right? Like, you know, I think it helps us humans to have big abstract goals and things because it just makes life more purposeful. But at the end of the day, we're just trying to structure the moment we're in to be more meaningful to us. And so letting the goals get the better of you is something all athletes and all humans do at some point. But remember, the goals are just a means to an end. It does not matter if you actually do the goals or achieve them or whatever. We're all going towards that long sleep anyway, anyway.

[A]

Or AI is coming for us and we got to think about the process and the maths anyways.

[B]

Apparently Malcolm Gladwell's coming for us.

[A]

The smoked Parmesan.

[B]

Oh, goodness gracious. And so, you know, just remember that bit of self criticism and judgment that we all have that is part of being human rather than part of being an athlete. And try to turn it down and celebrate yourself like you would a friend. Like this listener has, where it's just like, look, you're doing badass things, just getting through the day. If you're adding something like running to that, hell yeah. If you're out there and you haven't run for a bit, go for 5 minutes of like 10 second jogs. Just because, like, use your body while you're here. Because we get one shot at this. And it's really cool to see what this bones and gristle can do or what it can't do. Like, it's all cool. You'll be left with so many fewer questions.

[A]

Bones and gristle and dongles and parmesan cheeses. Plantar fasciitis.

[B]

Gracious, we love you all.

[A]

Woohoo.

[B]

Huzzah.