Latest / The People Run Podcast / #49 How Zach Bitter Thinks About Training

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#49 How Zach Bitter Thinks About Training · The People Run Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: It ends up becoming like months and years worth of consistency versus any one perfect training block.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Bike session, like what, back to back?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Is that how you're training right now?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: So around actually it was around this time last year, I had like a really bad Achilles tendon issue that forced me onto the bike in order to stay in shape.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: And as I was doing that, I had already been kind of looking into just some some of the cross-training models and where people were seeing success with that.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if there was a compromise to it or a value add to it and all that sort of stuff.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: And after that block of training on the bike, I I kind of started to like it and kind of figure out where it would maybe fit.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: So since then, I've sort of had that be more of a structural component of my training where I have certain sessions that I like to do on the bike versus on the run or different phases of the training cycle that I will try to hop on the bike instead of maybe log an extra few miles like I would have when I was a little younger and probably a little less breakable.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you find it translates well.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do you offload some of your mileage on the bike and vice versa?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you're I think it just comes down to order of operations with a lot of that stuff, where obviously, you know, running a hundred miles or a marathon or anything that's going to be long time on feet type of an event, you do want that kind of durability where near the end of the race you still have that impact loading tolerance that you're really only going to get from doing the activity that you're trying to actually execute at.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that people maybe overreact to how much of that actually is required.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you just spend like six to eight weeks in that kind of last peak phase of your training, like building up a long run and hitting goal race intensity paces frequently enough on running, and maybe hit some of those kind of historic highs for the individual uh running mileage or time, time on feet, so to speak, you can kind of check that box effectively.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then you can take less risks earlier on in that training cycle by maybe offloading some of your easy runs to a bike, or in my case, the workouts that tend to give me the most grief with respect to injury is some of the higher intensity stuff like VO2 max short intervals.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So since the racing I do isn't mechanically similar to that pace and intensity, I can do those on a bike and still get the value I'm looking for for 100 mile intensity, but offload all the injury risk that I would otherwise have.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I find that interesting because the more I speak to like runners, I feel like at the higher level, people are starting to do that more often now where like they'll offload.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Before it's like, and I'm sure still people do this, you run 100 miles, 130, whatever.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And some now, like a lot of pro athletes are are starting to offset some bike.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I see it on the YouTubes, I see it in some pro runners where it's like, oh yeah, I do both now and I'll do some zone two work.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, why do you think that is uh that people are like shifting?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh granted, some of it's to offload the mechanics and have better legs and fresh and whatnot.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think a big part of it is it I when I like zoom out and look at just what is really gonna move the needle towards a long-term goal, it ends up becoming like months and years worth of consistency versus any one perfect training block.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we live in an online world for a large portion of things nowadays, so it's like easy to look on and see someone putting in like this massive running training block and think like, okay, well, that's what I need to do to be successful.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: But in reality, the people that are consistently doing well and reaching their goals over years, they are likely don't have these big hero years or training blocks or even workouts in some cases where um where they really kind of put up something that's uh unsustainable consistently.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I think some of it is just people are realizing like, hey, if I can stay healthy and really not take on any big injuries over a two, three, four year stretch of time, that compounded training load that I'm gonna get from that long-term vision versus like any one big year or month or week or whatever happens to be is gonna far outweigh it.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, you you also get more visibility with the top-tier runners with Olympians and things like that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of these people are working on like a four-year or two-year cycle to some degree as well.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like you kind of get a little bit more of a perspective as to like what do you got to do to peak at the right time versus necessarily try to be the best you could possibly be at any given moment because that just kind of makes you average in the long term.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, that makes me want to ask you.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: You've been doing this for a long time at a very high level, 100 mile alerts, uh, very fast.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Records.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what's kept you in it?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, obviously it's changing every year, you're always evolving.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I love about you is you, you know, you you study the game, you research, you put it out there, new findings, and you you change and adapt.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: But what's been keeping you in it all these decades?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a there's one big kind of core thing, and then there's a lot of little things that are just interesting to me.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: So one of them is, you know, I like to focus on like at least one race per year in most cases where I'm doing a very fast, controllable environment.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just seeing how fast I can go when you remove a lot of those hurdles that we see in a more traditional ultra marathon.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, like the question I've asked myself since I did my first one in 2013 at Desert Solstice was just like, well, how fast can I run 100 miles?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I just feel like there's maybe a potential for me to still PR in that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got that kind of incentive of just like really trying to answer that question.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: So when I walk away, whether that is my current PR or a new one, I'll know.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I did everything I possibly could given the circumstances that I had to to do to deal with and just you know, just the way that my life played out.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: I know I at least rung that sponge dry as best I could.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's really motivating to me to take that to its like ultimate conclusion in my mind.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's just the innovation side of the sport, which is really changed.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm old enough now where I've seen like phases and eras of running.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Which is which is kind of fun.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean the big one, the two big ones probably are the super shoe uh like tech, shoe tech essentially, and then just race nutrition.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we are we have more efficient shoes now.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I ran my 100-mile PR, I was running in just a basic foam, like kind of marathon racing flat, more or less.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: So uh part of me is like, well, if I can get a really good stretch of training, have everything lined up the way it did that day, but in super shoes, how fast can I go with the new shoe tech?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because in theory, I should gain a few percentage point efficiency comparatively.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think what we're learning now, or one thing that changed a lot within the ultra-running world and the marathoning world too, is we're starting to see those roadblocks we thought they were there to these higher carbohydrate intake strategies that we saw the cyclists doing.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: There, they're not a limit, there's not necessarily a digestive limitation.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: There can be, but it's not as clear as maybe we thought it was.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So now we have better protocols, better products, and just examples of like how people are getting up into those like hundred plus gram per hour ranges of that.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, whatever benefit those hyper in-race carbohydrate strategies elicit is is on the table for ultra runners, I think.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh kind of fun to see that get explored.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing uh fueling nowadays?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I say this part jokingly because I saw a post the other day where you're like, hey, I'm gut trading and there was a random 90 gram gel.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, everyone's taking hundred, hundred.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: We just had two world records broken, and now everyone's talking about, oh, they took 130, 140.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's interesting because I do think that there is a training component to that where to hit the maximum amount of in-race carbohydrates that you're the individual is going to be able to get to probably requires a high carb diet, and then it also probably requires some form of training adaptation where you're actually training your gut in the actual activity you're doing.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I do think that I think there's a lot of newness with this though, and I my my hope is it doesn't get to, and I probably didn't help matters with an Instagram reel like that, but it it's one of those things where I think you it does really require a lot of context to really do it right and not maybe have it become a problem too, because there's there's unforeseen consequences for someone saying, Okay, well, I need to do 100-150 grams of carbohydrate per hour, especially if they're not producing the workload that would necessitate that high of an intake.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so w one thing that I've learned with this process is like the actual gut training side of things, it is actually maybe a little easier than a lot of people think.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes people gravitate towards, well, I gotta be taking in a ton of carbohydrate on every single run to do this.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Really, if I can do six to eight like really race-specific long runs and then and then maybe like a dozen other runs over a training cycle that are a little bit higher intensity, that some carbohydrate it intake is maybe gonna actually help with the performance side of that that session.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: As long as those long runs, race-specific ones, are kind of hitting my race targets, I'm pretty well good to go.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: At least that's been my experience so far.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I've actually had an easier time, I think, taking in right around 95 grams of carbs per hour for 12 hours at a race back in October than I had in my longest long run leading into it, hitting similar numbers.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's uh it's one of those things where the body does respond relatively quick to it.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: You just gotta send that stimulus to it and let it know that it's gonna need to tolerate that.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Personally, I I love it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in my opinion, you did no damage with the post.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a good spot where people are eating more versus eating less, you know?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point, I I feel because I I've done the mistake where I've done the other myself personally, like, hey, I'm doing a little too much, but the demand is what I'm getting at, doesn't necessitate that much.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the body will course correct for you.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I could be wrong on this, it's just a thought.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think it's just key key to kind of keep an open mind about it too, where like people are gonna hit thresholds where they get digestive issues, and then more is not necessarily gonna be better.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: But like you said, I think I think especially within the endurance world, like encouraging intra-workout fueling is a is a net positive by a pretty large margin.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and I also think outside of just you know staying healthy and having a good relationship with eating and food, it's something where I'm more interested in this too, just like the the the timing of when you're taking in nutrients.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is where people get confused because like in the general population, it's really more about like totals and getting the right amount in.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: When you do it is a lot of times less important, unless you're maybe like eating a ton right before bed or something like that.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: That could disrupt like disrupt sleep, and then obviously that has a negative side effect to it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I think when we're talking about endurance runners who oftentimes are getting up early in the morning and and putting in a lot of work first thing, you have this scenario where you just like really jack the metabolic rate for a brief period of time, where in some cases you may be burning more energy during your training session than you do the rest of the day.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: But this high energy output window of time is fuel restricted.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So then you kind of have this weird mismatch where when your body's the most fuel expensive, you're eating the least, and then when your body's the most stationary, like second half of the day, way past post-workout before you go to bed, you're just mainlining food trying to catch up.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's this kind of this weird kind of like signal that you maybe are sending.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I think when you people start fueling their workouts, we're we're setting up a scenario where their body is like being receptive to the demands and the stresses it's giving to it, versus trying to set up hurdles for it in the future to slow you down and get things like relative energy deficiency syndromes and things like that.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that hits home.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what you just said there, because uh I often run early in the morning and then have a pretty strenuous workload for the next four or five, six hours.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that window is super I'm I'm starving, I'm hungry.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I may overeat a little bit, and it's like it causes a cluster.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I could that hits home.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is hard because I would say intuitively, like if I just respond to my own just like desires, I would eat less during active parts of the day because it just for whatever reason feels better to do that in the short term at least.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then like when my h my hunger will ramp up then later in the day because it's like, oh geez, you've got this like thousands of calories that you need to make up for, and then you're kind of ravenous, and it's just like a it's kind of like a self-feeding cycle at that point, too, because then you eat so much in the second half of the day, you wake up the next morning, you're not hungry, and you're like, Okay, let's do this again, and then you kind of rinse and repeat.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you do kind of have to make sure you're you're you're hacking the system, so to speak, and sending those signals, even if your body doesn't necessarily gravitate to that intuitively.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Struggles of an endurance runner.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, what's it like to run a hundred miles at the paces you do?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like the first time you ran it, what'd you think of it?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Especially you just mentioned you ran it in flats.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm already picturing flats from years ago versus now, like the demands on the legs, my quads freezing up.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I've done some really low profile stuff pre-super shoe at your uh like I've done a hundred miler in a pair of 3.9 ounce.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, now that some of the super shoes are actually that light, but I'm talking like that, like just thin strip of rubber, 3.9 ounce type of shoe you saw back in the day, like racing flat type stuff.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it, you know, it was an interesting time frame.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, the first time I did a track 100 miler was in 2013.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a lot of naivety and a lot of sort of ignorance as bliss for sure.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: But thankfully for me, there was also a lot of structure that I believed in, and I still think had some key principles accurately placed uh to get to me where I needed to get.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: But ultimately it was kind of one of those things where I had run up, it was actually a weird scenario.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: I did this, I did the 50 mile road championships uh earlier that year, and I had a pretty good race, and I had a really good buildup.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was hitting some markers in my training that I hadn't seen before, and I was like in a pretty good spot, and I ended up going under the old course record, but finishing four minutes behind Matt Flaherty, who won it that year.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of left with this weird kind of conflict in my mind where it was like I felt like I had a really good race, a really good training buildup.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I really would have liked to won that race.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then I didn't really have any goal or I didn't even have anything on the race schedule after that.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I recovered really fast.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up just jumping in the Chicago Lakefront 50 mile 13 days later.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember I started that race and I felt great.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I remember thinking, okay, this feels really nice.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: I looked down on my watch, I was running a 545 pace.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew right away, I was like, okay, I should probably pull back on that.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably not going to be sustainable for me right now.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of like pulled back a little bit and just got comfortable there, but ended up running uh like 512, five hours and 12 minutes, which is like right around like 6.15 pace for 50 miles, 13 days after what was supposed to be my A race of the year.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I was kind of like in a weird headspace of just like, well, what do I do with this?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, do I do I do another race this year?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of thinking, like, what do I want?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Why do I want to really target?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I got an email from Aravipa at the time they were trying to recruit people for Desert Solstice, and they said, We saw your two races there, those two 50 miles, we think you'd probably do pretty good at the 100 mile on a controlled setting.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, all right, well, let's let's try this out.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the only really hind the only piece of information I really had about it was that John Olson, who I had known through through the sport, had just broke the American record and became the first American to break 12 hours in 100 miles.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, well, if I can run 50 miles in a 515 or in five hours and 12 minutes, 13 days after a hard 50 miler, I should be able to go out and run a 545-50 mile for the first half and then hold on for deer life and and finish under his record.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So then it was like, oh, I'll target the American record there and try to finish slightly under 12 hours if needed.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean things played out about like that.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I split 50 at around 545.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I didn't quite hold on for deer life.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: I felt pretty good, especially the last 10 miles.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I ended up running 1147.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: So um I got the American record there.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually learned during that race about the 12-hour world record.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know that it that existed until around mile 90 when the race director told me that I was on pace for the world record for that.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that gave me a little bit of an extra incentive to push a little harder that last 10 miles than I probably would have otherwise.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so he probably saved me a few minutes on my 100 mile time and also uh gave me some extra uh momentum to stay out there for that extra 13 minutes after I finished the hundred miles and and and check that box too.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: But that kind of sold me on that style of event because now I had this experience that was very really positive in what a lot of people probably think oh, gross, a 400-meter track.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even want to think about going on a 400 meter track for that long.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And my perspective was like, this was the first like recognizable type of event that I really nailed and that I felt like I really had all the tools to be successful in.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: So at that point in time, it was just like, all right, I need to focus on some of these runnable courses and really see where I can take that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say are some of those tools to be successful at, and now that you've done several times sub-12?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that it is one of those things where there's a lot of polarization with it.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: So you have a scenario where on one side it's about as it is the most monotonous thing you can do in the ultra-running world is hop on a 400-meter track and just go in circles all day long.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the negative side.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Your brain is going to try to leverage that against you.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: But then you also have this extreme positive in that you are running perfectly flat.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: You can train for that anywhere.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's no like, oh man, so-and-so gets to train on the mountains, and I can't, and I we're gonna both be at this race in the mountains.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's like anyone can train for a 400-meter track like setup, mechanically speaking.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then it's just like nutrition and all that stuff.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have so much flexibility.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you have a you you want to have a good plan in place that you think is gonna be successful based on prior experience and research and all that stuff.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, you have a lot of opportunity to shift that around, make like live decisions that can change that you just don't have on a lot of the other ultras where it's like you kind of have to kind of hope it works to some degree, because like if you leave an aid station, you might not be able to course correct for another hour in some cases or more.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think having like trying to frame it that way where it's like I've got this opportunity where some of these things that would normally kind of like bring stress into the mental side, I don't have to worry about because I'm not tripping over roots, I'm not missing a bottle and waiting an hour to get it.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, so I think it's really kind of getting into that that that mindset where you're really excited to take advantage of that opportunity of this is an event where I can remove some of those things that would maybe otherwise cause some hurdles for me.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that's kind of how I've gone about it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: But then with the training too, it's just like anything else.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I think getting really fit with running, uh improving your running efficiency early in the plan, and then getting kind of specific as you get closer to it.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: It just means doing a little bit more kind of controlled, monotonous looping in some of your long runs leading into the race so you kind of mechanically and mentally get ready for what you're actually going to be doing for a longer period of time.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, talking about mentally, like what kind of things change now from the first time you did it to the few times now, even when you do it now this year, or try to like what it goes through your mind mentally, you know, say mile 60, 70 then versus now.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's a good question.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would say like now I have a lot more information.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I I know what I'm getting into, which is both good and bad.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like you you know, like what mistakes to avoid and what things to maybe not respond to, but you also know like you know how bad it can get, or if something bad happened prior that kind of threw things off the tracks for you, then all of a sudden, like if that happens again, you might kind of gravitate towards that because you you knew it or went the time before, even though maybe it's still preventable.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I I would say that's still the biggest challenge with it, and what kind of probably still brought brings me back to it because if it was totally predictable, then like if I could put in a training block and I knew right away, like, okay, this is exactly how it's gonna play out, and these are the exact paces I'm gonna hit, and this is the time I'm gonna have, that kind of takes the excitement away to some degree.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, to the hundred-mile distance, I think in general has that appeal to it where you could be in the best shape of your life and there's still uncertainty around just the distance itself because it's unlikely that you went anywhere near 100 miles in one single training session when you were putting in the work for it.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I would say like I have a framework in my mind of like how to approach like stages like the 70 mile mark or where I'd like to be for that, but then there's this level of uncertainty around am I actually gonna feel good enough in that spot to make the right decision?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one thing that sticks out to me is I've also done a bunch of these now and I've I've gotten like at least close to where my my potential is.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I also have that like lack of oh, let's just go out and kind of see what I can produce and set a new benchmark.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if I send a new benchmark for myself, it's gonna be things really, really well and didn't make a lot of mistakes.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that gives me a little bit extra like kind of pressure on top of like pacing and things like that, because I kind of know what needs to get done in order to.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Order to actually improve.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if that's the main goal, then it takes a lot of motivation off the table if you don't get there.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you know you're not going to get there at some point during the race.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the way I view it now is historically I'd look at like, all right, once I get to around 70 miles, that means I'm in the world of a long run to the finish line.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just kind of switching the mindset to that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I still do that, but I also now look at it through the lens of when I get to like 60, 70 miles in the race, I have to be willing to take a risk there and probably do something that feels unsustainable in the moment.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's either going to go really well and I'm maybe going to PR, or it could go really bad.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, and I end up blowing up.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it could just be like now I have the scenario where my options are kind of run conservative, don't PR, but still run a pretty good time.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I could probably still run, you know, a decent amount under 12 hours without a risky second or last third.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: But if I really want to PR, I probably got to take a risk around 60-70.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that risk might, you know, make me run an hour slower or drop out.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a little bit different too.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Are you deciding those risks in the race or you're pre-planning them in training already?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a great question.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think some of it just comes down to I like to pick at least one race per year where I know if things line up well, I'm gonna take that risk.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then there are some where it's like I can probably still do on a good year, I can probably do another race too, like more than just one of those type of races.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And in that one, maybe I'll be a little more conservative, especially if things don't line up.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: So there are things that kind of play into that where it's like if it's an outdoor track, if it's like 80, 85 degrees, it's like, you know, today's probably just not going to produce a PR.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I might be a little more conservative at that point versus take that risk there, versus a scenario where like I'm at the petit center where I ran my fastest time.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's an indoor track to keep it at 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Somewhere like there, like the only thing that could maybe like structurally deter me from something like that would be all right, I didn't really think that things were gonna play out the way they did.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many people on the track right now, and I'm in lane two, three is so much that it's just not gonna be a day where I'm able to really execute the way I want.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because that's really the biggest hurdle to get over with these timed events when you're doing something a bit a little shorter within it, is there's oftentimes 24 hours, maybe even two-day, three-day, six-day, ten-day events going on during it, and you got to go around people when you're running faster.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you can add a little bit of distance by by that.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess like in theory, that could be something that would maybe deter you to take that risk if you think that it's gonna derail you on a day you're not gonna get the PR anyway because of that.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sort of thoughts come through your mind when you cross that finish line and you see Cell 12 the first time, maybe the fourth, the fifth time, like Yeah, yeah, it's a cool it's kind of a cool goal for me.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's like probably similar to like a marathoner who has like a stretch of races where they've been under like 220, 230, three hours, whatever it happens to be.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for me, that's kind of that thing where it's like something in the 11 hour range is a good enough day where I feel pretty good about the effort.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and I've got five of those now.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: So part of me in the back of my mind is like over the next few years is if I with with a little bit of luck and some focus, maybe I can get to 10 of those.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that'd be kind of like a fun, a fun number to hit over the course of my ultra-running career walk away saying I went under 12 hours 10 times, and um, and then I have a PR within there somewhere.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully that's the that's the case.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you mentioned that with all the new uh well, one you got longevity, a lot of um miles, time on their feet.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: But shoe tech and gels now, who knows what bicarb, all that fun stuff should be a big help.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um what what changes for you now, you know, say 20 versus now.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I saw you post master runners.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: There was some excitement there about that coming.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately for me, the masters tend to be really, really good at the hundred mile distance.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: But but that that that's good and bad.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's good in the sense that it means I probably got a few more cracks at it.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's bad in the sense it means I probably won't be shattering any masters records unless I'm breaking out right world records.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's one of those things where um I mean it's just interesting because like you we we create all these assumptions, I think, as we're going through our sport and the thing we we enjoy as to like, well, where are the limitations?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Where is that point where all of a sudden I should just expect to not be able to be as good as I once was?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And even if everything goes perfect, I'm gonna be slower just because I'm older.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean that day eventually does come.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the big question is where is that at?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one thing that's been interesting for me is just to follow the development of ultra-marathoning, where on one side it has gotten younger, where we've seen a lot of talent come in from the younger age group and and do quite well.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: But we also see the the older group pushing limits now, too, where like the best example of this recently is the women's hundred-mile world record.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: It got broke in November uh by Katriana Jennings.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: She's 45.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it got rebroke by Ashley Paulson in February, and I think Ashley's 44.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I could be wrong about that.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: She's somewhere in the mid-40s, I'm pretty sure.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just like one of those things where you couple that with the fact that Alexander Sirokin broke my world record and he was 40.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I think maybe even 41.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you kind of have these this scenario where there does seem to be this five-year block from 40 to 45 where you probably still have your peak potential on the table if things go right, and it's just about leaning on your wisdom of past because you've done this a bunch of times and not overthinking things that maybe are getting a little bit more shaky that are unspecific, like what my pace is at VO2 Max or something like that.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, that that reminds me of something I I love you shared, and for me, it's just gaining experience via you.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you you kind of talked about earlier, most people train at the higher level in cycles of three, four years, versus like I feel like your average runner goes, okay, here's my next 16 weeks.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my next 20 week.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and what I'm getting at is you know, consistency and just not making, for lack of better words, the fancy workouts, just doing it day in and day out, block after block.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how has your training evolved, you know, now versus in this master era 40, 45, and you also, you know, have an ear to what's going on currently?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a great question.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I I mean maybe I'll answer this in a way that can be helpful for people who are listening to this and wondering like, what do I do with my own training and how do I view this?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think it's smart to look into things and blocks at times in training cycles because you don't want to put yourself in a position where your long-term goal is so far out that it becomes deterring and then you can't get stay motivated by it.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of like New Year's resolutions where they're like super motivating when you make them, but then come February, you're like, eh, you know what?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, where's the small wins that I needed to have in place in order to make this sustainable for the long term and actually get there?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think of it the same way.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I think this goes into things like how much volume you train, what type of like quality work you do, and things like that.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: So the way I like to look at it is like if you're a new runner, you're gonna have like lower volume targets and probably smaller like interval sessions and things like that in that first training cycle.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: But having those goals there to try to hit those and those standards there are still gonna be really motivating and helpful in the short term.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: But what you want to do then is every training cycle, you want to kind of leverage that up a little bit because now you have a higher foundation than you had before.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, like for me, like early in my running career, you know, maybe I run 20, 30 miles a week.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then by the time I got to college, maybe that was 50 and then 60, then 70, and then post-college, I was starting to do some hundred-mile training weeks and things like that.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: So they kind of came in these like layers, and then I got to that point where like adding more volume probably was just something that I had already basically maxed out.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was about how do I structure the training to consolidate things where I need to in the right order of operations to peak for a race.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you do that for a chunk of your career while you're still relatively young and can basically get away with a lot of things you maybe can't when you get older.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then you hit the stage where I am now where there are just certain things that like I could have gone out and mindlessly done when I was in my mid-20s and not really pay any significant price for them.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: That if I do now, I'm probably gonna get injured.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or I'm just gonna like it, or I'm gonna rob from tomorrow or something like that.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: So then it becomes this thing of like, what are the like I have and one on one side I have got decades of low-intensity aerobic development, which we know is beneficial because it can take up to a decade to fully maximize just that low intensity foundation.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got that going for me where I've sort of checked that box as long as I don't just like stop doing it.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: I can probably get away with uh compromising some of that because I'm not really building that anymore, I'm just maintaining it.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's just about like, okay, how do I get the key workouts in that are unspecific early enough in the training so that when I get to the part of the training plan where I'm gonna do the things that are specific to like the hundred mile, which is like basically like two, three, maybe four hour long runs at goal race pace.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: How do I get myself in a position where when I'm doing those, they come at the highest quality?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean the one of the biggest shifts is kind of like we were talking about before, where um I skew some more of my volume towards things like cycling and things like that, just to make sure that I'm giving my body the little bit of extra time to bounce back from those higher impact sessions that you know back when I was younger, maybe I could do those over and over and over again and ignore the bike altogether and still bounce back and recover quick enough.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas now I kind of want to like be a little more choosy about when I do that.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: So like when I get to a block of training before a race, I'll still do back-to-back long runs.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: I still my I think my biggest training week last year was 154 miles.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll still do some really big training weeks running, but I won't make that the standard, I'll make that the peak.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll get that, I'll I'll capture that durability aspect that I need from the impact of running 100 miles in a short window right before when I need it, and then step away from it when I don't need it for a while yet, so that my body has a little bit of extra time to to kind of bounce back from that.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of it is just kind of responding to how your body responds to the training and listening to it versus trying to just uh ramrod your way through.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and some of it's just like a learning process too.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm still learning things and paying attention to people who are older than me that went through what I went and talk about that transition for them, and just trying to make sure that when I'm getting signals from my body that are unique that I wouldn't have gotten earlier, that I catch them before I get hurt or um pay the pay the consequence that removes uh the the consistency variable.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: What matters most to you in your training on a week basis?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like what markers are you looking for?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of goes in in with uh the what I was talking about with like the small goals too.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll usually start a week.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm generally speaking, I kind of have like a four-week block that I kind of build things around where there's like there's some specific goals within that that I want to try to hit, but then you you can scaffold that down to one week.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll go into the week and I'll usually have two, maybe three sessions where it's like these are the ones that I'm building around.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm trying to make sure I get all the quality out of those.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that's kind of where I'm looking for the motivation, where it's like, okay, this workout on Tuesday is the one I really want to hit this standard for, and this one on Thursday, I want to do this.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: This Saturday long run, I want these components to be that be there.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that kind of motivates me to make sure that that stays there.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then what I do around that is usually just as much low intensity work as I can and still maintain the quality for those two or three sessions.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like you kind of kind of keep your eye on the short-term stuff with those, and you you kind of know what's coming up, but you try not to overthink that because you're just trying to like be in the moment in that case and say, okay, I'm gonna execute these.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that just it actually builds the mental framework for race day too, because you're essentially just gonna do that same thing in a much more consolidated time frame where when I'm out there running a hundred miles under 12 hours, it's like at mile 30.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need to be thinking about the last mile because that becomes like a big um hurdle to get over versus just what do I need to do between 30 and 35 to make sure I'm staying on track.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Dak, I love that.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's something I've been finding myself doing myself lately.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, just focus on these workouts right here, the rest, just whatever, go.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: As long as you hit those.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think that's where the planning is helpful too, because if you kind of know what you want to do and uh or what you need to do, and you have enough ev enough enough uh experience from prior training and things like that to know kind of where the the high end and the low end of a specific workout is or the loading zone for a specific workout, you can sort of just say, okay, this is what we're doing now.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, trust the process and then worry about the next day next.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you can kind of go that do that back and forth between in the moment, don't worry about anything else, and then also get the point of like, all right, I got that one done, awesome, what's up next, and kind of think a little bit further.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, you mentioned when I broke down the week that you also do four week.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: What are you thinking at the four-week level?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's usually structured with like kind of three kind of build-up weeks where I'm compounding stress a little bit, and then one where it's a D-load week where I'm pulling back on volume and intensity.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: And usually it just depends on where I'm at in training.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if that is if that's early on in training when I've kind of started that clock to the next race, a lot of times that's gonna be things that are a little bit shorter, higher intensity, because I think those are still important for someone running long and slow.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's not specific.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: So usually if it's important but not specific, I try to do it earlier in a training.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that might be like, all right, I'm gonna do a three-week block of training where I'm focusing on short intervals that are like a one-to-one work to rest ratio, usually between as short as 30 seconds, as long as four minutes.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: But like if it's the short end, it's 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's the long ends, four minutes on, four minutes off.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, generally in around that 15 minute of workload, total workload is a pretty typical target for me for those.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I might be doing a couple of those sessions in a week, um, or you know, sit, I would say like six to eight in a month's time frame.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: And really, my goal is to really focus on that stimulus and pad that with low intensity volume so that I kind of keep that in place, but that could be a little bit more flexible at that point because it's not necessarily the main focus of that particular training block.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, the next four weeks I may move off from that and start focusing on something like long intervals instead of short intervals where I'm bringing the intensity down a little bit, but I'm extending the duration, switching to more of a two to one work to rest ratio, uh, targeting intensity that's closer to like lactate threshold than VO2 max.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and then, you know, the next four might be like, okay, I've I got what I needed out of that.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pull back on intervals altogether and start adding more volume, start adding more zone two and zone three work because ultimately 100-mile racing for me is gonna usually be somewhere in the mid to high zone two range.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I can kind of start saying, Okay, I've I got what I needed out of that other stuff that's non-specific.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start getting really specific and shifting all my training loads to see how much of that I can get in a consolidated period of time to really get my body prepared for the exact thing I'm doing.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: And those all usually come in around four-week intervals.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, watching your weeks and your four-week builds, 14, 15 hours of training.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: How do you fit all that in with uh work, life, family?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it is hard, and I haven't been perfect at it always because it is one of those things where you do have to kind of get used to where things ebb and flow.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, there are certain times of the year where I've started to realize okay, this is usually when a big group of people have picked a race and they're gonna be looking for coaching, they're gonna be looking for support.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And nowadays, a lot of it's like lotteries, like, oh, I got into Western states, I gotta start taking things seriously because I may never get that opportunity again.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they're like, I'm hiring a coach, I'm getting the new gear, I'm putting a schedule together, like everything uh gets set up then.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, so kind of knowing when those inflection points go so that I kind of keep the coaching side of things where I want to, and I'm not necessarily thinking like, oh, maybe I'll peek for a race right during that onboarding time frame or right around those actual races, so that I'm giving myself a little bit more flexibility with how much training I have to put in, or at least structure training I have to put in.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then podcasting too is kind of like figuring out like, well, what's an episode frequency that I can maintain that doesn't step on the toes of the coaching side of things or step on the toes of the training.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, sometimes a year it's like, you know, adds after a race, things I'm I'm kind of recovering, structure's not back for a couple weeks, and then when I do bring it back, it's a little bit lower volume for a while.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe I can bank a handful of podcast episodes during that time frame that I can kind of trickle out a little bit more over time once the training starts to pick up too.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of it's just kind of figuring out the patterns of uh of that sort of thing.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and getting efficient too, you know, figuring out like efficiencies that work well, that you're still delivering high quality, but you're not you know wasting time on things and reinventing wheels and things like that.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um I wouldn't say it's easy, but I also think running 100 miles isn't easy.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the mental side, the mental side of running 100 miles is just something you don't tap into in training the way you would for say like a marathon.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like you could go for a long run that basically mimics the mental demands that you're gonna have on race day pretty close.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: For the hundred mile, it's just you're just stretching really far.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're you're maybe getting there through back-to-back long runs or compounding three runs in a row by whereby that last one you're in a place where you're like physically and mentally, I feel like I got 70 miles in my legs, but it's just different.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I do think like if you're if you're structuring it right where you still have breaks, I think stimulating your mind in a way that makes it kind of stay on for long periods of time is actually really helpful in giving you that potential to be able to do that for 12 hours, or I mean people are running multi-days now too, so they're on for for for eternity, it seems like.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that's a skill you can kind of like work on, and you can work on that through non-specific things by staying active enough in things outside of your running that make your make your brain work.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Zach, you coach others.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: What's uh something a lot of people you find in your coaching focus on that doesn't really matter or move the needle as much?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would say with with ultra running, one thing that I think is getting better now, but in the earlier days of my coaching, I found that people really, really focus is focus on that long run.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they kind of think like, okay, I need to do this all the time, where like if I'm not out there on the trails for four, five, six hours on a Saturday, I'm getting behind, I won't be ready for this hundred miler.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think those sessions are important, but I think they're kind of like I was saying earlier, there's something that you just really need to focus on for a block of time versus indefinitely.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: So what ends up happening with that sort of a process is if you over-emphasize one variable continuously versus when you need it, is you create an opportunity cost where you know those are still stress-inducing, they're still taking something off of what you would have done prior.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that person maybe is not going to have as good quality like interval sessions because they're recovering most of the week from that long outing that they did on the weekend.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think like teaching people to trust that just pure volume isn't necessarily always the answer.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: That sometimes you can take less volume but put a lot of training load into 15 minutes.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I can give you a f a workout with 15 minutes of interval work that will make you feel like you've done quite a bit, even though maybe it's a lot shorter than your long run on the weekend.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh teaching people that that training load is dependent upon how fast you're running or how hard you're running.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, ultra runner mind goes to long, long and slow when in reality we can get that with short and fast too.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's something I think that uh that that that people generally generally uh benefit a lot from kind of learning is that order of operations of when to do things, you know, why something that feels unspecific will make them better at something like running all day in the woods and stuff like that.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree with that whole heart.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the whole focus on the mental side, which is important, but you you gotta build the engine as well.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: Another one that's interesting too is I mean, 100 miles is a long way, and a big goal within the the the ultra-running world is to break 24 hours for 100 miles.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when you when you think about that, it's like 24 hours, 100 miles is like 4.2 miles per hour.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of that pace where if you're running, you're typically going faster than that.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, in order to make that sustainable, you're gonna be doing some hiking and some walking.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: And even if it's a flat course, you might be doing that.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's a hilly course, you're definitely gonna be doing that.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think looking at that as a race specific structure is something that sometimes people miss.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is that they're they're thinking about the running, but in reality, they might be hiking half of that.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: So at what point do you start saying, All right, well, if hiking is half of this event, I could get more efficient at hiking.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: And let's say you get 4%, 5% more efficient at hiking, that compounded over 40, 50 miles, that's a meaningful amount of time.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: So uh thinking about it through like, okay, what do I actually what am I actually going to be doing on race day in totality versus what am I going to be doing when it's the hardest, or what am I good what what do I envision myself doing um during the event uh are all worthwhile things to consider.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: That about hiking, you know, I don't think people often think of that.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can always get on a trailmill, incline, put some weights on or something if you really want to go hard.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that could be a truck.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and lifestyle is interesting too with that because like I've coached people in the past where they have a real active job.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'll never forget, like when I got first got into coaching early, I had a guy reach out to me, and his job was he would drive a freezer truck and he would pull up to restaurants and then he would be unloading stuff.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: So he'd be like going back and forth for sometimes like an hour at a time carrying heavy boxes.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we we just ran some numbers, and he was like walking brisk, carrying heavy objects for like over 50 miles per week.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay, well, we probably are that that's training.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing a hundred mile, like that is training, and that's actually pretty specific training.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe carrying the box isn't, but uh you know, that that amount of walking under load is definitely training.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: And for him, it was like, I probably don't need to give you another like 60-minute zone two session because you're kind of getting those over the course of your workday.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: We maybe benefit more from a continuous long run that doesn't have the weight loading that you do from carrying stuff.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we probably benefit more from like some short intervals where we're tapping the higher interview aerobic intensity session or spectrum and really kind of making it match.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it is also really interesting just to look at someone's lifestyle outside of the training and seeing what feeds into that, especially when you know we're racing at a low intensity, and that's just a little bit more accommodating, maybe for an active job than say I'm gonna run a fast 5K where no one's active job probably replicates that too specifically.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, unless you're a professional 5k runner, in which case then your job's winner or something, yeah.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, we've touched a little bit on training, you know, and insights on the science issues.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: What in your opinion has changed or even matters when it comes to recovery?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: I would say a lot of the fundamentals remain true, and it's just finding ways to execute them in a modern society, which is like sleep is huge.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, especially when you're stressing your body, making sure you're you're getting enough sleep to really reset that is gonna move the needle a lot for people.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh nutrition's another big one where and to some degree these interact with one another, so it becomes more important, is like, you know, getting a getting the right nutrition in so that you're supporting your training and your recovery is gonna is gonna really help those adaptations occur.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the way I like to look at it is like we all think of the hard work as like, okay, I got that done, I did it, and then you kind of reset and move to the next thing.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: When in reality, an adaptation you're looking for from a workout or a series of workouts is the combination of the stressor plus the recovery.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: If there's a mismatch there, you're not going to get the adaptation it the same way.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: So um I think thinking of recovery as that last part of the workout or thinking about once I finish the workout, I'm half done.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: The second half is refueling and resting and recovering from this, and then striking that next stress stimulus when your body's like, okay, we've absorbed that, we've made some changes, go ahead and do it again.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then compounding those over time is going to be the important thing.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I think kind of paying attention to that stuff is is important.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can get into like the smaller things, the smaller movers too, which are like things like uh, you know, soft tissue work, strength work, um cross-training, like we kind of talked about before, as a vehicle for recovery versus another run, uh things like uh um stretching mobility, that sort of stuff.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think those all have a role.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they tend to be things that are like smaller movers that if you don't do the bigger ones first, you're probably not gonna get as much value out of them.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the way I look at it is like if you want to kind of play around in some of those cool smaller ones, that's totally fine.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: But make sure you get the big the big ones taken care of first so you can actually benefit from the smaller ones.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, gotcha.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, one of the things I love about your post, you share a lot of insights, pros, races, science.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've always wanted to ask you behind the scenes, how do you pick what to share, what not to share, talk about uh real.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah, yeah.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: It it is interesting.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and that's something I've I would say I'm still learning uh to a large degree, but it's something I've spent a little more time the last couple of years where when I got into ultra running and started kind of sharing my journey and things like that, I gravitated more to the long form, like what we're doing today.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like I love going on podcasts, I like recording my own podcast.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'd rather sit down for an hour, hour and a half, and just just talk about it and really hash out what I'm trying to say versus try to tell someone about like structuring their short interval sessions in 30 seconds in an engaging enough way that it actually gets picked up by the algorithm.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: But but I also see the value in that.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean it and to some degree it's even just like top of a funnel type of thing where it's like if I want people to engage with my long form content, I probably need to throw them some snacks in order to think, oh, maybe I want to learn more about that and come in and check out that 90-minute podcast you did on short interval development or or whatever it happens to be.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I I guess in terms of structure, I usually look at it through the lens of I want to share what I'm doing so people can see, like people who are interested in like, oh, what's SAC up to, um, they can kind of get a glimpse into what that is, or at least that can point them into a spot where there's maybe a little bit more deep dive into that sort of thing.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: I like to share the education side of it where you know it's one thing for me to say, oh yeah, I did this long run, or I did these intervals, or things like that.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's a whole nother thing to tell people like, you know, why would you do an interval?
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Or how would you structure, or how should you start structuring your intervals and things like that.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to try to share that some of stuff, that sort of stuff too.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh something I want to do more of uh that I've done, I've I haven't done this consistently, but these reels do well, and I think their inform is showing different like uh like strength work type stuff or mobility type stuff where people are really interested in in that.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's important too, especially when you engage in a sport that's very kind of one-dimensional in the way it stresses your body.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh the trail runners get a little bit more value, probably because they're on very terrain.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, the roadrunners like myself, it's like we kind of need to be moving in different planes from time to time.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: We probably need a little more strength work, so sharing some of that sort of stuff.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then just kind of like I think commentary.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we there's a lot of polarization on online and things like that.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to think of like, all right, where's the middle ground here that most people are probably gonna actually like actually draw some value from versus like the extremes on either end?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: So um that's kind of fun too, is trying to kind of and that one's one that's a little bit more spontaneous because it's usually like a trend where like someone will go viral because and usually they go viral because they're leaning into an extreme.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like how do you kind of like jokingly kind of bring it back a little bit and and put up a post that kind of touches on it?
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, I love how you do it.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I always get some value and insight from it.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, from one, someone who's done it and knows at least it comes across that way, I will say, and then you get the the viral and the joke and the funny, yeah.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you find yourself learning a lot from those and probably implementing it into your own running at times?
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I you often break down like pros or like very big events that happen in the running world or crazy extremes at times too.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, it is interesting because like you can also like I I I like sharing the sport too because I think I maybe have a little bit of a unique audience in that most of the people who follow me are probably into running and ultra running and stuff like that.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: But then there's like a group of people that are maybe just a little more in the fitness world because I have done a lot of kind of bigger podcasts that aren't running specific, and then you know, people will latch on that that they're not they they probably enjoy running to some degree, but they probably don't have the full historian lens of the sport.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: So breaking things down that are really impressive and sharing like what it actually entails.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like my my recent favorite one was with the sub two hour marathon, was just breaking down like how fast are these guys moving?
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the one piece that kind of stood out to me was it's a 68-second, 400-meter lap on a track for a full marathon without stopping.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just like asking people well, how long do you think like because I like playing this thought of screen?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: If I jumped in, at what point in the race could you jump in and not get dropped by this person at that pace?
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, you know, people start thinking about their like, you know what, it's a hundred meters or it's it's one lap or something like that.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that and that's impressive.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how crazy those those records are, is that you know, if someone can even maintain a full lap at that pace, that's pretty impressive.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I like kind of trying to share like that sort of thing too.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, like, how crazy is this actually?
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and put it in perspective for people that are maybe not necessarily in the weeds with marathon pacing and what a two-hour marathon actually is or or means.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, you've seen different eras of running, as you you you said earlier.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did you ever think we'd be this crazy right now?
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: The shoes, the sub two hour, uh we got biocarb that looks something from NASA.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where do you think we're even going on top of that?
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: I would have never I would say super shoes surprised me.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that when because we did have some percep where we had some perspective with this where other sports had these phases before running did, where I would say running other than track surfaces on that side of running, it remained relatively pure with respect to shoe tech um up until super shoes.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like there was like there was like there were small gains along the way, obviously, from like the the original running shoes to what we had prior to super shoes, but they weren't like these big multi-percentage movers in most cases, or to the degree that they were, it was spanned over multiple decades versus all in overnight essentially when Nike dropped their first super shoe.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, four percent.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: So so I would say the thing that surprised me about that is like because like swimming kind of went one direction where they they actually had those speed suits, those that that were like just crushing records.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: They kind of just went and they're like, Oh, no, nope, we don't want to do that.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: And they pulled back and they started regulating that a little bit more.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, cycling was interesting because they kind of they grew with like the new bike tech and stuff like that.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I think cycling is a little bit interesting with that because the bike is such a fixtured component to that sport.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's like a it's such a part of it that I think you can kind of maybe look at that as in eras of bike tech a little bit more cleanly, whereas shoes are very much part of running, but you I think the running community maybe viewed the actual runner more so than the tech piece uh a little bit more so than the than cycling did.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: So when the super shoes dropped, my first thought was like, are these gonna be accepted by the running community, or is this gonna be seen as cheating or like you know, an unfair advantage?
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually thought it would probably go more towards like the general runners gonna reject this.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then like these brands and these governing bodies are gonna have to decide what to do with that.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because do you really want to create a divide where we have elites running in these like premium shoes that give them a four plus percent advantage, and then everyone else is running in their standard running shoes?
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that didn't happen.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the the average runner could not wait to get those shoes.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of surprising to me.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and what that told me essentially is whether I like it or not, it doesn't matter because there's nothing I'm gonna be able to say or do that's gonna change the course of that.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: So uh once like the entire community essentially, to a large enough degree said we're embracing this, then it becomes a new era.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think the interesting thing about that is like, well, what do you do about that?
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you looked at like Kipchogi's sub-two-hour uh expedition, that was actually an illegal super shoe that he wore there because it wasn't regulated and need to be.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, like in theory, if you take all the guardrails off that super shoe tech, you could have you know 55 millimeter stack, two plates in there.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh who knows where the tech goes.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: And since they put a 40 millimeter stack height regulation, a single plate rule, now there was like rules to the game, and it became an arms race within that.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're seeing like Adidas trying to make a sub, well not trying, they did make a sub 100 gram shoe.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: So they sort of like fixed that like lightness compromise that some of the early super shoes had.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um the foam can be light and responsive now versus a little bit heavier in order to get that response.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we're starting to see like all these brands kind of kind of do that.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I I do think like what that tells us, since there's clearly a market for this, it kind of gave a green light to all the major running brands to say, okay, we can make this part of our lineup in a way that's sustainable, or you know, it may even be our flagship product that we generate a ton of revenue from.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: So now we have like way better RD.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like my my my most personal example of this is Puma.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they do this thing called concept cars where they build these like insanely have you seen any of these shoes?
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're just yeah, they literally people people always like meme this where they put a picture of like I think it was like in maybe like 80s that commercial where these people had those like those springboard shoes that they put on.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and and it almost looks like that.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we're there, and and they're doing that basically the same way as you would for like a Formula One car where they have to have they have to follow rules for that.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll make these like absurd versions that wouldn't be legal, and then they take that and they pare it down in the direction that's gonna get them the most illegal option, and that's how the fast R3 came to market.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I mean we don't have third-party data on that new Adidas shoe yet, but as far as third-party data goes, that that Puma Fast R3 is the most efficient shoe out there, and so you see these brands saying we're we're willing to spend a ton of money on RD because if we come up with a shoe that sits up near the top, it's like such a great marketing tool.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then at$250,$350, Adidas$500 a pop, it's like sold in two minutes, yeah.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, so so you have that, and then well, this is a little bit of a tangent, but the Adidas one's super interesting to me because they I saw this get kind of like misinterpreted, I think, by like people that were big accounts online that didn't follow running.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, What is Adidas is making a huge mistake not having like like hundreds of thousands of these available to sell.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: And my thought was like, they do not want you to own that shoe because that shoe is that that'd be like that'd be like if um I don't know nearly enough about race racing, but if one of those race cars, one of those premium race cars on the track, if they just said, you know what, Zach, we want you to have this, you can just go and buy it.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: If I had that car, like I would I would make all sorts of mistakes with it.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: I would probably I'd probably lose my driving license.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: It would be terrible for me.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would be complaining about it.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: So like Adidas doesn't want you to own that shoe because it's such a specific purpose shoe.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: The average person who just like goes and like emotionally buys it based on the sub two is gonna put that shoe on and wear it for the wrong thing and then get hurt or just not like it because it's not gonna do the same thing across the board as it did for Sawe.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, right.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so like they they really don't do themselves favors by getting a bunch of negative feedback on that over time.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: They want to put it in the right hands, and then what they'll do is they'll take bits and pieces of that and they'll put it in their core line, which they do want you to buy, and then they'll market it that way.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: They'll be like, hey, this has you know the mid-sole foam from the Evo Pro, and and then people be like, oh, I want that, and it'll be a more appropriate shoe for them too.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it kind of works that way as well.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: But what I'm saying is like this, uh, you know, that who knows where the shoe tech's gonna go in terms of efficiency because we do have some guardrails that probably keeps it from getting it like as far as it could without those, but as we're seeing, there's probably still improvements that can be made from a performance on this, and that innovation is gonna continue to kind of play out.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, I agree with you.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like so.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a car guy, okay, and I find a lot of similarities between the car market and running right now, just as a space.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: You touched on it beautifully, like with cycling, the bikes and swimming.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like in the car space, every brand, the top ones have their Halo car, right?
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: Your Ferrari, like untouchable, etc.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same thing for F1.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's perfect.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: You touched on F1.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like Toyota has a new one coming out, GR Toyota, something.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be who knows what the price is, but insane.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is that Audi has an R8, etc.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is they they get this tech and technology from F1 nine out of 10 times.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like super illegal.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_00: The top of the top 1% can drive this.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: It trickles down to the Halo car, you sell it in masses, aka your uh carbon-plated shoes, and then they take that tech to your point and apply it to your Honda Civic, your Toyota Camry, uh, your two-door sports car that most of us can drive without needing a special license.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and to your point, yeah, I have heard of the Puma concept, and I I love that because they go all out and they make these crazy shoes, and it's just like, well, we're gonna get a nice fast R4 or three out of this.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it makes it exciting for sure.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's a crazy space right now and running.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm I'm glad someone who knows way more about cars than I do could validate my uh comparison there.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a perfect actually way to put it um that I haven't heard before, and I do see a lot of parallels from it for sure.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like super halo car trickle down to your everyday car.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it is interesting, and I think like uh my hope with some of that too is and we're we're starting to see some of this too, where the material and the different formulations, they don't necessarily need to be like as expensive as they are, and and and still get like you probably do if you want to get the absolute ring it every last percentage dry type of a thing.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, you're seeing some of these smaller brands come out with shoes now that are like they're they're putting up a good fight where I don't I hate the idea of like some kid in high school looking at like okay, I'm I'm good at this, and all of a sudden, like now I gotta go ask mom and dad to buy me a$350 shoe that maybe only lasts for a couple hundred miles.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I I tend to I part of me likes the idea of running can be this sport where I've got the same kind of gripes with respect to course access and race access too, because it's like it's really tough to get into some of these mountain races and things like that.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like, how do I drive popularity and notoriety around more achievable things where you can train in your backyard and get into an event that doesn't cost you thousands and thousands of dollars and that sort of thing too?
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, like I you know you hope that it kind of like finds a balance there at some point where it doesn't create such a like a higher bar for entry, um, where all of a sudden someone who has has all the gifts and the desire to do it, but then has to try to like figure out something that that is maybe a little bit harder for them at a at a young age.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, I agree.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's getting pretty crazy, but I I have hope that and it's getting so big as a sport that there's also just more coming around.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're seeing more and more races, more shoes.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: To your point, like I think Puma is gonna sound like a Puma episode, but Puma has that great uh um, I forget what it's called.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like their entry-level daily trainer, which is still finally priced as a daily trainer, but great foam.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yes, there we go.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_00: The deviate, um, you know, there's there's options, but it can get out of hand on the other side too.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, what's driving you in the sport right now?
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: What are you looking forward to most?
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh challenges coming up.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say I've kind of got two views.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_01: One is as a fan and one is as an actual participant.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_01: And as a fan, I'm super fascinated with these multi day stuff right now, like the last man standing, the Coca Donuts kicking off in a couple days here, these like 200 plus milers.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: I find the character so interesting in those events because.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: There the anytime you show me someone who comes in non-traditionally, I'm going to get a little more excited about it.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, uh, like I just had Mark Dowdle on my podcast, like actually before he did the BPN last man standing, he's actually out doing a last man standing this weekend right now, too.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: And just like kind of learning about how he got interested in it.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: He came from a division three football and lacrosse background.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just really interesting to kind of see, like, oh, okay, where do these variables actually matter and to what degree?
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: Where running a flat, fast hundred miler for somebody that has had my times, it's like that running efficiency variable is still really huge.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_01: But put me out on a last man standing, I you still need to be relatively fast.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: You can get around that lap quick enough to take care of yourself, get some naps and things like that.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a much smaller variable relative to the other stuff, like durability and things like that.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, like kind of figuring out how these variables all stack up in terms of weight of importance as you span from like shorter ultras to really, really long ultras.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: Fascinated by that.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh for myself, I think it's one of those things where I'm looking at the hundred miles stuff as something where I definitely have a shorter timeline left than the totality of what I've done from since I did my first one.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like, how do I pick and choose someone that I can really take a good swing at and still kind of keep that dream alive of still PRing in it?
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_01: But also starting to kind of look at like, well, where's my why and motivation to do something a little bit longer that's maybe a little conducive for someone in their older, a older side of an ultra marathon runner and things like that?
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because I do think the 24 hour I know uh it's it's one that's I have not solved that puzzle for myself personally.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've coached a bunch of people who've done really well at it, and I think I have some ideas of how I would get it done, but I still gotta go out and do it.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that event really excites me.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then some sort of multi-day.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think I I I still need to really find that clear why for me with that one, where I know when I'm stripped raw 36 hours, 40 hours into it, that I'm still gonna be like, all right, let's let's just go into the darkness, let's not drop out, let's not go back to the nice hotel room.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: Stay in it.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like I know just enough about the sport to know that that moment's gonna come.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I also know enough that I haven't quite convinced myself of what that huge draw would be to get me to that point where it's like, no, this is where where where you need to where you really need to get serious about things.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll get there eventually.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: And some of it is just like a process of uh getting to know that side of the sport a little bit better, and that's that's one of the reasons, one of the more selfish reasons, I guess, why I'll I'm interviewing a lot of these multi-day.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've I'm super interested in them, but I'm also like trying to figure out what makes them click, what draws them in, and what gets them through those dark places, like where to look to find those and that sort of thing, because I think that's how you're gonna end up discovering it yourself is by watching the people who do it best.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, agree.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: Zach, thank you for coming on.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you sharing so much insights and coming on to people around podcasts.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_00: This has been amazing, had hella fun.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, thank you, Zach.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a blast.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_01: Great way to spend a Saturday morning.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you got your running, I'm about to get mine in, so I have all the energy and pumped right now.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: All right, well, hopefully, I was inspiring enough to make it a high quality run.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a long run with some quality in there, so for sure.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right on, perfect.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_00: Love to hear it.