156. Strength Work Tips, New Golden Ticket Races, and Brain Circuits and Habits!

Well, welcome to the Summer Coldplay podcast. We are so happy to be with you today. Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday. And I'm feeling the good vibes on this Tuesday and that parallels what I'm drinking. It's actually approaching shake in a wine glass. I like it, the vibes are really, really strong. And if I'm not mistaken, there's also some real gray tea in there, is that true? Yeah, that's a little gross. I was hoping that wasn't going to make the podcast, but I was digging a little caffeine. And I was like, you know, why would I have two different cups and I can just toss it all in one? And it really did not mix well, which I don't think is a big spoiler that chocolate protein powder and troll grade tea don't really go together. I really respected your game, your motherhood efficiency, which is I made a cup of Earl Grey tea for you to just get going for this podcast recording. It comes out of the microwave, because we do things real fancy here. You immediately throw a whole thing of ice in it and then put it in a wine glass and then put protein in it and then march upstairs. It was truly, truly impressive. And it was atrociously gross, but I drink it anyway because those are the protein gains I'm looking for. Do you think of it as gross? Because first, once you're drinking protein, some of your brain is always like, okay, this is awesome for me. It tastes great as a result. But number two, I feel like protein, especially that ascent chocolate protein mixes pretty well in everything. Yeah, not with Earl Grey tea, but I'm going to say it was delicious, actually, because I think it was the wine glass that sealed the deal. I can drink anything in a wine glass. It's been my thing recently, I've had chocolate milk, the drinking all kinds of fun drinks and wine glasses, just not wine itself, because we haven't really been drinking, but it really elevates the game of any liquid. I like that you're making it seem voluntary. What it actually is, I don't know where all of our cups have gone. Maybe they're all dirty. Maybe they've all gotten thrown out. They're somewhere, but they're not anywhere we can gather them. So as a result, we've been using wine glasses for various things. And I heard from you that on a recent Zoom call, you were doing your wine glass with something that looked a little bit different than chocolate protein powder. Actually, I created a delicious drink. So it was like some sort of cranberry grape, salted water sort of situation in there. It was quite good, but I was chugging it on my Zoom call. It was a post workout. I was really feeling myself. And I had this O-Shit moment, like 12 minutes into the Zoom call, and I was like, they just thought I chugged wine. And then I was like, oh shoot, I should own that. That was really impressive. I've never seen a girl drink wine just as fast as I drink that drink. I think you're just chugging it a little over there. Dropping wisdom bombs. Everyone's like, I guess that's just Megan. She just rocks shit. No one called me on on it. Yeah, well, that's amazing. Another good lesson there for every athlete is to always have juice in your house. Oh, juice is so good. Yeah. Because I think one interesting thing about nutrition, we're gonna have an interesting nutrition discussion later, is that we're always told juice is bad, like to avoid liquid calories. When, in fact, athletes, it's the number one place to get a lot of your calories. And when they find these studies on eating disorder behaviors, they often find that they do diet drinks or other things that just they were not getting liquid calories intentionally, because they've internalized these types of messages that aren't designed for people that train. So if you're out there, get some cranberry grape shit in your house. It's really delicious. I had this magical realization like five years ago. I was like, wait a second. Gatorade is just juice. It's just extremely blue juice. And I was like, so I should just have juice in the house. And it's great. It actually mixes with things far better than Earl Grey tea. I haven't mixed juice and protein powder yet, but I bet it's good. I bet everything's good. I want you to add a little bit of that sweet protein game. Speaking of realizations, we wanted to start the podcast by talking about one that you just had. Emblematic of you having wine glasses with cranberry juice on your Zoom calls. What has been your big realization recently? Well, I feel like that was emblematic of my fucking moment because I had this realization that, I feel like I've come to this point with work. I'm wrapping up my PhD. Leo is seven months old. There's a lot going on in life. But also as I wrap stuff up, I've had the chance to step back and evaluate. And I'm like, damn, I don't know if I want to be doing this much work. I love Leo. I love training. I love life. I don't need to cram 60, 70 hours of work into a week and be missing out on all these other things. Yeah. Well, how are you going to make that step back? Because you're saying, oh, I had an opportunity to step back, but that's not actually how it is. In fact, more and more and more and more has been thrown on your plate. You're getting more opportunities every second. How are you going to say no to those things when that's kind of the trajectory that most people societally would want to take? Well, I've had this realization that every time I say no, it's like there's actually this corollary or flip side that if I say no to something like an opportunity, I'm actually saying yes to Leo and training and the things that I love in life. And so that's helped. But I think, logistically, what I'm planning to do is take a step back in terms of some of my different projects, specifically my Stanford work. I'm reducing the number of hours. Yeah. I'll stay on post-PhD still staying on, but it's going to clear up a lot of time. And it already has. So I made the decision two to three weeks ago and I feel good. I'm like, real, real good. I'm so happy. I thought I was happy before. I'm like 10X happy now. Well, do you have any messages to podcast listeners that might be struggling with similar things, which is, I don't know, once you're, especially for smart people or people that have these opportunities thrown at them, the tendency is just to put more and more on your plate until you hit 40 and you're just overwhelmed every single day. And it sounds like you're planning to step off that sooner, though we'll see. What's your message? Well, I already have. You're like, we'll see. I'm like, dude, I did the work. Why are you talking about it? I don't know. I said 25% actually kicked in yet. Yeah, it has. Okay. Yeah, okay. We'll see. You sound very skeptical. But I'm a little pissed. I'm like, we should be proud of my decision. I know, I'm so, so proud of you. But at the same time, I don't know. It's like someone in masturbator's anonymous who's like, I haven't masturbated in two minutes. It's like, wait till you get to five minutes before we start proclaiming that it's doing really great. Okay, very fair point. But I do have a plan because I feel like I need to set strong boundaries going forward because it's this ever-present inertia of cool opportunities come and it's this yesterday enough. Yes, yes, yes. And he's like, the challenge is that's where, that's helped me get to where I am in life. But I'm at the point now where I don't need that either. And so I think just setting really for a boundary. So for me, I think it comes from Zoom calls. So Zoom calls for me, they take up 1.5 times X, the amount of time they actually are because there's so much energy invested in them, they take forever. And it's the worst thing being in my office upstairs and hearing Leo laugh when I'm on his Zoom call. It just pains my soul. So I'm setting scheduled blocks as Zoom calls, like set hours with things. Being just really, I would say, protect yourself. Intentional with what I do with things, yeah. They try to make you do a Zoom call, you say? No, no, no. You nailed it. Oh, that was fun. We were, that was a harmony. Yeah, but that being said, like I do, even though I'm giving you a hard time, I don't really notice much of a difference because you're so present with everyone. I just think in your own head, it's super stressful. And it's a good lesson, I think, for everyone out there. Just try as much as you can to save space for your own personal growth, to have to do nothing sometimes. Because otherwise, you might get to like 60 years old and be like, I guess I worked, you know, 60 hours, even if you're not clocking 60 hours a week, all this time and for what? Yeah, and it's like, what does one extra meeting mean? When I could, I mean, Leo is not gonna remember those meetings, he's gonna remember the time I spent with him. And the people on the meetings aren't gonna remember me being on the meetings most likely. And I feel like Leo, you training, Addy, Doc, all of those things get impacted first and it's not fair. And it's not fair to you guys, it's also not fair to me either. So yeah, hi, my name is Megan. And it's been six minutes since I last Zoom masturbated. No, and it actually brings up a really fascinating tweet. This is from Enigo Samilan, who is a top physiologist, also a top cancer researcher. We mentioned his research recently on lactate and it's on just this subject. Here it is. After 27 years working 65 to 70 hours a week with almost no vacations and constantly fighting for funds, it's taken a toll on me and my loved ones. Wondering whether it's worth it to keep trying to contribute to improving the field of health and disease for others, or just work 20 hours a week, living the high life. And I saw that yesterday and it hit me, one because Enigo and I had the same fucking moment at the same time, I'm honored. I'm like, we could go through this journey at the same time. But the responses, reading the responses so that 99% of the people were telling him, hey, slow down, family, priorities yourself, your mental health, all of that stuff matters more. Then there was like 1% of people that were like, yeah, you should just be a venture capitalist. He's like, I can't, I don't have money. And then they're like, you should talk to me. So maybe I should do a Twitter post and be, and say, hey, maybe I'll be a venture capitalist. Was that saying that venture capitalists don't do work? Actually, that was what I was wondering. I was like, venture capitalists are pretty damn busy. I don't know. Maybe they just sit there and look at PowerPoints all day and just say like, I don't know, I'm just judging you based on your cardigan. No, it's a lot of hustling. It is a lot of hustling. Cardigan hustling and all. I'm a cardigan hustling. That's what we'll call it. So that you can invest in the next big crypto company. Exactly. Definitely. So you can maybe put some money behind Twitter, support you on something like that. Yeah, I mean, it's just a fascinating topic. And I think it parallels a lot with what we talk about with jobs in general, that always conceive of the alternate reality where you shift off your path, no matter what that path is. You've taught me the power of this. I would be on eight paths to go. I would still be on that path if it weren't for you. And you force me off that. And for people that don't have a Megan out there, just try to throw that intellectual bomb into your own life and see what happens. You can just be an intellectual exercise. And so when I say quit your job, I don't mean actually quit your job. I mean, just like conceive of the possibility of what happens if you totally change your context. You also don't have to fully quit your job. You can dial things back and that's a form. I don't know if you call that quitting or what the term would be for that. But you can set a mini-bomb in areas of your life. You don't have to fully master it. You can just touch yourself a little bit. It still works. You can just kind of like just visualize it. Oh yeah, be sure to practice the power of mental strength. It's reflection. Reflection and just a little bit of comeback. We always talk about self-talk in the context of athletics. Why are we not talking about self-talk and the context of bringing yourself to completion? We're onto something. We're totally onto something. Okay, I love that conclusion. That realization is really great. And we celebrated that today. We were actually taking a little bit of a holiday where you haven't even opened your computer today and don't think. It's been delightful. Except for this podcast, since podcast is play. So it's good. Yeah, exactly. And we got to go on our very first stroll or run with Baby Leo. And they were that it was the best sol vibes of a run. So the first mile, he was putting his legs in his arms out, out stretching. He had no idea what he was doing. He was squealing the joint. It looked like he was flying. And it was one of the greatest runs we've had together as a family. It was awesome. It was so fun until about like five or six miles in. When all of a sudden, he just got a little bit angsty. I felt that like teenager baby coming out and I wasn't sure what was going on. But then I realized, I listened. And the music that we were playing for him had turned to a slow song. And I was like, shit, this is the justification I've always had that I'm actually the father. Baby Leo also needs music when he does goes on his runs. And it can't be any of that slow shit. Well, it's a good thing we have that justification. He's like 98% like me and 2% like you. So the justification is pretty needed. How is that possible? How did your genetics go through so strong to him and not a single dose of me went through? It's really strange. I look at him sometimes and I'm like, damn, you look just like me. It's quite strange. And everyone says to him, you're the most beautiful baby we've ever seen. And I'm like, okay, that's, you know, definitely makes sense and I agree. But why is no one saying he looks like David after they say that? They only say he looks like me when he's like crying and has a quadruple chin and just looks like he's having a hemorrhoid attack or something. But he's actually quite picky with music, which is shocking. He only likes the fast Disney songs. But he's, you know, he's seven months old, so he's not speaking. So anytime one of those songs came on, he would just go and be like, oh, oh, and that's exactly how I feel when Bonnie Vera comes on. And when I'm in the middle of the run, my brain is just going, oh, oh, oh, no, no, no. Oh, we need to get into ludicrous. So it's like, oh, yeah, making a little bit different noise. So we have a lot of store run adventures ahead and we'll be able to do it during work hours. It's going to be so cool. To what I'm excited, just to see how progressively epic we can make their stroller runs. I'm thinking of Magnolia Road stroller run. We've talked about the legendary Magnolia Road. It's got about 1800 feet of roots, 16 miles round trip and that'll be fun in a stroller. I love it. And then afterwards, we can get back to the car where all of these famous runners are and we can feed him from a little baby wine glass, some cranberry drinks. Perfect. And they'll be like, okay, that fits the vibes of that family. All right, we have the best podcast for you today. A quick road map. We're going to talk about some biking thoughts, maybe a little bit in Strava. We'll see, some strength work tips. That's going to be a little bigger discussion on building off some things you should do. Then talk about a massive new project that will change ultra running forever. That's a big sell, but we think it backs it up. A hydration and fueling discount code, just for listeners. New golden ticket races that were just announced yesterday. Some cool eating disorder science on brain function that might apply to habit formation everywhere. Maybe a training discussion on shorter distances and speed, I'm going to put a maybe there. And then finally, hot takes. The segment that's taken over the trail running world. So many good hot takes. We're getting flooded with hot takes. And it's the best thing. We really love it. And also, I love that you added maybe there. Yeah. I've been the one that's been adding babies and you've taken it upon yourself to fill that role. I just find that we're taking a fair number of tangents today. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, in fact, you know, in trail runs or road runs, they say taking the tangents when you take the shortest course. So I guess we're not really taking tangents. We're kind of taking the long way around. That's going to say, dude, we're taking switchbacks. Yeah, it's really one of those people that does it 10k and their garment tells them it was 7.1 miles. Okay, first thing, this is a little aside. This is on Strava uploads. So I've recently been really inspired by Drew Holman, who I deeply love here in Boulder, who's about to do the World Championships for Team USA, watch out for him there. I saw him running up 35% grades this weekend and looking effortless doing it. But one thing Drew does is he doesn't really upload all of his Stravas. He just uploads them periodically. And while I don't think that's totally for me, what I have found that was really liberating this last week is only uploading some of my activities. When the activity was fully true to my experience and it was something I genuinely wanted to share. So treating Strava more like a regular social media platform than a diary of everything you ever do, which I think sometimes wear on people. When you say fully live to your experience, where there's the ones with the six Strava crowns, each run, you're like, I just want to show the world my good side. This is true to my experience. Maybe a good example is we ran together on Saturday. And it was a wonderful run until the end of the run. When we were going downhill, you crushed all the segments on Caribou Road, congrats on fire. And we had a little bit of an argument. And it was primarily about me critiquing some of your downhill running form. Via a lot of the things we say to podcast listeners, not to re-legate the argument. Your science was fair. My science was great. Your delivery was shit, but your science was fair. Okay, don't criticize my abstract, if my results are good. But as a result, when we finished, we weren't necessarily, we hadn't fully mind-melved yet. Like all couples do have to do after arguments. We had to mind-melved in the hot tub. Yes, we did. It's a very productive mind-melved. Yeah, because we were also getting our heat training. And I think it broke down all of our barriers because we were on the verge of death. We had a 25 minute discussion. And we were just, it started with that argument and then went into so many different life switchbacks. It was great. Yeah, and we learned a lot about ourselves. But at the time that I finished the run, I didn't want to say like, beautiful day on Caribou Road or whatever, because it wasn't how I felt at that moment. And I didn't want to also want to say, just fought with the bitch. As one, you're not a bitch, you're incredible. But at that moment, that's not what I felt. And so, I think that that can be liberating. So if you're out there and you use these types of athletic social media tools like Strava Lake Garment, you can be liberated to just pick and choose when you use them. And I think that doing that, you might not get the power of Drew, but you might get some of Drew's love of the process where you don't necessarily feel this onerous burden to share every second whether it's like the best run you've ever had or the worst run. So I've taken the opposite approach. I think when I went through my heart journey, I was just uploading stuff that was barely reaching 2.8 miles per hour. And I think that took down all of my barriers for either internal or external judgment. And for me, I love Strava as just this running diary of whatever is happening. So two weeks ago, up in Newterland, had a run where I was setting out on a long run, ran three miles and wound up walking through miles. And I just, it was a long week. This is one of the moments that I realized, oh man, I'm overworked. I need to do something about this. And uploaded that. And I just, I don't know. I feel like I've been putting my full journey on there. And I haven't really thought twice about it. It's been nice. Who walked home with you that day? You did. Yeah, it's great. Just saying. In the future, once we have arguments on run, maybe think back and be like, man, maybe chivalry isn't dead. He'll walk home with me. Oh, that was great. Yeah. Your delivery still wasn't. OK, so that really didn't have a conclusion. But the basic idea, do what you want with this shit. Make sure that you always pay attention. If anything ever gives you a negative emotion, that is optional. Even if a GPS watch, just try to sometimes get rid of it and mix up the context. It can make the athletic journey, I think, a lot more fun. And we've seen athletes still feel much more fulfilled from that. So I think it's been something that's been pretty instructive for athletes. Also, I think maybe the biggest thing is that day we finished the run. And I didn't have a cute video of baby leo to post. Yeah. These my Strava's essentially become baby videos. They actually, one of the heads of marketing in Strava has said, this is really good Strava content. But other people have said enough with this shit. How they really? Yeah, some people don't like babies. And I get it. I haven't gotten that. Oh, well. I feel like you don't tell a mom about babies. That's more of a bad thing. Yeah. And I think everyone else kind of understands that even for David, it's always with a wink of, like, I love that guy, but I kind of hate babies. So I have a nuance to be able to hear. Okay, the next topic here is another kind of simple one. But I think really important is to buy a bike. I like how declarative that statement is. Yeah, it's kind of like a hot take. Yeah, right. You should buy a bike. So a lot of people have bikes, a lot of don't. If you don't have a bike, it's such a wonderful, fun thing to have in your arsenal. If you do have a bike, get it tuned up, get it fitted so that you feel comfortable on it. But it is the best training option, both from a scientific perspective. And then also I think from a joy perspective. Biking brings me on parallel joy. I feel like Leo out there in the shoulder when Leo was putting his arms and legs out and flying for his first mile of the run. That's how he fell on the bike. I don't know what it is about biking that brings me on parallel joy, but it's great. But it's also great too. I mean, I've had numerous, probably hundreds at this point of little three day off breaks that I need to prevent a longer term injury. And having a bike right there in the garage is the perfect way to combat because I'm still outside or I'm down on the trainer. And it's so helpful, I think, to have that cross-training element right there and ready. Yeah, I mean, this is one of the places I've changed most as a coach over time, which is, in the old days, I used to be much more into the trial of miles than that a lot of it needed to come through running volume. And I've seen the exact opposite in practice in the field with especially elite athletes, which is always where you're starting to prove physiological, physiological principles at the margins of human performance, right? Is that if you go out there and you bike, it's so good for the body and it keeps you fresher, especially with age. So you've really motivated me on this because seeing you on the bike, I've never seen anyone happier doing anything in my entire life. Like, nothing can match you on a bike. I had to promise you I wasn't orgasming out there. You fully thought that for a long time. Yeah, I read about all these women that orgasm when they get on bikes. And I was just like, you know what? I support it for good for her. It's a figurative orgasm. It's a figurative orgasm. It's based on a lot of reflection. Yes, yes. You're just metaphorically squirting all of the saddle. Oh god, sorry about that. But yeah, like, so very simple thing. Like, I think that if you can get your bike set up and also fitted for you, if you think biking's not comfortable, it's because it's probably not fitted well, which is kind of like using a vibram5 finger when you like hookas. It just doesn't work. Do that. It is a wonderful training tool. You can basically throw it in willy-nilly into training because it's no impact. And even threshold work like pushing on clients and stuff, you can just go out there and have fun and add anything from 20 minutes a week to 10 hours a week within reason and see big benefits. The other thing too is get yourself a guy who has a lot more watts than you do or a training partner in general, who has a lot more watts than you do and try to hold their wheel. Because that's how a structured bike workouts and it's really fun. Yeah, I mean, it's been fascinating actually to follow your trajectory postpartum because you're coming back so well. Like, it is incredibly exciting and inspiring for me. Having coached a lot of postpartum women and knowing how difficult that journey is and true behind the scenes way, seeing you come back and, you know, you've had a lot of ups and downs, but at the same time, you're progressing to levels that are wild. And I think a huge part is you've just always been willing to step on the bike very quickly. And a good example is this past week when we did our first outdoor ride together. And yeah, you rode on my wheel, but you also put out massive watts. And the next day, you were able to come up and do that caribou road run which was a steep uphill run and absolutely crush it. And you wouldn't be able to do that unless you had the bike. This amazing tool that helps you get in the aerobic work without feeling beat up. It's so fun. It's also a fun tool of crush bitches. I had this realization that I was biking up Jamestown yesterday, which is this fun climb. It's about a 1,200, 1,300 meter climb. And I was out there and I realized, I think I'm a somewhat good person in life. I am an atrocious person when I get on two wheels. I get this competitive fire in me that I can't turn off. So every once in a while, I'll see a triathlete out there on a really nice $12,000 bike. And I'm out there usually on my gravel bikes. Sometimes on my road bike. Which is also a good bike. We have to be. My gravel bike is a legit good bike. We have to be honest. Yeah, it's nice. It's nice. It's got E-tap. Yeah, yeah. It's got a electronic shifting. But still, sometimes you got to crush some triathletes. Oh, it's so fun. So I see them up there and I'm like, you know, especially if they're doing workouts, I'm gonna go catch them on my gravel bike and ruin a few days. I love it. Which is not great. No, not great. But I do like seeing the killer instinct come out of me. Yeah. I can't turn it off when I get on two wheels. You also have it though in all athletics. Yeah, but it's also, I mean, I have this, it's a strange combination because I truly have this unbridled joy and then I have this killer instinct. And they're side by side. People have asked me about that before and I said, that's why I'm like fifth place at canyons one day. And that's why Megan's gonna win everything under the sun forever. No matter what she does. It's because there's a part of you that is burning beneath the surface. I must catch those wheels. Great. Yeah, crushing bitches is a cellular level difference in you that is just truly remarkable. And I think actually one of the things about the work discussion we had is that you can apply that to work, not in the sense of beating other people, but wanting to be the very best you can possibly be. And that puts a lot of pressure on what you do day to day in ways that make those types of jobs very, very difficult unless you're really protective of your time. Well, I think also too you can crush bitches in just a few areas of life. And I mean that as a figurative term as like sending it, going for your full capability and everything. And I think you just have to take a step back and reflect on what that is from time to time. Sometimes that you need to go stone cold, Steve Austin, to do that like stunner move and wrestling he had on some bitches, especially when they're on $12,000 bikes. Oh, exactly. Okay, next little point we have here, this is very brief one as a palette cleanser. Tater tots, what does this come from? Tater tots are my new jam. So they're so easy. So I feel like post workout when you come into the house. And it's always to me daunting to figure out what to cook, what to eat. Tater tots are so easy. They're in the freezer. You toss them in the microwave for 90 seconds. That might be even a little undercooked, but I'm an empty cooker. And they're delicious. They're easy food. They're so good. I've been eating in the hot tubs. Post workout and it's just divine. Yeah, hot tubs. You gotta buy the hot tubs, just everything. No, tot tubs. Tot oh my god. Yeah, I'm like you didn't get my joke. I was like, she misspoke. And it's like, no, she just dropped the fucking mic. Is what she did. We're ending it there with tot tubs. OK, the next big topic is more on things that you can institute into your training. And this is on starting strength work. So we're going to get to a study at the end of this discussion that gets into why this can happen so fast. But first, we want to take a quick step back and talk about the ultra leg strength routine, some strength training tips that can apply no matter what you're doing. And hopefully supercharge your running training really quickly, which is what I think this type of strength work can do. Well, kudos to the ultra leg strength routines. It did really well. Yeah, thank you. I'm pretty pumped because that video took way more time than I'd like. It did take a lot of time. So if you haven't seen it, make sure you go check it out. I tried to make it fun. I put in little captions that are roasting me, which was pretty cool. And so it includes a bunch of different exercises. The list, I'm just going to name off that on my head here, our first band work. Second, single leg step ups with weight, which is like change from the past. Next, split squats with weight. I mean, the weights here, we're just talking about holding a dumbbell or kettlebell. Next up is Nordic Hamstring curls, which is a really big change. Next up, single leg deadlifts with weight. Then glute bridges and variations of those also with weight clams, and then finishing it up with single leg calf raises. That list of exercises has taken the world by storm. We've gotten so many messages from people saying the strength routine has really, really helped them out and given them an approachable way to approach a comprehensive strength program. And that makes me feel good, because I hate strength. I hate it so much. I mean, at the start of coaching, I'd be like, strength doesn't matter. And now I'm like, yeah, we kind of have to do it. But at the same time, I never want to do it. I wish you released this video three months earlier, because we're heading very close into deep in the heart of Trilla Mountain season as higher mountains start open up. And athletes could have used this three months ago. Yeah, and that thing said though, maybe our athletes got a slight advantage. Because they were doing most of this stuff already. That's a good point. We have a little bit of a head start, which is pretty good. So the very first thing I want to talk about is some of the rationale for this. And even if you're not going to do the full routine, some good things for you to internalize in developing your own stuff. And to start, I think the Nordic hamstring curls are kind of the bread and butter of this exercise routine. And I think it's why it differs so much from some of the other exercise routines that we've released is hamstrings are fundamental to everything. And there's been some good research on Nordic hamstring curls and how they impact the hamstrings on a cellular level. But what I like about this research, I'm like a lot of research. Usually when I do research, I go deep into the weeds of the study. I must read the whole thing. This research explains it basically in the title. It's really nice. The conclusion is in the title, the abstract doesn't explain too much more. It's already there. I absolutely love it. Because often when you talk about scientific studies, you kind of can just look at the abstract. I want to just look at the title in the future, not even a title. I just want a single note for them to play on an instrument and for it to just upload into my brain. That's all I need to do. So, okay, the first one from the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2019 is this. Including the Nordic hamstring exercise and injury prevention programs has the rate of hamstring injuries. Colin, a systematic review in meta-analysis of 8,459 athletes. And that's a lot of athletes. But I also love that they included the sample size in the study. That is like really embodying our principles. They're doing the homework right in the title, enough with these cutesy titles. Sometimes I feel like when I'm running a paper, I feel obligated to make a cutesy title. I should just start telling it like it is. Yeah. It's so perfect. Think about that, have the rate of injuries. And this is across all athletes. So not just runners, but I think particularly in runners, we see high incidences of high hamstring tendinopathy, especially high hamstring issues. But also, we see some mid-hamstring issues as well in runners. Yeah, and I think one of the interesting parts here, it's not just about injuries. I think that what we interpret as weakness in hamstrings is often would have a pathology on an MRI. So like if you get tired in your hamstrings at meta-15, probably if we MRI'd your hamstring, we'd see something that explains that beyond just muscle fatigue. And these Nordics, so what a Nordic is, is you wrap something under a door, you have someone hold your feet, you go up and down, I use my arms to support my weight. In that video, you'll see, it's kind of like a push up with a little bit of hamstring involvement for me. It's even after many months, my hamstrings aren't the strongest. But they are pretty damn magical. I have felt stronger in the pawback motion of running and encycling honestly than I've ever been before and all of that tightness is dissipated and gone away. So this exercise is one of the magic ones. In addition to the single leg step ups, I think those two exercises combined kind of create a super force of climbing ability. I love the term pawback. I haven't quite thought about that, but it's a beautiful descriptor for what we do in both biking and running. I'm gonna be out there and just be like pawback, pawback, pawback. Are you gonna make cat noises? Oh yeah. Can you make one? Well, I think you're doing that because as I'm saying pawback, I'm using my hands like a cat. Yeah, yeah. So are you gonna go for a cat noise? Let's do it. No. No, yes Megan, you're on the spot. This is a podcast where you must do a cat noise. Roll a versatile call front, you do it. Me? Oh! That was actually, that was actually Leo. Leo came into the room for the adoption. The reason I wanted her to do a cat noise is with Leo, we've been watching the live-action Lion King periodically. Oh, it's so good. It is creepy as shit. Yes, Lion King on CGI is a little strange. Yeah, why are there real lions doing Lion King stuff? I didn't like it at first. Yeah, I love it. I love it, yeah. It definitely feels like some people took mushrooms and were like, you know what would be a good idea? Recreating Lion King. We're actual animals. Yeah, I mean, well, they're CGI animals. And having Seth Rogan be the ward hog is one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard. I totally agree. Yeah, okay. So, need to say, are you gonna make a cat noise for us? Let's do it. Meow! Yes! That makes me so happy. I gave in to the pre-oprosure. Okay, next study, I really like this one. So this is in Sports Medicine 2020. It's the effect of Nordic hamstring exercise intervention volume on a centric strength and muscle architecture adaptations, a systematic review and meta-analysis. So what they found in this study was that reducing the volume, so reducing how many Nordic hamstring curls that you did, didn't actually negatively impact adaptations in a centric strength and muscle architecture. So it's essentially because it's the idea that you can just do a few Nordic hamstring curls. You don't need to do a ton. And you're still getting the gains in terms of muscle architecture and the other games that we see neuromuscularly with strength, which is great. And I think that is a fascinating jumping off point for broader strength topics in general. So what that study found is that you essentially just needed one dose of this. You didn't need to do tons of sets and tons of volume to get the benefits that we're seeing in the previous study that we talked about of reducing injury rates. But I think that's kind of how strength works for runners and endurance athletes across the board. The problem is is that we're interpreting it in the context of science that is focused on very different types of strength development. So the key word in all the literature is hypertrophy. Okay, did I say that right? It's hypertrophy. Yeah, hypertrophy. I feel like you say hyper and trophy. Yes, which is actually kind of a fun way to say it. On the left is the word hyper. On the right is the word trofi. Hyper trofi. Your word is witchcraft and I do not accept it. So we're looking at that, which is essentially muscle growth. That is not something that endurance athletes are necessarily seeking. What we want is nervous system activation that changes the way the muscles are activated. And over time, the way that the muscle architecture works. Which this type of study shows, at least for Nordic hamstring exercises, you can get through relatively low volume approaches. So that's our big approach with strength that we recommend to everyone is when we say a minimal dose, what essentially we mean is go through various motions that incorporate your neuromuscular activation rather than trying to stress your muscles to the point of failure that will need to lead to maximum growth. Because muscle growth is not what we're seeking at all because that same type of stimulus that would stimulate muscle growth will also make you way too tired to train consistently and train hard. Well, it's really sad that hyper trofi is not what we're looking for as an end outcome. Yeah, that being said, hey, yeah, that's true. We get trophies through other means. That's a good point, Mr. Strava, trophies without hypertrophy. Yeah, and that also goes to the level of weight. So we recommend lighter weight usually and only moving up those weights as you do not get sore at all from these exercises. I think the big problem with strength in general just to take a step back is people are thinking of me in high school football up there just killing myself with six reps of bench press times four at as much weight as I possibly could and then being unable to lift my arms the next day. That's just not what strength is. And I think once you realize that, it also makes it one better for fitness, but two better for like adherence. Oh, it's like consistency, a hundred percent. It's a lot easier when I'm not trying to think about David Rook's the Hulk in high school. Yeah, I kind of was the Hulk in high school. You're an impressive Hulk, yeah, you're a good Hulk. Yeah, yeah, maybe if I still look like that, we'd see more Leo and me, do you think? I was just, that's where my brain was going. Maybe at least six percent Leo. At least my poops, because back then I had, we talk about protein a lot now. I think one of the reasons I need a lot of protein now is I had way too much of it back then. Like when I was trying to put on muscle harness hypertrophy, I would have probably 300 grams of protein a day. I'm a little concerned for your internal organs. Me too. Yeah, it's probably not. Yeah, your liver is probably just like protein swirling around. Nothing was healthy about that whatsoever. But I think actually if we dive into literature though, on some of the adaptations that happen during strength training, it becomes instructive as to why we're structuring it this way. And there was a recent study that I want to dive into that I think highlights this really well. So this was a 2023 study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology. And the title was enhanced skeletal muscle contractile function and corticospinal excitability precedes strength and architectural adaptations during lower limb resistance training. Yeah, and so what I think is fascinating about this, first lower limb resistance training, if you look at the intervention they were using, it looks very similar to ultra legs. It's kind of shocking. And I was like, did you take this straight from the literature? Actually, which came first? Ultra legs were the study. I can't remember one in 2023. I think the study was probably at least given to you. Well, of course, yeah, it had to be, the study has taken 18 years to complete. This probably launched in 2019, so they could have a 2023 publication. You know, it's kind of disturbing. I put this little video online and it gets immediately like 15,000 views or whatever. They probably put this study up, which involves so much more work, so much more effort, so much more science. And I'm pretty sure the number of views is like shockingly low. Oh, I've been there in research. If four people read my article and cite it, I'm actually not, it's a little more than that, but the numbers are pretty low. The numbers are pretty low compared to the amount of, it takes so long to respond to the proverbial reader number two. So in the editing process, there's always reader number two, it comes in with a bunch of comments, and you go back and forth for like three rounds and three edits. And it's, I mean, the journal publishing in journals is, it's arduous. Yeah. So like reviewer number two for journals or whatever, you need to actually respond to them in a substantive manner or whatever. Reviewer number two on YouTube who says like, why do you suck? I'm like, go fuck yourself bitch. That's fine. And you get plenty of views. You get more engagement if you do that rather than us. So that's fascinating on the style of intervention. It was like squats, step ups, split squats, lunges and hip thrusts. We really need to call glute bridges hip thrusts. I do a lot more of them if they're called hip thrusts. Yeah. I think like they just missed out on cagals. That should have been in that exercise routine. Good point. Yes, yes. With weight. I don't know how you do that. Actually, no. Well, listener did send in. There are internal devices that can work for that. But that's neither here nor there. Next up, there were 22 people in the intervention group and 18 in the control group. And this intervention was done over six weeks. The big, fascinating part of this study is that there were different time courses in the adaptations. But the initial adaptations started to happen within the first two weeks. So if you're on the fence about the type of strength work that you're doing, start something right away because you're gonna see big benefits immediately. It's shocking how that works in physiology. And these were novice athletes. But I think a lot of us are novice athletes in terms of the strength training that we've seen. But what they were looking at specifically was they wanted to look at the changes in muscle contractile properties and how that compared to changes in muscle architecture in neuromuscular adaptation. And what I think it's fascinating is that they found that it was less about the change in muscle architecture at the beginning, which makes sense. We're not gonna be impacting our muscle architecture within two strength training sessions. If we did, we'd all be David Roach the Hulk. Yeah, well, I feel like it's a little different for you, though. Because ever since we've been talking about protein, you've added just a little bit of protein before bed, like a scoop of ascent. And all of a sudden, every muscle on your body is popping out. I'm like, oh my god, your muscle architecture is banging, Megan. Well, I've literally done very little strength. I just drank protein powder, which is the lazy bitchway to do strength training. This is what it's called talent is a motherfucker. And you are talented. So after two weeks of training, something called the radial muscle displacement reduced by 19 to 25% in the intervention group. This is largely a neuromuscular variable here. After four weeks of training, maximum voluntary contraction started to increase by 15% that's huge. And some nervous system variables got even better. And then after six weeks of training, there were even more changes in all those variables plus the muscle architecture started to shift. So if you're on the fence about any type of strength training, get going. The ultra legs is a perfect place to start. You'll be sore the first few times you do it. You might be sore a little bit after, but only take a few minutes and you're gonna see huge benefits right away. And the benefits for running are not about being able to do the exercises better. That's like the final point I always have on this is like, that's a hypertrophy thing. When we're talking about running, what we're talking about is being more efficient through the range of motion of athletics. And that doesn't require this to be that strenuous. So yeah, you're gonna get sore at first because weight lifting is impossible. But after that, you're gonna be running so much more efficiently and healthily, which will help your speed. And I feel like you can get these gains. You're not gonna get all the gains, but you can get some contractile and neuromuscular gains within one to two weeks of doing strength training. I know for me, especially if you've had a history, like for me, I can get back to strength training pretty quickly because I've had a long history of doing strength training as a field hockey player, as a trial runner. But for me, when I get back to it, I almost feel that almost immediate pop as I try to run run uphill. Like, try to hold your wheel. It's really nice. Yeah, I always know that when I hear this noise coming from downstairs, which is like a bang, bang, bang. I'm like, oh shit, it's gonna be hard to run up hills behind her because that's the sound of step ups. And when you're feet are hitting the ground step ups, she's gonna get real. Step ups, I think step ups, actually even more than the Nordicamption girls. Step ups have been our game for a long time. Nordicamption girls are kind of the new step ups, but step ups are great. And especially the rapid step ups, which is what we really swear by. So don't just do step ups based on what you've seen in the past where you step up and then step down. Step ups, as we describe them, are very rapid up and down motions. And when you add weight in particular, become an incredible proxy for climbing. I thought you could say an incredible burn. Yes. It burns so good. It burns so much. Yeah, if you can hold a 20 pound dumbbell and do 50 of those rapid fire, you're gonna like your quad is gonna be on fire. It's only gonna take like 30 or 45 seconds and you're gonna curse our very names. It's gonna be awesome. Okay, quick transition to an incredibly exciting project that's happening now called Lululemon Further. This is the big piece of news in the sport of running this week and I'm so excited about it. And it's so fun. It's also fun because we've been on this project and we've had an NDA now for probably nine months on this project and we can finally talk about it. We held a secret for nine months. Yes. Yes. Oh my gosh, NDAs are so difficult. They are difficult. We should have more of them though. I feel like we actually know we shouldn't because I'm prioritizing saying no to things with NDAs come great responsibilities. No, that being said, I disagree. I think they'd be wonderful in social life. Oh, I agree, yeah. So an NDA non-disclosure agreement means you can't talk about something without penalty of law. And I'm like, okay, I understand it in business settings like Lululemon Further. They want to protect their secrets so they can do a big announcement this weekend. But instead of that, what if you could send an NDA through your friends and text? So like you're talking shit about something and they're like, here's an NDA before I say this amazing comeback burn that I have. So you can't screenshot it and send it to everybody you know. I really like that. Actually, if we jump ahead really quick to one of our hot takes, one of our hot takes was that if you write something on the internet, you should always be required to write your first and last name after it. And I think yes, I totally agree with that. But you should also have areas where you have NDAs with friends where you can just say whatever you want. And I think they're implied, but not always. Yeah, exactly. You'd be shot. I'm actually super careful with this stuff. Like whatever I send to people, I'm ready. Like this should be able to show up on the internet and I should be able to have my first and last name next to this. But you always need a friend or a partner or a dog or a Leo where you can just say stuff and you're like, it's okay. Yeah. We understand what your intent is. So you're a good person almost all the time except when you see a triathlete on 12,000 dollars or when you're texting your husband, especially the rules involved you. Well, the only two places. No, you are the world's best, most sexy person. And I can tell via your muscle architecture, it's just a talented motherfucker. Okay, so what Lou, I'm in further is, is this gonna be this six day event next year to see how far a human can run. And a quote from Lou Lemmon's releases that it celebrates human possibility and demonstrates how far a woman can go when they're supported with resources and product innovations typically reserved for men. And Lou Lemmon has stood by that principle. The amount that they have stepped up with these athletes that they're supporting and given them every element of backing and the amount that they've cared about them as a whole person is one of the coolest things I've ever seen and it's gonna be an absolute model for what is required in the future. And I think if we can do that, the sport of running and endurance sports are gonna change forever. And they holistically support the entire athlete. It's so cool, performance is one small part of why they choose to support athletes. It's usually the athletes, you know, what the athlete embodies or who they are as a person or diversity or what they bring to sport. And I feel like it's so much larger than the performance piece. And this project lives that. So, you know, it's a six day ultra marathon and there's no rules, which I like because I first, as we were strategizing this project, we're like, oh, should we have 100 mile minimums on each day? But once you do that, it starts reducing the number of women that can continue to compete over the six days. And so there's 10 really diverse, awesome women on the start lines with cool stories behind what they're doing. And each one of them from Camille Herron who might set world records at this event to athletes who have just run in the few days before this launch, like going for different goals. And I feel like the flexibility of the six day event is like walking into a restaurant and being able to cook whatever you want with that menu, which is cool. It's daunting at the same time. It's like how do you stand on a six day starting line with no necessarily like set menu or set restrictions? You have to cook it up yourself. But I think that process empowers more lived stories and like cooler things, yeah. It's essentially saying it's like the cheesecake factory menu. You can do whatever you want. There's 85 different ways to serve salad. So you've done a ton of work on this. And I'd love to hear a little bit about how you got involved and what your role might be a little bit moving forward. Kind of a multi-factorial role in your involved too, but came in through Trent Stalingworth, who's a researcher. We've talked about his research on your all the time. We're pretty obsessed with Trent Stalingworth. He's like, you know how when you're a kid, you would have like a picture of the backstreet boys or pretty good years in your wall. Our exercise physiology researcher on our wall is Trent Stalingworth. Oh, he's great. Well, it was the point. So when he called me or when he like first contacted me about this project, I was out just walking in the neighborhood. And awesome, I get a phone call and I bring it up and it just says, maybe Trent Stalingworth. And I'm like, what the heck? It's like, maybe the Pope, maybe Barack Obama. I'm like, I should pick this up immediately. I answer bed and I'm like, hello, this is Megan speaking. Hello, this is Megan speaking. And the answer is yes, no matter what you're about to say, is yes. Exactly. And I said, emphatic, yes. Because it's a really cool project. And Lillie Lemon stands behind their athletes. And there's a ton of research that we get to do as a result of this six day ultra. Actually, that research is still under NDA. We still have four secrets to keep. But there is going to be a lot of innovation, lots of cool stories that come from it. And it's going to be just a celebration of a female athlete performance. And we're seeing that more and more across like industry companies research of just uplifting female athletes. Yeah, and you actually made a trip there to work on some of this research that we can't talk about. Just like a few weeks ago, we had to refer to it obliquely on the podcast. It was really awkward. I couldn't even post. I couldn't even run in Strava in Vancouver and I got really sad. I was like, I can't share my Strava finals. I had one of my longest long runs there. And I was like, oh, I guess I got to hide the map. Yeah. Did anyone say anything when you had to hide the map? No. Oh, man, I'm kind of disappointed. I feel like people should have put two and two together and figured it out. But it was so cool to see Lillie Lemon had quarters. They were doing cool stuff. So it's a fun, fun research project to be a part of. And I think that's been really helpful too, is I also want to have the workspace to be able to say yes to opportunities like that pop up. And so it's like leaving a little bit of creative room for cream so that when opportunities like this come up, I can say an emphatic yes, when Trent's selling where randomly calls me in a walk. When your phone comes up for tail or swift, you're like, sure, I can do it. So exciting. Make sure you're following Lillie Lemon. Check out this project where you're gonna update you more throughout, especially on some of the science that is going to be so cool from this. But I think this is an absolute game changer for the entire sport and other companies time to get with it. I was gonna say it's a game changer for how we treat athletes. It's not just female athletes. Every single athlete should be treated the way that Lillie Lemon treats their athletes. Yeah. Yeah, and just an incredible model for how we think about the future. Okay, on to a couple of fun things. The first, I think you are gonna absolutely love this is on precision fuel and hydration. We've talked about this company for a number of weeks, just in the sense that I love them at Canon's 100K, I was using their products. And when I ran out, when we ran out of, there were no cruise spaces, is when my race turned south temporarily, then I got their products again, and then my race went great. That type of experience has been mirrored by a ton of people. We have gone it in the hands of as many professional athletes that we coach that possibly can, that don't have a sponsor already. It is incredible. So we have a discount code for you, just a couple of week trial here for us, partnering with them just temporarily, and that discount code is SWAP SWAP SWAP. So you can go to their website, use the discount code SWAP for 15% off. And if it's meaningful for them and meaningful for us, we'll stay with them. Because it's a certain thing, like we love this product. And I had further affirmation of that when I did that bike ride up to Jamestown. And at the top, at the little summit gathering, I saw a bunch of triathletes taking precision gels. Oh shit. And if you know triathletes on 12,000 dollar bikes are taking the fuel, you know it's good. They have done the research. They are taking the platinum version of fuel. And so that was another sign from the universe. It's like, it's precision time. I think it's incredibly exciting, because precision has gain traction in triathlon, in the pro-Paliton and cycling, but much less in running. And I think when you guys try this, you're going to be blown away. The gel consistency, it's like a suspension, but it's the gel for people that hate gels. Oh, and I'm starting to hate gels. I used to like everything. And then recently in a race, I had a bad experience. We haven't taken a more classic gel in a minute. And the texture was jarring to me. And they also have big ash gels that are 90 grams of carbs in a single reusable cat thing. It is wonderful. I've been able to take those in in five minutes. You crushed one. We have this little highway segment on our bike. And you crushed one of those gels in like six seconds on a highway, on rolling on a bike, and that was impressive. I'm the king of slurps. But the point with these gels is they go down so easily, so quickly. And I always look forward to them, even when it's hot. And as you know, from this podcast, we get offered a ton of things for backing up companies. And basically- Actually, we get sent a ton of stuff. The amount of stuff that we have that we scrape off our porch and bring inside is quite high. Which is the best. That's great. But we also don't want to dilute what we're trying to do for you all by not ever recommending something that we don't fully stand behind. So we're just trying to sell you a lot of greens and precision. So use the code swap. We'll see if this lasts long term. Basically, when to get you a 15% discount code and then go from there. And actually on Patreon, we have a lifetime 15% discount code. So if you like it and you join our Patreon, you can get a discount code for every purchase you ever make of 15%. Biggest gels for life. I'm pushing it one of those hearts. You know those hearts that get carved in the trees and just be bigest gels and then four life. Yeah. I stand by bags. I need a tattoo on my lower back that just says bags, B-A-T, and then a small little S next to it. It wouldn't even be Megan. I'm just be bags. No, no. I stand for bags. Bags are forever. Megan is temporary. Just like this discount code. Tottub. You just nail in it with the little comments today, Megan. Okay, next thing up is a little piece of news from the running world, which is on new golden ticket races. They did a full announcement of a new slate this year. So it's basically the same except that there's no Bandera 100K that is no longer a golden ticket race. I think that's a good idea. It's really in the season. I feel like it's really hard. It's usually January 5th or something like that. It's hard to come off the holidays and prepare for 100K like that. Also, I feel like it has a lot of similarities to Black Canyon. It's hard to get to in Texas. So I've got. A 250K course. Yeah, I think that's a good decision. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think also it's good to mix these golden ticket races up in general because I think it's just productive for the sport to have people exposed to different things because the thing about a golden ticket race, it's not just about who's going for a golden ticket to Westerner States. These, that then attracts so much attention and so many people that just want to be a part of the experience of it. So that's really interesting. That spot is gone to the Grinestone 100K, which is in September. Yeah. Totally different races on the East Coast. I think it's in Virginia. Something like that. Shenandoah Valley. Yeah. I saw that. Shenandoah Valley sounds idyllic. It's probably filled with roots and rocks and a bunch of exciting things. But it sounds idyllic. Definitely lots of civil war battles there. I'm pretty sure. So very fascinated by where that race is going to go. You've been using the word fascinated so much on this podcast. I do. I use it all the time. Sometimes we go back and listen to these. And I'm like, oh, damn, make it. Yeah. Can we edit some of those? Can we edit my use of fascinated? Oh, I thought you were saying I use it all the time. No, no, you mean? It's contagious. It's contagious? I use it all the time. I never even recognize you using it. Well, I'm sorry. I've given you the word fascinated and terpies. Sorry, that's not true. That we know of. OK. And then next up, they're going to put three spots at the Black Canyon 100K. I like that. Yeah. I feel like Black Canyon parallels the course of Western states really well, less so than canyons, because it's impossible. Canyons is on the course itself. But being down hill, the nature of it, I feel like it's always really competitive. So I'm glad they're doing that. And I think next year it's going to be wild, because just that one extra spot will give people more incentive to go. Then there's a race in France called the Nice 115K that I've never heard of before. Well, I couldn't find much information on it. It has a horrible SEO. Because if you Google Nice 115K, it thinks you're writing nice 115K. So I couldn't find anything. Yeah. So unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to get any swap athletes to Nice for the 115K. I'm sure of this. Do you think so? I'd be nice together. It would be nice. I wonder if they have a nice 69K. Because that would, OK. People got it. I don't need to drill them over the head of that joke. OK. Do you want to go on to this really cool article in Science Magazine? Of course. You're like, do you want to go? You're like, luring me in. You're like, it's so cool. Are you going to go on to it? When I read it, I was like, Megan's going to have to shoulder the burden on this study. It's a neurobiology study. And I love me some neurobiology. It's been a hot minute. I studied neuroscience and undergrad. So it's been a minute. MD, PhD, with a neuroscience background before any of this. But that was many, many years ago. Any work mostly with monkeys, right? That's true. Yeah. A little bit different. So maybe here's the title of the study, which I can do, because I can read sometimes. Human habit, neural circuitry, maybe perturbed in eating disorders. That's cool. You're just leaving me with that. It was a very good read. I thought I really nailed that part of the study. I actually think it shows that maybe I should be an honorary neuroscience degree. Oh, 100%. I should be a Rhesus macoc monkey. Which is what you worked with. You showed them porn. Yeah, I did. Actually, that was the basis of my research. Actually, I was fascinating. So I showed them copulation. That's how you call it. Should them monkey porn? Yes. And I was responsible for coding, said porn. But you looked at the specific brain regions that led up and were response to it, which was interesting. Yeah, it's very cool that that can get you a degree from Duke University, because it's monkey porn. So Megan majored in monkey porn. That is our first takeaway. And then the second takeaway, the big overarching takeaway to understand as Megan actually tees up some of the real science here, is that neural circuitry is involved in all habit formation. So we're not just talking about choices being made. We're talking about choices over time, informing how your brain is actually structured. And so that type of thing, I think, takes a lot of pressure off people and how they understand almost any sort of habit formation process, which isn't just immunosorters. It's also addiction. It's also training. Well, if you say habits are entrenched in everything we do in life, everything. I mean, Aristotle's quote, I can step in with that, was something that character is an active habit, or habit is what build character, something like all in those lines. And so everything that we're referring to as essentially who we are has some basis in habit. And so as we start to see these habit pathways formed in something that's a little bit easier to study, like eating disorders, I think it's going to open up a lot of fascinating scientific areas. And it's going to help people heal and recover. And I think it's going to give us empathy too for what people are going through, because a lot of this is neural circuitry encoded. And whether that starts as like an innate part of our brains, or it's lived experience from stimuli, or a combination of both, which it most likely is. Like I think we can have more empathy for people as they go through this stuff. So I think let's dive into what habits are first, as a base, habits are formed when you have repeated associations between a contextual stimuli at the time of behavior. And then you're linking that to a reward. But eventually what happens is the exposure to the stimuli becomes sufficient to drive the behavior. So you don't actually need the reward. This is- Almost like Pavlov's situation. You were just going reservoir to say, I was like, this is a basic Pavlovian's dog stuff. I'm upgrading my status over here. Look at you, look at you. I'm like going from economy to economy plus. But as a result, what happens is the habits are resistant to changes in the value of the outcome of the behavior. So like if you change the value of the outcome behavior and say, okay, this behavior is no longer healthy in a sense of like an eating disorder or thing, even things like smoking or alcoholism, it becomes really hard to then change that behavior because it's already linked. And that's one of the big challenges of these neural circuits is that there already linked endopamin is involved. Yeah, and when you talk about like reprogramming essentially the brain and reward systems that have been built, like so an eating disorder, you can kind of think of it intuitively in that at the start of something like this, the person often thinks they're doing something good for themselves, even though they're not. Yeah, but it creates these sorts of reward pathways that ultimately change the structure of the brain and is probably particularly susceptible in some individuals to that change in structure. And what they're finding is that some individuals may have an over-aliance on habit formation and this might drive some of the treatment-resistant behaviors that we see in eating disorders or mental health struggles or gambling or things along those lines. Or anything is dopamine dependent, like dopamine nation by Annelempi that we always talk about an amazing book, but kind of gets into how this can work in individual practices. And we're starting to uncover what exactly are the neural circuits involved in this. And we're doing this through animal models, these poor animals, also doing it through humans as well on kind of providing that link between animal models and humans. And what we found is a lot of it happens in this striatum, particularly the dorsal lateral striatum, which is kind of beyond the scope of what we need to know. But the striatum is really essential for processing rewards and bodily movements related to reward seeking. And much of how that happens is through dopamine signaling, which has been involved and implicated in like how you form habits and how you carry out habitual behaviors. So when we think about these neural circuits, a lot of them are in the striatum, a lot of them are in the dorsal lateral striatum, and a lot of them involve dopamine and habits. And it's kind of fascinating. I think for me, it gives me a lot of empathy for what people are going through because we never know how these pathways are started, like how these contextual stimuli get linked to behaviors actually happens. Yeah, and what's so cool about this study in science is going through some of the description as they map out exactly where the pathways lie and how they find them out. It is like a 40-step process. Oh, it belongs in nature and the top medical journals because it takes forever. And it's heavily involved process. Yeah, I mean, just like one little sentence from it. We found that multivariate connectivity of the sensor or a motor, Kudaman, was altered blah, blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. Kudaman. No, no, I was nailing it, Megan. That's unfair. Hyper-trophy, puda, men. But it points out that the actual pathways here are hugely complex. But where I think it's really relevant is what you just said and how understanding people have these types of brain pathways. And a quote that really resonated with me recently was that if you were them, you'd be them about just behavior in general. So I think often when I see someone, especially that does some shitty thing in the world or some shitty thing to me, I'm like, what the fuck is that person's problem? And in reality, if I had their same contacts, their same upbringing, their same brain, I'd probably be making the same choices. And it's liberating in some ways, but also I think this doesn't mean it's destiny, right? A habit is not a destiny, but understanding that this habits have neural properties that are actually baked into the structure of your brain does give you a path forward on how to deal with them. Well, I also think, yeah, it makes you think about recovery in that in order to go through the process of recovery, sometimes you have to take bombs and explode all of those habits and start un-linking and doing that very intentionally. And sometimes it takes totally changing up contacts, which I think outside of, or actually I think for a lot of different things, rehab works so well because you're shifting a totally different context, AA. Like I think sometimes I've heard the criticism that AA feels like indoctrination, but in order to do something like change habits, we need some level of like rapidly rethinking and re-contactualizing what we're doing. Yeah, so tons of compassion for anyone dealing with addiction, with eating disorders or anything like that. And the reason that our messaging on food is so ever-present in what we do, where we're just like, eat enough always and all of this is because we wanna counteract whatever societal forces might be pushing in the other direction to cause something like this. And this is where the real harm can come from in the types of things that can happen in the running world, where like a college coach might gently nudge athletes without even realizing it sometimes into disordered behaviors. It's not just the disordered behaviors are negative for performance based on all the studies we have. It's that if it can go down this path and alter brain function, you can be ruining someone's life without even realizing it and all for what? For an imagined superstition of something that might make them a little faster when in fact it makes them slower. So in other words, eat enough always and it's not just for your body, also for how your brain is structured. And this particular study was for binge eating disorder and for bulimia, but I think there's, and they did a great job in the discussion highlighting how this relates to restrictive eating disorders, it relates to all kinds of brain pathways. And yeah, it gave me a lot of empathy for what people are going through. Yeah, so do you have any like takeaways for how we think about these processes more generally? Well, I think when we think about habits, it's habits are formed often from a really young age, which is a cool thing, but it's also like my heart goes out to athletes who had these habits formed at age 9, 10, 11, and have become an ingrained pattern in the brain. And just how much harder it is to break those habits when they've been entrenched in the brain for some athletes, 30, 40, 50 plus years. That's so fascinating. And it also points out the importance of digging back deep. Oh, yeah, digging out the roots, exactly, yeah. Yeah, and understanding that those things that can be traumas or can affect us can also be great strengths. And probably some of these habit formations are also tied to things. Oh, it gets tricky, yeah. It gets tricky, so work with experts, but also that's one reason that grounding in the science can be so helpful because it gives you a constant little nudge in the direction of creating better habits for the future. Well, I love what you just said about roots because whenever an athlete that I'm working with or coaching is dealing with something like this, let's see a therapist, let's dig out the roots. But sometimes my brain, when I say that, literally goes to the idea, to me, neurons look like roots. And I'm like, let's dig out those neurons. And again, I mean that in a really positive healing way. Yeah, sure. We have to uncouple all these responses. And we all should probably be doing that on just about everything we do, but especially with these types of behaviors. So click really wanted to read something that's semi related to this. And this is a Patreon comment on body image. So as always, patreon.com slash swap SWAP SWAP. There we answer questions. We do a weekly bonus podcast. We're up to 52 of those. A whole year's worth of bonus podcast for you to listen to. Do science corners that are big write ups of science topics, lots of cool stuff. But this listener is so inspired. Hey, Megan and David, I just listened to your episode and wanted to comment on the topic of race photos and loving a body that does not fit the conventionally quote fast mold. I also fall into the category of being somewhat on the thicker side. And for the longest time, looked at race photos with disdain, wishing that I had the body society labeled as ideal rather than the one I had. One day, after winning a local trail camp 10K, the woman who came in second came up to me and said, you're faster than you look. I know she probably had no in ill intent, but at the time I froze in utter fury, unable to say anything in response. This comment totally fed into my insecurities of not looking like a real runner. Fast forward two years. I recently ran a big race in March, and at the previous meeting, I saw lots of people eyeing me skeptically. Partly, I think, because of my body type, and partly because I was one of the very few women running the race. The old me would have given into the imposter syndrome and crumbled into a puddle of doubt. But the new me sat back and smiled thinking, underestimate me, I dare you. I ran really well the next day, finding myself hunting down the headlamps on a big climb during the back half of the course. I believe I did well partly because I was trained and prepared. But I also believe a large part of my success was loving the body that allows me to take on these amazing challenges and embracing the role of a dark horse that comes along with societal preconceptions of what fast looks like. Huzzah. I'm giving a big huzzah back. I love that. I also, I think we had the discussion at the beginning about wine glasses. And I think the only thing better than drinking protein powder from wine glasses is drinking protein powder from a champion's trophy. You know, they had those big cups drink protein powder out of that, and that's where the gains come. Yeah, how cool is this? It's so cool. Yeah, I just love it. And it points out constantly that, like, you know, yes, like there are going to be societal preconceptions that will then become our own preconceptions of what our bodies should look like, but always if you can try to step off that and remember that the strongest version of you will be the fastest version of you. And what strength looks like is different for everybody. And don't let society or bad coaches or shitty mentors infect the way you treat your body. And it's normal. We get so many, like the reason we talk about this so much, I feel like we have at least one segment on this episode. Every one of seven, one segment on every episode about this. And the reason is because we are inundated with emails about from listeners who feel the same way. And I feel the same way. It's a shared experience, yeah. I feel the same way. I mean, I'm sure AdiDog feels the same way. Like I feel like it's a shared, it's a cross species experience. Not Leo though. Leo, when he was out there running in that store today, you could just be like, damn, I look good. No babies ever look this good. Well, I'm actually curious as to when people start, when children start thinking about body image, I think I bet it's a whole lot younger than we even expect. Yeah, I think shame starts at a few years old, which is like a weird thing that I have looked at before, because I'm curious about how I can hopefully help Leo avoid those types of cycles. Yeah. I spent so much on my childhood ashamed. For no fault of my parents, right? And is that a core memory that you have just from being like age four or five? Or did you feel like that developed as you went on? As soon as I made memories, I remember being ashamed from the, you know, going in a big white shirt into the pool to, you know, saying the wrong thing in front of people, like, to school dances. Like I feel like shame about myself has been a core fundamental principle of who I am. And I don't know why that is. I imagine it's somewhere in the roots, right? Or somewhere in the genetics, but I've gotten way, way better at it. Obviously you've made a huge impact in that. And even now though, like when I get criticized, it hits the shame button on my head and back on my head. And that's why criticism hurts me so bad. It's not about like, I'm internalizing it. It's because I start to feel shame and the same types of things maybe some listeners are talking about with like imposter syndrome and stuff. So, um... Well, that's beautiful. I'm over here taking notes for the hot tub. Yeah. So we can have more productive conversations. Yeah. After how long runs... But the point for babies is I've been thinking about how can I make sure that doesn't happen in Leo? Like, is there a way to talk to a young child when they're that old that helps them be insulated from shame? Or is shame just like a human experience that some brains are more prone to than others? I mean, I imagine it's a universal human experience, but I think that joy and love can combat it. Something like that. We need Brunei Brown to write a book on shame on parenting, actually. Yeah, baby shame. Yeah. The antithesis of baby shame. Yeah. Yeah. I... That would be really cool. Like, that being said though, you know the way it works out there. There'll be somebody on the internet saying that's a ugly fucking baby. And you'll have to just... The baby sees that and you're just screwed. Okay, on the hot takes. As always, these come from Patreon. They are listeners saying things that they kind of think or they don't think. But maybe they just wanted to write down. And so we're going to read them and respond to them as we see fit. I love this. The first one. You don't need polls for most ultras. You need like strength and a strong core. And you need to stop swinging sharp sticks around without awareness of those near you. You are a hazard. You're going 55 miles an hour in the left hand of I-70 between Georgetown and Silver Plume pulling a camper that's on fire during a drought. They got exponentially better and better. That was great. That was amazing. Yeah, I think polls are really interesting in the sense that like, when you're in a pack and people are swinging polls, it sounds like it is like game of thrones out there with swords just flying everywhere. It is wild. We should just have lightsabers. That should be the new thing. You know how they have those kids' lightsabers? There's just the only things that you should be allowed to take out there. Yeah. And this is really interesting. World Championships are coming up here. We have a bunch of athletes competing at World Championships. I'm actually really proud of us. We have, you know, double digits athletes competing at the World Championships. It's juicing polls. I mean, he brought polls for Iran. Uh-huh, did he use them? No, but he did bring them out, actually, at one point. He just practiced carrying them. I heard him clicking them, clicking for a couple of times and then he put them away again. But the point is he's not going to be running every climb like we did on our run in our run. Exactly, yeah. But in advising these athletes and advising them on polls, what we essentially say even on these really steep races is yes, polls are ideal if you're practiced with them and you enjoy it. But you can get by without polls most of the time. Um, Claire Gallagher won CCC without polls. There are athletes that have excelled without polls. But there are some races where you need them. But with what this listener said, I would say down, let's not use polls and races where they're not needed so much. Oh, agree, yeah. Just so you avoid making people feel like they're going to get hit in the face. Yeah, late Sabers instead. Late Sabers instead. Okay, number two, Disneyland is the world's hardest ultra. I 100% agree. Every time an athlete goes to Disneyland, I'm like, we're going to run four miles a day. That's it. You know what's way harder? What? Weddings. No, I think Disneyland's way harder. No, wedding dancing. Every single injury I've ever seen comes after a wedding. Well, you don't have to wait in line at weddings. Yeah. Wedding in line is hard. Going on those spinny things that have no end is the worst. I would rather wedding dance every night consecutively than ride two rides at Disney World. I don't know, man. You have to hear some Corinthians reading and you're like, your brain is like, holy shit, not this. Oh, but it's love. I'm sitting in there, marinating in love, and it's good. I don't know. Disneyland has goofy. That counts for something. Sure. Got Disney princesses. Disney princesses too. Okay, number three, this is what Megan talked about earlier. You should feel comfortable listing your first and last name after anything you post, or you should not be posting it. And this comes from April Marie Nelson. She said their reader name, which I think was a good added thing. I like this. I think. I agree. Yeah, I think about this a lot, actually. Everything I say, I'm like, except to you and Adi and Leo. Yeah. Should be public. Or I should feel comfortable being public. I mean, I think maybe having a few best friends that fall outside that circle. I mean, I think this is saying something slightly different. This is saying if you post it publicly, you're first and last name behind it. But everything you send is someone could be posted. Yeah, but I don't think private communication should be assumed to be public. That is a paranoid way to live life. I mean, but I, I mean, I think it's reasonable. I don't think it's reasonable at all. But I mean, I stand by, I make risky jokes, and I still stand by some of those, you know. I don't stand by things that are right to people in private communications. Really? Of course not. To be public, you serious Megan? You're saying I just take your phone and publish everything that you have on there that's not to me. Good point. Well, I mean, someone breaks up with someone and I'm like, fuck them. Yeah. You say we're stuffin' that too sometimes, as we all do. You all have that. I think it more is about when you put things publicly and I agree with this. I think anonymity on the internet is such a negative thing. And there should definitely be some sort of verified identity process, you know, in these places. Oh, yeah. You're still gonna get people being horrible. It's just gonna be more controlled. Because like, I feel like that's only gotten worse. And online, like, I feel like message boards in the days of like, like how we think about the world have only gotten worse. Well, I mean, you look at a great example is in Traflon, they have the slow twitch message boards, which you're, there's a certain amount of having a name, because the way that that posting system works, you need to have some sort of identity. Let's run, in contrast, has no identity verification, no identity requirements. Let's run, slow twitch is mostly supportive. It has controversial opinions. People push back, blah, blah, blah. They have a separate forum for politics. If you, you can avoid it if you want. Let's run is a steaming cesspool of shit. Like, you look at it and it's like at any point, 10 of the first 50 posts are like, the types of things that make you want to vomit. And that's kind of the internet as a whole. So I appreciate that. It has to be your real first and last name. Can't be a burner name. Oh, yeah, but I mean, what would be your burner name? I like Ron Mexico. It was used by, I think Michael Vick, the old quarterback in, I'm not sure, something elicit that he did. So Ron Mexico would be mine. Actually, maybe I mean, I would change it to like, Don Canada. Oh, wow. I like that. I like that a lot. Okay. Okay, next one. My beloved awesome sauce spring energy jails are really just a super expensive version of my five year old applesauce packet that he devours during half time of his kindergarten soccer games, meaning I could probably spend less money on sports nutrition and just raid the kid's snack bag. This is great. Also, I really just want the oranges they have at snack time. Wouldn't that be great during an ultra? Yeah, I used to love those. Couldn't there are a little acidic? Yeah, there are a little acidic. That being said at, at canyons, I did go through and I've always wondered who just reaches their hands into the big bags of food that everyone else is reaching their hands into. And then I got to the mile, like 57 A's station and just reached into the soggy potato chips that everyone else had already been in and just like totally took them in my mouth, stuffed them up my butt. They were going everywhere. That's kind of your general life. Have you really thought about that before outside of Ultras? Well, yeah, I mean, I, in general, like big piles of food, I'm not going to stick in my face and really I'm surprised by that. You've taught me. I know you'd be ashamed of me. It would be so good. I want to be, it gets back to shame. I would, I would elevate that with joy and love. Perhaps you would. But yeah, I mean, it's actually an interesting point about energy gels and things in general. It's like, it's a lot of food, yes. I mean, a lot of like multi-dection fruit toast misses you could probably reverse engineer them at home. One of the reasons something like precision is so great is that it's like the suspension you cannot do at home. Oh, that would be complicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to be like a chemist and have a pen and it would be really intense. And yeah, we like awesome stuff because we have to make it and we always will have love for that. Yeah, I also have love for Capri Suns. That's true. That's another halftime snack I could totally drink in an ultra. Straight up the butt. Okay, number five. One of Courtney DeWaltre's most impressive athletic achievements is running with the standard issue Apple headphones in her ears at UTMB and not having them fall out. This was the first hot take that came with the picture. Yeah, and it was a picture of Courtney DeWaltre just doing Courtney DeWaltre things, slaying up a UTMB climb with the full corded Apple headphones. It was impressive. Yeah, it's an old school. Yeah, I think I can go with it. I mean, I've actually thought, you know, headphones and altres are a really interesting topic. I think they probably make a massive difference given how much perceived exertion matters in the second half of races and getting your brain in correct spaces. I, you know, I would almost want them to be banned not because they're dangerous or anything. They're performance enhancing. But because they're performance enhancing. There are a lot more performance enhancing than a lot of what was on the courts. Yeah. Like, I don't know, a prohibited list. Yeah, definitely. So that's an interesting point. Courtney DeWaltre can do it all. Also, I really like the corded headphones because it is so hard to keep track of AirPods. That's my hot take. I have AirPods, I have my AirPods are called fuck face AirPods. Yeah, I have fuck face AirPods one through five. Is it hard to keep track of them? They're very expensive. Yeah, we got to bought an extra bike for the price, price, price. Okay, number six. This one is really spicy. Athletic greens is 100% a placebo effect powder. Oh, I disagree. I disagree. So this person could not be more wrong. I wouldn't trust this person with anything. This person really is the worst. So athleticgreens.com slash swap SWAT. There, you get bonus travel packs, you get vitamin D. We have basically all of our pros taking it. It is so, so, so good. And it is not a placebo effect powder. I don't know what this listener is smoking. Well, you are so susceptible to the placebo effect and it's placebo effect and more. Yes. Yes. So definitely get athletic greens. Don't listen to this listener who I think might be evil. I think they might actually be the worst person that's ever lived. They're just trying to shame the athletic greens. We don't accept shame. We only uplift athletic greens with joy and love in your house. Okay, next up, running and training are not hard. Life is hard. With a smiley face. Yeah. That's interesting. I actually disagree. I think running and training are very hard. Yeah, they can be very hard. So is life. Yeah. But I think it's all hard. Yeah, it's all hard. Yeah. Getting out there is very difficult. And I understand what this listener is saying is that life and death are very tough experiences. But I do think running can be magnified in such a way that the highs are higher and the lows are lower than almost anything else in the context of life, even if you know it doesn't matter. So while I understand the principle, I don't necessarily agree. Well, I think also leading into what makes running hard is what is running is about. Yeah. But I think it's almost like meta-experience where you can identify that and know that. But it's still hard and that's still what makes it magic. Yeah, it's a way to experience life in a bite-sized morsel with no negative consequences, really. You know, I mean, you could run off a cliff or something. Yeah, and with Caprice on. Yeah. Actually, and that's the way that I'm countering this. Running and training could be hard if you like, I don't know, jump off a cliff or something by accident. Oh, don't do that. Don't do that. Yeah, sometimes when I'm running and it's really hard, I'm like, I wouldn't mind if I twisted my ankle and had to stop forever. And so it points out just how hard it is. Okay, next up, I don't care about your run streak. Oh, I agree with that. Oh, really? Well, I mean, I feel like, yeah, I mean, I feel like a lot of people who do run streaks actually would be better off with the rest day. That's true. Yeah. I mean, in general, we're massive fans of rest days. You should probably take a rest day out there. Make sure you're taking your rest day. Your body needs it. And I think the problem is people think that rest days are about like staying healthy and avoiding stress fractures. When in fact, rest days are about cellular level context of adaptation. And so I understand a run streak in the context of it as meaning to the process perhaps. Oh, and I've had athletes do run streaks. And if it means something to them, I uplift that. But I'm also honest with them and say, hey, like the best performance would be if we could do like more stock running days into your rest day. Yeah. So, yeah, I care about your run streak, but I do not so much care for the physiology behind your run streak. Ooh, I coast on that. That's good. Perfect. Number nine, and just two more, in running relationships, only one partner can be successful or healthy at a time. Ooh. Yeah. I think that's false. I think when I'm holding your wheel. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I definitely think that's false. But I understand where this listener is coming from. Oh, when someone is hurt or injured, it is really hard for a partner to get out the door. I feel like that energy is shared in the household. Yeah. And it points out how difficult partnerships can be in general. You know, I think with them, you need to really ground yourself and everything about that person is your own as much as possible. The success, the success is 100%. And also the struggles, yeah. And I mean, actually, why we had an argument on the run. We didn't really talk about why. We were going down this big mountain after making crushed the uphill. And I was like, I don't really like your form right now. I don't think it's the right form to stay healthy down this mountain. And so you're like, I'm not going to let you run down this mountain. I'm going to call my parents because we were about to go out of reception. And we could have gone down safe and got through without any health. It turned into a few mile argument that was not necessarily the best conducted argument by me. And my solution was, you know, David, I'm going to run behind you. Yeah. Because if I run behind you, you can't look at my running for it. And then your form got progressively worse and worse. It was like, almost like you were trying to spite me. It's like, you know what, I'm going to break my pelvis because you've said that. Well, I had a side stitch. And I was like, yo, the side stitch is going to get better in five minutes. My legs are like a little uncomfortable at the moment, but they'll be fine. Yeah. But in the context of that, when we were working through it in the hot tub, what we worked through is that I also share Megan's health trauma that she went through. Like, you know, Megan, I was worried about her. I cried myself to sleep when she was in the hospital and they wouldn't let me stay during COVID overnight, thinking that she might not be alive when I wake up. And, you know, we've been through all this stuff that you've heard about on the podcast. And so when I perceived a decision being made that might not be health first, at least in my head, I panicked. In the same way, I would panic if something like incredibly terrible happened. Because it's almost more heightened when it's happening to you. And so... And I appreciated that love. But in the moment, I was like, I have a side stitch. Well, and we didn't communicate the depth behind my concerns. And my concerns had nothing to do with coaching or running form or anything. It had to do with like, look, if you need to run like that, we should stop. And the reason we should stop is because I care about you so much. And I want you to be okay. So I think this point points out that like running partnerships or partnerships in general have a lot of unstated shit. And if you think this, talk to your partner immediately about why this is in your head. And make sure you get over it because this is not the way it should be. Get in the hot tub and have a 25-minute slizzler conversation. Yeah. Use some tots. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, tots. Yeah. OK, last one. Let's not try to make cauliflower anything it isn't. Colorflowers enough exactly as it is. It doesn't need to try to be raised or pizza crust or any of the nonsense that people try to make it. You do you cauliflower. Don't let people put you in a box. Did you write this one? No. It's almost exactly like your writing. I think we've even talked about this before. I do think this person might have been inspired by my writing style. Yeah, this is exactly your writing style. There's also some all caps thrown in randomly and you're like, wait, why is this all caps? It's kind of my thing. Yeah, I disagree slightly now. You do. Yeah, just because like all food is good. Like I've come around, I've actually reversed course on some of this stuff in the sense that like, you know, in the past whenever I see things that might comply with what some call diet culture, right, like though I try to not use that term because I don't understand the connotations of it. I resisted it because I thought I was supposed to in the food positivity that we always try to do. And then I'm like, you know what, some of this cauliflower shit's delicious. Well, I feel like it's coming back to bite us because we love the cauliflower crust pizza at Whole Foods. Yeah. And it's been sold out for weeks. Yeah. And I feel like our karma against cauliflower did that. Yeah. And so I don't know. I'm just like, all foods good food. And you know, just because you're having a cauliflower thing doesn't mean you're not getting enough calories. Yeah. I mean, we have cauliflower pizza with like pepperoni and sausage and all the cheese. I mean, we loaded up high. Yeah. It's good stuff. Whenever we've gone to Whole Foods and said, we'll have the cauliflower crust and guess every single piece of fried meat you have. They're like, okay, you guys contain multitudes, don't you? And you're like, yes, we do. Okay. Do you want to get to this in your corner? I love it. Let's do it. Awesome. Do you want to read this one or me? I can read this one because it's a special one. So it's, hi Megan and David. I've been wanting to write to listen to a corner for a while. Megan used to be my babysitter back when I was a wee thing and she was in middle school in high school. She was my favorite babysitter I have ever had because she always brought us shrinked inks. Most fun ever and made us chocolate milk. Glad you are still chocolate milk fans. What are shrinked inks? Shrinked inks are like an arts and craft. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah. You were a great babysitter, apparently. Oh, I enjoyed babysitting. But also we had chocolate milk and I don't think we had it in wine glasses though. Yeah. I didn't expose the four-year-olds to chocolate milk glasses. But you were into liquid calories even then. Yes, exactly. I only began running in February for fitness, but quickly caught the book and had run a handful of 5Ks, an 18-mile race and a half marathon since then. I started working listening to the podcast two months ago and now I've been to the episodes every day while at work, and on my long runs and I've shared it with all my runner friends who became lawyer listeners too. Huge congrats on Little Leo. If Megan Mothers anything like she babysat, that kid is going to grow up having so much fun. Since listening to your podcast, I feel inspired to train for an ultra. I love the way you describe the camaraderie and spirit of adventure in the troll community. Also, I particularly love the way you break down the science behind training, in a way that is palatable for those without a science back on to understand. I appreciate all the new knowledge and so will my mitochondria. You guys are so rad and so inspirational. I absolutely love what you're doing with Swap and I'm sending all of the love. That is so cool. And the reason I'm reading this is because it's Sarah. I babysat Sarah for many years growing up. I was like part of their family. It was the best environment. And it meant I got to not go out on Fridays and Saturdays and sit there drinking chocolate milk and doing arts and crafts. So Sarah, you actually saved my middle school in high school. It was great. Yeah, oh, it's the best. But Sarah just finished a marathon this weekend. She became a marathoner. She crushed it. I started in February. This is February, last year. Okay. I was about to say that's insane. Still wild. And just over a year doing a marathon. How cool is that? I started coaching her about six months ago, I think. And it's been so much fun getting to work with Sarah and yeah. This one's for Sarah. We love you. Thanks for letting me do arts and crafts. Yeah. Shrinking things with you and drink chocolate milk. It's also wild with the body can accomplish. And it's so cool. Yeah. So I mean, it gets back to like how quickly the strength adaptations happen. You think about you start something and then all of a sudden you run in fucking marathons or whatever the equivalent is for you. I mean, you know, Sarah, it's weird to be able to say someone's name on here. It's like so inspired by you. And for anyone else out there, whatever your goal is, put in that first day of work. And it is wild to see what the body can do. You just have to be kind of patient and accept that like it's a slow grind. And so she crushed her goal marathon too. But I had to remember through this process like Sarah. I know we've done a lot of miles, but you are just starting out. And that's actually an exciting thing because we have so much room to grow. But she perched her marathon with joy. She thanked all the race volunteers out there. She was, she just said that she, she really fixated on how she's going to purchase mentally. And I think it fed into her performance. And you and I saw a video of her finishing and she crosses the finish line and just started crying. I know. And then I started crying. I was like, this is the Sarah who was four years old. Yeah. Oh, how cool is that? It's so cool. It gives you chills to think about sports. Sports cool. It's incredible. And trying really big scary shit. I agree. Yeah. So, yeah. We love you all. Try some big scary shit out there and do shrinky dinks. Whatever that is. Oh, it's the coolest arts and craft. Yeah. I feel like when you call a flower, our pizza are shrinky dinks. I'm going to draw the line there. Let's stick with the regular old fashioned shrinky dinks. And cauliflower, you just do your thing. We love you all. Woohoo!