Latest / 12 Months to Marathon / Episode 111 - What My Blood Tests Taught Me About Running After 35

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Episode 111 - What My Blood Tests Taught Me About Running After 35 · 12 Months to Marathon

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to the Talmud to Marathon Podcast with me, John Hill, the running podcast for the over 35s with Marathon Dreams, episode 111.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: What my blood tests taught me about running after the age of 35.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this is going to be slightly different today because I have just come back from Poland where we spent a couple of weeks with my in-laws.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And while I was there, it I had an opportunity to get a complete blood profile done at a relatively reasonable cost.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've ever had one of these sort of well-woman or well-man checks here in this country in the UK, that's what we record this, and I assume it's probably very similar in the US and places like that as well.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, these are quite pricey for like the full blood profile.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this was a fairly comprehensive test.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, well, let's have it done.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I've been, you know, in the uh health and wellness industry for the last 17 years.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, yeah, let's have a look and see what's actually going on.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, being 49, nearly 50, I thought it was important.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, because we are runners and we spend a lot of time looking at data, you know, your heart rate, your gaming data, your resting heart rate, HIV, VR2 max, and all the other stuff, pace mileage and sleep scores and everything else with the bells and whistles.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, what's actually going on inside my body?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is something I had done a couple of years ago.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: For the guys in the UK, I had the um NHS sort of uh men of a certain age uh blood test done.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: They offered it for they offered it to me that was free, of course.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, yes, let's get that done, uh, which was quite interesting.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then I compared the results.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I want to do with you today is share some of my results because I think it's important that we can look at the complete health picture.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I want to do is I want to share particularly my testosterone, which was the interesting one, because this test did that vitamin D, blood sugar, cholesterol, and thyroid function, and we can talk about how runners can actually learn from that and what it tells me about everything that I do and the importance of the stuff for me that sits behind the surface, as in like we run and we get better at running by running, of course.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But what sits behind all of that and what makes us better runners, and of course, recovery, rest, and of course, our body function.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, again for the crazies on the internet, I'm not a doctor, this isn't medical advice.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: These are blood tests, and the interpretation I have got of that with the knowledge and research that I've done as a runner.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you're ever concerned about anything medically, of course, go and get the right help from a professional.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've done that, I'm not saying it again, so let's get into it.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, fitness doesn't tell you everything, okay?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's the important first point.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, being fit and being healthy are not the same thing.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I remember reading a book many years ago called The Glucose Something, I can't remember the exact name of it off the top of my head.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason why I mentioned that book, uh, so I think within the glucose solution or something like that, because it was about a guy who was an endurance performer, and his dad had type 2 diabetes, and he watched his dad sort of succumb to quite a severe case of type 2 diabetes, which was um brought on by poor choices, let's put it that way.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, type 2 diabetes basically originally was called age-onset diabetes, because as your body slows down, it can't process things like it used to, so of course, it then creates insulin resistance to cause type 2 diabetes.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that's a very simplistic, not a doctor.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Please feel free to reference what I said at the start.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in a dietary standpoint, that's when we basically force our bodies to become insulin resistant because we're just putting too much sugar and carbohydrate and glucose into it.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, the reason why I mentioned that book is because he said, Well, I he went for a test and it found out that he's he's HBA1C, his blood glucose levels were really high.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Well, why is that?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: I exercise a lot and do all this work, and it turned out that his diet was terrible, uh, but he was exercising a lot.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a difference between being fit and being healthy.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you can run a good marathon, of course, or run any race and still have something going on that you don't know about.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can have a brilliant VO2 max and have you know high, you know, LDL cholesterol.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can train five, six times a week and be deficient in some mineral.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can be running badly and assume you've lost fitness when actually there could be potentially something going on from a physiological standpoint inside.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one reason why things like this interest me.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And my own results, thankfully, were generally good.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this is more important for me because I'm 49 and the choices that I made between the ages of 14-ish and 30-ish weren't always great.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I smoked for a long time, I took recreational drugs in my 20s, I drank um, not I wouldn't say heavily because I wasn't, I never had a problem with alcohol, but I drank quite a lot because I was I was from a generation I was I'm from what's called, I call it the party generation.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the sort of late 80s, 90s, early 2000s, I call it the party generation, which was when there was no phones, we could just do whatever we wanted, no one was filming us, and we just parted hard, so that kind of thing.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So overall, my glucose was good, which is reassuring, obviously with the age of that map.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: My liver and kidney markers were good, again, very reassuring, particularly liver, vitamin D was good.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So most of my blood count was normal.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: There are a couple of things that that weren't actually perfect.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So my LDL cholesterol, which is low density lipoproteins, which is quote unquote the bad cholesterol, was higher than I would like it to be.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not worrying, not sort of, oh my god, I've got to rush to the doctors, based on some other stuff which I'll tell you about in a second, but that was high.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's correlated, I think, to obviously being, you know, I was being away, my dietary choices weren't great, they weren't disastrous, but perhaps my diet wasn't as good as it could have been, and perhaps my diet's not been as good as it could have been for the last couple of years, as good as it used to be.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's something I need to focus on, and something I will be focusing on.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily badly, I just like most people and a lot of runners eat too much.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the most important thing here with all of this is it's data.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and one thing I've spoken about recently on this podcast is not turning data into identity.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So any tests that we have done are not a judgment on us, they're just information.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the most important things about this test that I had done, which I was really happy with, is my testosterone.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because if you don't know, testosterone drops in men after a certain age, roughly about 30.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure the exact number, but as we get older, our testosterone drops.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's very high when you're a teenager because you're growing still and it drops naturally naturally.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's why weight training, supplementation, sleep are very important for particularly men.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So because there's an enormous amount of rubbish online about testosterone, particularly aimed at men over 40.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to talk about this.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So apparently, once you turn 40, you're supposed to wake up in the morning, be no testosterone, no muscle, and immediately take 12 different supplements.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, my testosterone, yeah, came back at roughly 8.54 Ng stroke ML, right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Which is high.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, it was above the recommended range from the lab, and I'm 49.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well I was doing some research on this, I said, is my testosterone high for my age or is it high for any age?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it came back and said, it's very strong for your age, it's very good for any age.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not taking testosterone, I'm not on TRT, I'm not on supplementation in that sense.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is simply came back naturally on that blood test.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of things to bear in mind.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, it was in the morning where testosterone is normally higher.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's the first thing to say.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's obviously going to be a little bit higher at that time of day, but I'm still very reassured by the fact that testosterone's higher because that's a concern of mine.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I think this is interesting from a running perspective because testosterone isn't just about libido, sex drive, or building muscles.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: For men, particularly, it's involved in things runners care about a lot: maintaining muscle mass and bone, red cell production, recovery, and general psychophysiological function.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: But here's where we need to be careful on this one.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So more testosterone doesn't automatically mean better running.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: One blood test doesn't suddenly tell you everything you need to know about your hormonal health.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hormones fluctuate, time of day matters, like I mentioned.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sleep matters, very important, particularly when it comes to testosterone.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Energy availability matters, training load can matter, and testosterone needs to be interpreted alongside other information rather than turned into another performance score.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's particularly important for endurance athletes because there's a temptation amongst runners to believe that more training equals more fitness equals better health.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work indefinitely.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're training extremely hard while chronically underfueling and recovering badly, as some of us know, you're not necessarily doing yourself any favours.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the reasons why recovery becomes increasingly important for me as I'm as I get older.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 49, I can still train at a very, very good level.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: But my attitude is changing now to how much training can I actually adapt to, not how much training can I survive.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a big difference in that.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So recovery is massively important.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Part of the work that I do with people is around recovery when I'm coaching, because whilst you can still do incredible things at this age, you have got to be careful around your recovery.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the result that surprised me the most alongside the blood test was the biological age analysis.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, this is just data, it's not a definitive.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, in chronological terms, I am 49 years old and a couple of weeks.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: My estimated biological age according to this test was 41, just under 42, basically, 41 and 9 months, right?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, am I going to go around telling everybody that I'm actually 42?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, but that's not how it works.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing that really makes me happy about that is the fact that because I smoked particularly for a long time and I was overweight for a long time, it tells me that even there's a strong correlation, I'm actually biologically younger than I should be.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I find that very interesting.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what I found more interesting was the reasons behind that result.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the biggest positive contribution came from immunity and inflammation, followed by bone and mineral health.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's more useful to me than the sexy headline that oh, I'm I'm 42.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because what does this data really tell me?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: It suggests that quite a lot of what I'm currently doing is working.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't completely change everything because one market isn't perfect.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the LDL.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because, as I'll talk about in the cholesterol, it's not as straightforward as that, yeah?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: So my vitamin D came back high, which is another relevant one for runners, because vitamin D plays an important role in bone bone, particularly bone, and muscle function.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Bone health matters, particularly when you're an endurance athlete or running a lot, because when we're running, we're repeating the loading your skeleton thousands upon thousands of times.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this becomes interesting because most runners in the UK, because most runners who listen to this sorry are in the UK are in places where it's not always sunny.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So there are periods of the year, especially like as I record this this morning, where sunlight exposure becomes a genuine consideration.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean that everyone should start hammering vitamin C to vitamin D supplements, sorry.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: It just means that it's something just to be aware of, particularly if you've told you're deficient or have other reasons to investigate it.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Again, get a test rather than guess or speak to a professional on that one.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: My blood sugar uh was fine, as I would expect.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: My fasting glucose was 86 uh milligrams per DL, which is within range.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And my HPA1C, some of you might be familiar with that, which is what they usually use to test your if you're diabetic or not, was 5.6%.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it needs to be between, I think, four and six and a half or seven or something like that.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: But it was it was well within the range.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and this opens up another interesting conversation for us as runners, because obviously, as a runner, you need to eat carbs.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those of you who've been overweight and started running have had sort of body shock of knowing that you need to eat carbs, um, and sometimes we're scared of food.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I eat carbs, I've had to eat more carbs and I'm training for a marathon carbohydrate to your friend when you're training for a marathon.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then sometimes we think that if you do get elevated blood glucose or anything, like the carbohydrates are bad, and that's far too simplistic.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you're running significant mileage, carbohydrate is of course an important fuel source.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't need to demonise certain foods when it comes to this particular area, but we need to just look at the whole picture here.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't need to be scared of carbs as runners, and vice versa, as per that previous example.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to let running become licensed to carb as well.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be a little bit careful, and I think the best distinction to make there from somebody that's coached nutrition and weight loss for many, many, many years, is that there's a difference between junk and carbs.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: So when someone says all carbs are bad, it's never as simplistic as that.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like junk's bad for us, not necessarily, you know, a small bowl of rice or whatever.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So cholesterol.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I mentioned cholesterol, LDL, and HDL.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I won't go too much too deep into this, but this is something I've studied and read about.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm not a doctor, but it interests me because there are certain things within this profile, which are sometimes called just serum lipid profile when you have these tests done, that are important.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: So my LDL was 136, my HDL was 63, and my triglycerides were 85.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the most important thing here is my HDL was good and my triglycerides were good.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Triglycerides are free fatty acids in the blood.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: But my LDL and non-HDL were higher than I would want, and this is probably one of the most useful lessons.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so everything about my health on the whole as a runner is good.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Resting heart rate's low, lowest it's been for a while, actually, as I record this.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: VO2 Max is exceptional, everything's good, but I do need to just say, well, okay, are there small changes I can make potentially dietary-wise that can help me?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the LDL is something that I just need to monitor and not worry about necessarily.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's for me, it's a correlation between perhaps not being as switched on as I would normally be in a dietary sense, in terms of just potentially eating too much, and that's something I'm working on at the moment because I am training for high rox, which you're not carb loading as much for higher, so your energy demand from food is far different from when you're marathon training because you're not doing 50, 60, 70 miles a week when you're high rox training.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: You are doing intense workouts, but you're not doing workouts that require, in my experience, a lot of excess glycogen.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so thyroid.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: My thyroid results were interesting as well.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that can hamper us in later life.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So everything was in the range except what's called my FT4, which was fractionally below, and I mean fractionally.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but thyroid function is another reason why I think this conversation matters for us.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because imagine you're training for a marathon, then all of a sudden everything feels harder, you're exhausted, recovery isn't happening, performance is declining, and you think you're losing fitness, so then you train harder, which might be the wrong response.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: It may be again correlation linked to this, something to do with unexplained fatigue or deteriorating performance.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Some of those things are not solved just by running faster.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the kind of stuff that these tests produce and are always worth potentially looking at and speaking to a professional about as well.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, what about supplements?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: So this ties into a previous podcast that I've done.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I take magnesium, zinc, omega-3, and turmeric.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've explained the reasons why I do that.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something these tests reinforce me that supplements should supplement.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the clue's in the name.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're not a replacement for sleep or eating properly or sufficient calories or strength training, and they're definitely not a replacement for appropriate medical care when something is actually wrong.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be very, very careful around hormones.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's an enormous industry built around, particularly telling men that their testosterone is collapsing and then selling them the solution.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some very equal promises made to women around hormones, menopause, performance, and that sort of things.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Some of these conversations, yes, are worth having and are legitimate, but don't diagnose yourself from an Instagram reel or a podcast for that matter.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you generally think something is wrong, investigate it properly.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So what's the big takeaway here?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying everybody listening needs to book a private blood test.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel fantastic, you're performing well and there's no clinical reasons for testing, I'm certainly not going to tell you that you need 50 biomarkers measured twice a year.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think we should become more interested in health span, particularly as runners, particularly as runners who are in middle age and getting a little bit older.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just don't want to run fast at 49.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be still running at 59.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be running at 69, 79.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want my body to let me do this as far as I can go.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now perhaps I can't I won't be able to perform the same at 69 or at 49, but I still want to run and enjoy running as long as I can.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the objective for me isn't how fast can I run right now, it's how good can I become while building a body capable of continuing doing this for the long term.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that means training.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: It also means recovery, sleep, nutrition, strength, body composition, managing injuries, and then again, if necessary, appropriate health screening.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So overall, I'm pretty pleased with my results.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: A biological age algorithm estimates me at about seven years younger, which I'll take.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: My testosterone, I'll take that all day.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really happy with that.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And my vitamin D, blood glucose, and liver and kidney markers were reassuring as well.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's some things to keep an eye on, particularly LDL, particularly my you know, linked to poor dietary choices and eating too much, but again, that's the internal struggle of runners.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the biggest lesson for me to take away here, particularly, is don't use health data to prove how healthy you are.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Use it to learn something.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Same applies to running.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the data, the measurements, the metrics, the tech, that's all there to give you references and give you information.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Take the information, understand it properly, and make changes where appropriate, and then carry on living your life.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because ultimately, being a runner over 35 shouldn't be just about chasing the next PB, it should be about becoming fitter, stronger, healthier, and hopefully seeing how much your body is capable of doing.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And at 49, that's the bit that I've really grateful for, considering where I've come from.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: So interesting, very interesting indeed, and very pleasing and reassuring for me to get all that information.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much for listening.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I do appreciate it.
• 18:04
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• 18:11
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• 18:17
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• 18:20
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• 18:26
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• 18:29
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• 18:30
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• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I really, really appreciate you listening to this podcast.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, and I'll speak to you all again very soon indeed.