160. Courtney Dauwalter Makes History, Western States 100 Stories, and Why Ultras May Never Be The Same!

What can the summer call play podcast? We are so happy to be with you today. Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday. And my sole cup is overflowing on this Tuesday. It feels so good. It basically had a David Roach pour. A David Roach pour, actually, I feel like my pour could be, you could be talking about like juice or something like that. You're probably mostly talking about coffee make creamer because we get that French vanilla stuff that is probably made with industrial solvents and I just lift it up to the top, make that sweet, sweet, sweet coffee. Anything that you make beverage-wise is always bubbling over with excitement. Whether it's coffee or tea, actually you just made us water before the podcast. I asked for some water. You went downstairs and generously got it for us. But you tossed in an electrolyte tab and our podcast got delayed a solid three minutes because it was like a salt, one of the salt timers. It was making that exploding noise in the background and I was like, oh man, I can't possibly focus. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I do like my drinks to be flavored. But it's like what we talked about with having liquid calories being so healthy for you. I'm just trying to uplift the researcher that tries to push against red S. That's what I'm doing over here. But just tossing so many things into drinks, making them explode, that's how you roll. Yes, and it'll also help our recovery from this weekend. My voice is totally shot and gone right now. You can probably hear that I'm a little raspy. I haven't trouble hitting the high notes on the woohoo but we got through it after now three different takes. Hopefully this is the last one before my voice just goes completely. It was the first time in the history of this podcast that we've never made it past woohoo. Yeah. Your voice just cracked epically. It's so bad. I think the hard part is, you know, not only are we screaming a lot at Western states which we're gonna tell you all about this week, so many good takeaways, the most historic year ever, I think. But in addition to that, like, it's just you're running all the time, you're emotionally heightened, you don't get any sleep. You combine all of those things and basically my voice is a manifestation of how I feel on the cellular level right now. I'm very uplifted, very happy, but a little bit ragged. So say our slow cups and our cells are feeling very different things at the moment. One is overflowing, the other is completely and totally empty. Yeah, this is gonna be a moderately delirious podcast, but I think in the most happy, joyful way because I'm just so motivated and excited right now about what we just saw. It was incredible out there. I also feel like, so we had birthdays this week and it's actually a good time of the year to have birthdays because I feel like we lived four years in the last week of life. So it's like, yeah, turning 33, it's turning 35. I feel like we're turning at least a decade older. Yeah, it actually reminds me of birthday workouts. So on athletes' birthdays, I like to give them interesting sessions if they tell me that it's their birthday. And my favorite one of all is let's say you just turned 33 on Sunday, and that's amazing. First, 33 is your lucky number, which means that this year's gonna be the best year ever. Well, I don't know how I duplicate last year. Leo was born. Yeah, well, I mean, that had its ups and downs. But actually, that's the thing about like birthdays and like holidays and years is you never have to like, one up a year. That's true. I feel like it's just like, have as many good days in life as possible. That's my goal. Yeah, it's never transactional. And we learn so much more each year that things can get better and better even if the exact circumstances aren't always better. Yeah. But the workout I like to give is something like 33 minutes easy to warm up. 33 minutes hard as a tempo and 33 minutes easy to cool down. And what I always tell athletes, I think I mentioned this on the podcast before, but is during that 33 minutes hard, I went them to reflect that time passes much more slowly in reality than we think in retrospect and nothing brings that home more than a hard tempo run. It passes exactly like an effervescent electrolyte test. Yes, just delaying the podcast the whole time. So we had such a good time. And the first thing we wanted to start with is a few little reflections about our personal experiences before we get into the race is that Megan was the co-medical research director at Western States. This is I believe the second year that you're officially in that title. And you did so great. You gave a million presentations. Every single one was enriching, incredible. I learned a ton. Your co-researched director, Dr. Emily Kraus did amazingly too. So congrats. I'm so proud of you. Oh, thank you. That means a ton. Well, Western States has had this long history actually of uplifting medical research, medical science and it's so cool to be a part of this history and to see it rolling out. But by the time I got to the race on Saturday, I was like, oh my gosh, life had been so busy that I was so excited to just sit in the lawn chair and yell his awe. That's not exactly at all what it looked like because we were out there like covering so much mileage in the course. But it was so fun to be in this medical research director position, tons of presentations. I actually realized that I am a very salty presentation sweater because I wore a black shirt and red pants for like both days because I didn't pack anything like super nice. And also when I realized I had like swampass in my presentation pants and I was like, oh, dear Megan, I need to go like full presentation ninja like black and black for presentations because I'm in the 99th percentile for presentation sweating. Next publication, the epidemiology and genetics of swampass. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we need that. Actually right after your presentation, we stepped outside of the hallway. I totally forgot about this until you mentioned it. You bent over and you're like, is there a wetness on my ass? A bent and snap and was like, look at my butt. And there wasn't. But you know what, I had gone to the bathroom like an hour and a half before and I looked in the mirror and there was. They had very delicately planned off buck cooling. So I could like rectify this situation. Rectify, very close to rectum. I used it very specifically. That's the way it just came out. Yeah. So you did pre-cooling for your anus. Yeah, exactly. It's the fastest research director thing ever. But I mean, it was very cool because Western states is historic in this field. A lot of the studies we talk about, about Ultras, have come from Western states. It's the like preeminent place for this. And for you to be stepping into this type of role, uplifting others in science and spreading your own, spreading your own is a lot very awkward to talk about. But doing that, for me, I was just filled with so much pride and you in Emily in women in this space. So amazing job. I know that's a lot for you, especially when you have all the coaching going on and you just did great. It was so much fun. But I think a big part of why it's like preeminent in terms of boosting the field is because the Western states research participants are so excited to participate in research. It's unlike any other research study where participants are kind of like dropping out. You're really trying to send them 8 million emails and text messages to do their study, like anything within the study protocol. Western states research participants are all about it. And it's a joy as a researcher. So we actually have a call for applications. If anyone's interested in doing research science at Western states, applications are due all guests first. So it's a great place to get highly motivated research participants. If you want to learn about swampas, this is the place to start. The place to go. Well, I really need a sweat test to see what my swampas situation is at. We actually, we had a great talk with precision at Western states. It was really fun to sit down and talk to them. We talked to them a little bit more about sweat tests. And I think for me as a scientist and a coach, I'm always trying to approach things with as open a mind as possible. Definitely. And they kind of changed my mind a little bit on the importance of sweat tests. Yeah, I was so intrigued by what they were talking to us about. And we can't wait to report back on that type of science. We'll do that soon. We want to keep you on the loop of like the cutting edge of what people are doing at the front. And we also want to do a quick best of rundown of a few different science things from before the race. The first one is there was a presentation to all the athletes on my favorite study of all time. We talked about this study on the packets before, but I want to remind you, because it was my birthday. And this is the study that makes each of my birthdays a piece of magic. And this one was on twins. So it took two identical twins. And they had discordant exercise behaviors over the course of decades. One of the twins, the one that did exercise and did endurance sports at a elite level in Iron Man, had 55% more expression of their slow twitch muscle fibers. And historically, people have always thought that muscle fibers are partially just a genetic thing. And you can't really change them. This study is the first one that looked over over a long time period to show not only can you change them, you can fundamentally alter your physiology. So back to my birthday. The reason it got me so excited is every year that I age, the more slow twitch I get after my football and sprinting history. So to see the study presented, I freaked out as if I was seeing Taylor Swift live at concert. It was amazing. For your future birthday cakes, I should just write slow twitch across the cake and icing and then put all the candles on there. So you can have a further reminder of how much your slow twitch muscle fibers are gaining. Those type one muscle fibers, my mitochondria are stacking up. I can't wait. They're getting birthday lit. They're having birthday sex. It's the good stuff. Yeah, so for everybody out there, you know, this study, it's from 2018, the European Journal of Pod Physiology, you can find it's just right twin studies slow twitch muscle fibers or something. And to Google, think of this as you age up. Because every time you're aging, whatever your baseline genetics are, one thing the study looked at, or at least the presentation saw, is that most athletes at baseline are intermediate fiber. So they're type two A, type one, type two X or whatever. And they're a mix of those. And more largely intermediate. But in endurance sports, we want the slow twitch fibers. So as you train, every little brick in the wall stacks up in ways that apply differently than you might see in some sport like baseball or basketball where you're like, or even like a running back in NFL. They're 27 years old and they're already over the hill in being released by their teams. And running is the opposite. You know, when you hit 38 or whatever, you're just starting to hit your stride and the future beyond that can be so bright, particularly in things like Ultras. And this is why I think Ultras are so exciting. And when we saw Ludovary Palmer etch, he's 47 out there. 46, 47, something bad. Yeah, and he was within the top 10. At times out there, he was six last year, I believe. So so cool to see his results as he's aging. And it's really wild. What I loved about this presentation, though, is we got new insight into the twin study. And that was from Jimmy Bagley, he was doing the presentation, was that the untrained twin, they actually reach out to him and they're starting to coach him and train him. And now they're going to have a follow-up study to see how his muscle fibers are catching up. But as I was sitting there listening to this presentation, I was like, damn, there is so much pressure on that untrained twin because he's got a trained prescience. Great, I feel like it's the opposite, though. They should just keep him as a control group and see how much further apart people can get. I think there's more pressure onto someone just being a control group. Great, and I feel like that's my ultimate vibe is I could be the life control group. So he has paid me to sit on the couch, drink my nest quick. I'd be a very, very happy boy. It's kind of hilarious. I'm sure they have this dinner table conversation all the time. He's like, I'm the control group. Yes. And then it's just wild. And for me, it makes me so excited about the future. So think of this study that was pretended there. Next one is that there's been amazing microbiome research done at Western States by a wonderful researcher named Greg Rosicki and his team. And every time I see those types of presentations, I'm struck by how much the microbiome is connected to every single little thing in physiology from things that are obvious like GI system, but also performance, mental health, motivation. A lot of the studies we've talked about, they've been expanded on Western States and they're going to be publishing soon on some data they'd rather last year. And I'm so freaking hyped to see it. And I'm always struck by how much we still have to study in the microbiome. I'm really excited to fast forward 10 years now at Western States and to see how much microbiome research has changed, how we think about what we're putting into our bodies in terms of the microbiome. What I loved about Greg Rosicki actually was that he highlighted the idea that the microbiome fluctuates constantly. The microbiome is ever changing and he's the example of who you sit next to it, work. What you're eating within one day changes, but as I was out there at Western States, so my favorite thing to do at Western States is just to give big giant bear hugs to people who finish. And huge high fives to people around the track is how much are microbiomes at Western States and are connected? Because if you ever thought about the personal journey someone has been on at Western States over 100 miles and then you give them a big bear hug at the finish line and you're just swimming in all of that puke and fars and diarrhea and all these fun things that have happened to an athlete that are hanging out in their body. So like our microbiomes are all connected at Western States. Yeah, I love that experiment so much, but it was just really interesting to reflect on how much they can change within the context of a race too. Exactly, yeah. He talked about a study they did at Western States with Pat Reagan, who's, I believe many time national champion has finished top 10 at Western States. And the expression of his microbiome changed by 20% for certain different strains, much like some of the studies that the Boston Marathon and companies are now being created to invest in these strains, see if they can increase them naturally in people and if that might help performance in with how they're involved in lactate metabolism. And the big thing with microbiome research too is are those strains actually causative in something? Like, is there a causal relationship between those strains and performance outcomes and there's still a ton more research that needs to be done? But I feel like it's a great frontier. I mean, if you're interested, if you're like sitting here listening to this podcast and interested in area of research, this could be a really fascinating area of interest to dive deeply into as a graduate student and thinking about what your next frontier of research might be. Yeah, I mean, the gut is everything. Question is, do you dive deeply from the mouth or from the others? But yeah, that's actually like, I always think that if I was gonna restart again, I'd wanna do something like microbiome research or muscle fiber research. Those are two of the areas I think are the most exciting in this field. If you had to choose between the two of them. Microbiome, for sure. Oh, interesting. I would say muscle fiber. It's a little bit more cut and dry. I think maybe in 10 years, I would love to do the microbiome. But I feel like right now, it's just so hard to say like what's causal versus versus correlative. Yeah. Then I feel like I would have a really hard time with that as a researcher. Like for me, I feel like that uncertainty is a little bit harder, whereas you thrive on the uncertainty. Yeah. Just pour some coffee and make creamer in there because industrial solvents make my brain just go wild. But I mean, I think the point is that because it's so uncertain, there's room for breakthroughs. Yes, there's a lot to unlock. And that would be really exciting. He's like, maybe I could win a Nobel Prize for my research on poop. Well, I have an athlete right now. She's looking to be a poop donor. Yeah. And she's using, so you can be a fecal donor and it might have a difference in someone's microbiome as you do a fecal transplant. But she's using that to fund a triathlon bike, which I think is one of the coolest ways to buy yourself a bike. That's amazing. And so someone that was at the presentation and asked Dr. Grisickey about my probiotics. And he very much said that he kind of does think they have efficacy in people. I remember him saying that you're looking for 30 billion separate colony forming units, so CFUs. You crushed that. Yeah, I was very excited because I mean, I try to learn from these types of people that are at the front of their field, but also doing field research. That's my favorite thing because if you see it at somewhere like Western states, it's totally different to me than thinking about it and all that. Oh, yeah, totally different than pipiting, pipiting something within the lab. Yeah, and one of your presentations that I wanted to put you on the spot for really quick was on bone health and your perspective as a researcher and coach. But there was one element in there that I thought was interesting that you decided to focus on in this context, which was rest. And I mean, I can almost tell sitting in the audience, everyone was wrapped with excitement at your presentation, but there was a little bit of like, whoa, this is interesting that she's focusing on the rest part of the bone health equation in addition to all the science you were doing. So where did that come from? Well, I very specifically chose that for Western states because I feel like if I could talk about rest any population in the world, it would be at Western states. Because I feel like participants at Western states, there's always this like Strava, like Massibutori pool across Western states participants to see like, who can do some of the biggest training heading into Western states? Who can create the biggest bar charts? Yeah, exactly. And I don't think it actually plays a huge role in race performance. Like you think about athletes at mile 70 of a race? Like Katie asked me for example, we were just talking about the fact that she had to take some unplanned rest days heading into race week. But for athletes at mile 70 of the race, just how important it is to show up rested, ready to go like craving running. And you know, I think rest days are great for performance at Western states, but also bone health too. And I felt like it was just with perfect audience to harp on that because yeah, I mean, I think it's uncommon. I love that so much. Maybe at some point we can dig into it deeper. We want to get to Western states a little bit more. But that particular part of it really hit me and made me confident as a coach going into their race. Because I think sometimes particularly when we view these races with an intellectual remove, you can kind of lose like the bones and gristle of it all. And how nasty it can be in practice. And we think, okay, the bigger those bar charts are, the better this is going to go looking at times in retrospect. But when you're there, when you actually experience these in person, you see that there is no way at mile 70 that we're thinking weekly miles beyond general cohorts is the determining factor, particularly weekly miles that are undercut a little bit by taking one rest a week. What matters is getting their fresh and excited. And Katie Asmith's story, that was a perfect analogy for it, was so striking in that regard. Because last year Katie had surgery on her foot. She ran with Western states with a broken foot. She ended up getting a pin in her in the vehicular. She didn't run again until January this year, or like late December of this year. We weren't able to build up huge volume. Then before the race, she hit her knee a few times so she had to take time off. She got sick with Norovirus two weeks before the race. So her plan was characterized by breast and not rest on top of huge training. Because she had to do a full reset for the surgery. It was rest on top of rest. And then she goes out and has a historic day. Runs one of the fastest times ever. And I think it points out that getting to the start line, fresh, ready to rock, and healthy is the most important thing in Ultras. And it kind of underwines our thesis that at Ultras, you don't need as high volume as you do for road marathons. Because you can never train for mile 70, you might be able to train for mile 24. I love that point. I think too, as we conceptualize and characterize rest days, too. It's not about, so I think so often in athletes' brains, rest days are for the biomechanics system. It's for the musco-skeletal system adaptations. But truly, it's for the cells, too. Like you're sitting here right now, like our cells are booked as we recover from Western states. But heading into Western states, there's so much life stress that goes into traveling to Western states, being an athlete registration. A lot of these athletes are on panels. And it's like, no, like the rest days are for the cellular adaptations, just as much as they are for the biomechanical nature of what we're doing. And that was a big, big thesis of my presentation is, rest is for the cells. It's not just for the muscles, not just for the bones. And that cellular context of rest, I think feeds back into preventing bone stress injuries as much as it feeds back into performance. And I think that's one place where you have revolutionized the world of ultra-running and ultra-coaching. So, you know, you're the best coach in the world. I'd say that constantly, but it's backed up again by Western states. Your two athletes, both in the top 10 yet again. Every year, this seems to happen. And, you know, I think one of the ways you've reshaped the paradigm here is you tell me everything in the context of cells, not in the context of systems. So, I think if we zoom out and think about, you know, the O2 max and like how the muscles contract and stuff like that, we're getting to some of the picture. But all of that, it only matters in so far as it feeds down to the cellular level, whether that's muscle fiber cells or, you know, cells at any point in the body, red blood cells, anything else. And so, thinking about things like your cortisol levels, your overall hormonal status, that type of thing is by far more important sometimes than thinking about what a three-minute hill repeat does with muscle fatigue or something like that. Well, they're all interconnected. Yeah, exactly. That entire, I would call it like a cellular soup that then goes and impacts that three-minute effort. Yeah, well, the cellular soup. You've got that cellular soup tasting good. Girl, throwing in some, throwing in a lot of salt. A lot of salt. And some coffee made cream for the person I'm raising. And it tastes delicious. Okay, then a little thing on me, I wasn't in the science presentation, though we did give a presentation of the athletes together, which was fun. That was so much fun. We presented actually the model predictions that we shared on last week's podcast. And they were pretty accurate for the men's race. I think we'll get into, you know, kind of how Western states played out, but Courtney DeWalter is a model wrecker. And we predicted that at that time. We'll reflect a little bit on the model. I actually think it was really good in retrospect, particularly given some of our predictions. So, we'll touch on that in a minute. But what I did do, even though I didn't present new science, was I won the friends and family uphill race that was kind of an informal thing. I didn't even have a bid, but I'm pretty proud of myself for that. It was so informal, and you crushed it. Well, it was really fun. So, I just ran the race with one of my athletes, Bree, and we had a lot of fun just watching people go off out of us, which- Did you see me up there? Oh, I could see you out there. And it was so cool to see you, like, charging up the snow, it was great. But it was a very interesting starting line to stand on because it was a mix of like, people like you that were trying to send it. And then people were like me, they were like, we're gonna hang out. And it was really fun to put everyone like that on a starting line. Yeah, there was a podcast listener out there that was taking a video, and it was going up like a really, I mean, that part was probably like 20% grade. And I was running up it, feeling okay. And he said, and I said, Huzzah! I'm proud of myself because I would have done that even if he wasn't there. So, I did it anyway. But it was really informative as a coach because as we were going up the escarpment, this appela race goes over the first few miles of the Western states, which was the next day. I saw that the snow conditions were pretty rough, and rough in ways that were gonna be very difficult because the snow itself was extremely off-cambert as melted in differential fashions. And my last message to every athlete we coached was, look, this high country, the first 30 miles of the race is going to be treacherous in ways that really require patience. So, in that section, practice self-love because if you're loving of yourself, you're gonna get through that place ready to go. And I think some of the races that were messed up in the first 30 miles were because athletes were judging themselves for not being as efficient as they could be in the high country. And that totally makes sense because that snow was like mashed potato bullshit. It was so difficult, and I think the fast times blow my mind given how tough the first 30 miles were. We haven't really reflected on this point because we had our meetings with our athletes, and then we came back together and Western states was so busy, but that's the exact advice I gave to my athletes. And it's kind of wild that we came to that conclusion. It was a mix of being patient, but also practicing joy out there. Because my first gut instinct when I was running up the escarpment and just chilling on it, I was like, fuck this snow, I hate it, my life is miserable. Why would I run on this stuff? It's so slow. And I recognized how derailing that was for performance, like how much that was getting in my own head. And by the end of it, I was like, I need to choose joy because that's the best way that I'm going to get through this. And I think we saw that with athletes out there. Like we had a group of women athletes running together on the snow, and they were like, glissating and falling and just making a fun, joyful experience. And I think they survived the high country so much better because of that perspective. Those are the coolest moments in my life is seeing that swap athletes were running in a pack. This isn't something that happens very much. And it's just kind of like almost a quirk of statistics that our athletes were all running together at times like five or five deeper, six deep in the first 30 miles. But I heard some stories that, so they were all trying to follow the eggs, which is kind of difficult when you're on snowy terrain. It was so hard to navigate, even our escarpment climb, which is pretty straightforward. There was people going in all different directions up the escarpment. In the uphill race, it was like a choose your own adventure at the top, everyone was doing different things. But what they said is like one person would fall and then someone would scream, okay, one down. Let's make it two. And they were all just trying to find joy in that process. And I think it's why, you know, our team ended up having such a good race partially is that they lifted each other up emotionally at a time when your emotions really matter. And so that's a takeaway for everyone. As you're thinking about races, especially the first third of races, the mental context of love to yourself is so powerful. Later on, it becomes a lot more about physiology and things you can't control. But at that point, the love element can go a long way. Yeah, and I think that's, it's so important. Actually, during the research presentations, Nikki Kimball talked, who's Nikki Kimball has been a legend in old journey. But she, her, the framework of her talk was that depression is a superpower weapon for her. Interesting. Have you ever worked with an athlete like that? Because I feel like we have this, I don't know, I feel like we have this tendrils of like running on love and running on joy. And I don't think that always works for everyone. How would you talk with an athlete? How would you talk to an athlete that comes to you and says, like, you know, my mental health struggles are a superpower for me during a race. Like, do you give someone the same joy and positivity framework out there? I mean, I definitely would, because something that is born of, you know, any accomplished that is born of self-glowsing or a glowsing of, you know, just unhappiness, that's gonna eat you alive, you know? Like Darth Vader accomplished amazing things. Yeah. Like, you know, awe-inspiring things. But, you know, I don't know if that's the right way to think about life. Do you know what's horrifying? I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know. We've gotten to the idea that my Star Wars knowledge is so poor. And I was like, oh, I wish I could tack that joke. But I like, I would ruin Star Wars because I don't add a truly don't know where it's going. Yeah. Well, I'm just trying to bring it. What's an analogy you would understand? Anything related to a book. Anything related to a book. Darth Vader is like a Texas Republican. I don't know what I'm saying. Well, I fully get that. Okay. Yeah, legislating bathrooms and things like that. But, you know, I think there is some power in that for sure. And I do want every athlete to harness their own personal power. But I think that based on performance psychology, even if it feels like you're getting your power from mental health struggles, you actually aren't. Because that's not seen in any research or in field studies. Like in field studies, self-talk is the most powerful thing. And yes, maybe you can harness some negative emotions into empowering things. But as we've seen with like adaptation and stuff, there's studies on adaptation that find that it reduces the way you respond to training. So my guess is someone like Nikki is super talented, works super hard. And some of the causation and correlation is a little bit missed in how they, or how she thinks about the process. But I don't know, I wasn't there for that presentation. And I think everyone's allowed to have their own experience. I just beware accomplishments that come from a place of, you know, negative intrinsic thoughts. Because you might get to the finish line and find that, oh, what does it actually mean? Because all you have with you is what you carried with you along the way. That was so incredibly sad, David. I totally echo that. I mean, I think it's just, it's so hard. I think you have to be an outlier to be able to sustain that type of mentality in the long term without elements of, like, you know, positive self-talk, enjoy and reframing things. And there's so many stories that contradict what I'm saying. So I'm kind of rethinking that. For me, it's just like, I don't know, like some more fun if you try to find that as much as possible, impossible sometimes. But, you know, I think for athletes in these types of situations that are a choice, it's something to really lean on. Okay, then a final few things before we get to the race recap. One is we got to do my birthday run adventure together. And as we were running, we were up in this really remote area. We were going to an Alpine Lake. We get to the Alpine Lake. And in the woods of this random location that probably, like, one person has been to in the last two years was an ancient petal boat. One of those little boats you sit in and do peddling of the things. And so what did Megan do but say, we're getting in that fucker and going across the lake? Actually, I said something to about putting out wads. Yeah. I wanted to set a Strava segment in this petal boat. And we pushed the boat. It was probably from the 1970s. So I wasn't entirely sure we weren't going to sink in this freezing cold Alpine Lake. I actually had a moment we were out there in the middle of the lake floating in this petal boat. And I had a moment, like, no one is coming up to this lake. If we fall into this lake and it's so cold that we're shocked, it's going to be a long time before people find us. I'm not a strong swimmer, Megan. Actually, we were out there. Megan wasn't following the news last week. And, you know, we were just talking about life and stuff as we were peddling. And I was like, oh, Megan, did you hear about that story with the Titanic? And she was like, no, I didn't. And I started to be like, actually, I want you to tell you that story before we, until we get to shore. I don't know if that's the most productive thing, while we're in a hastily construction boat out in the middle of a very deep lake. That was a very wise choice, but we had so much fun in that time. It was one of my all-time favorite adventures. And I felt like it was just one of those moments to choose to be ridiculous by taking this paddle boat out. I kept our stravas on. So we got, I got an extra 0.45 miles rolling around the outskirts of this lake because we were kind of too afraid to go right through the middle. Yeah. And we very accidentally made a heart in the lake, which is kind of cool. I felt like that was like, yeah, it was destiny for my terrible navigation skills. So that was kind of our experience of this week. And now I think, do you want us to get into like a race primer, talk about it, talk about the experiences and the results and things like that? I am so excited for this. Our listeners are like, finally, guys, it only took 20 minutes to get to Courtney DeWaltar. Are you drunken? Oh, no, they love that shit. We're not even quite to Courtney yet, because we have a few things we want to talk about about how the race played out in a general sense to give you context for this. First, we already talked about it a little bit. The snow is bad. And I think the first 30 miles were a lot slower than people think when they're looking at the race results. So this points out that just how little the first 30 miles matters for future editions of this race. Note to self if I listen back to this. Make sure athletes understand that. Because the final part of this race was pretty cool. So that made up all the time. And all of the time athletes lost at the beginning, ended up amounting to almost nothing. So remember that for future, the high country doesn't matter. Maybe that's a good idea for long distance races, the first third of those races in general, five or 10 or 20 minutes here and there, not that relevant. Because those gaps become, according and out, they five, 10, 20 minutes becomes an hour, two hours, three hours in the last 30 miles. I totally agree with that. But I guess my question is, is I think it does matter though for podium positions. I think if you want a podium position now at Western States, people are running so fast that you actually do have to go out hard in the high country. I would say maybe even, I'm curious to see how this evolves over time. I would say maybe even top five. Maybe that's kind of, but look at Esther. Esther was running with our team. Yeah, that's true. And they were a little, I mean, forever back at one point. And then they ran some fastest times ever. But I feel like for Tom Evans, for Courtney, for Katie Shide, like you're not catching those athletes unless you're running pretty fast in the high position. Yeah, yeah. So I guess, and probably in the future, we're going to see athletes push the limits at the front and it kind of gets to some of our projections for what this race means for the future that we'll get into in a minute. This is a hot take from Patreon, actually, that I think is relevant here. So as always, patreon.com slash swap SWAP, it's where to go to support the podcast. We do bonus podcasts every week. We answer questions. People organize, there was a Patreon meetup at the race this week. That was really cool. But most of all, it's just a place to support us. Go there to find that. Someone actually met their Western state's Pacer through Patreon, which was so magical. That's incredible. We had so many Patreon listeners come up to us at Western States and he was like talking to family. Also, what I love is so many of them are like, we love you because you're weird. And I felt like it was empowering to us to the point that this podcast was going to get exponentially weirder over time. Because we're like, they're giving us freedom to let even more of our free flight flies, which was a little concerning. It was amazing out there to have, there was a couple of people that came up and said, you know, I wasn't sure at first. And it's amazing how much of that we get. Yeah, right? For a broader, like kind of serious point, I think it does emphasize for you and your lives, wherever you are out there, to let that thing be preeminent for you. Because even people that are skeptical will eventually see it's authentic. And if it's not for them, great, because you don't want to be for them. But if it is for them, even if they didn't start like on that track, they're all in with you. And so it was so cool to have people screaming at us, haza from the distance. So hopefully we got to give you hugs if not next time. Next year, let's make an RSVP. It doesn't have to be through Patreon to say hi there. It was so uplifting. And people were walking up to us and saying hot takes, as well. They were delivering them to us in person. It was so cool. So this is a hot take from Patreon. Western States has an amazing vibe, amazing history, amazing race direction, amazing volunteers, but it's an awful race course. I would love to know if this person has raced it. Yeah, maybe they know more than we do out there. I was gonna say, we can't totally speak to this because we haven't raced it. We've run many parts of the course. I don't know, I disagree actually. I disagree too. Maybe it's because I love more one of all races, but this race has everything. There's the high country. There's the running, rolling trails, which I think are really fun. So I don't know. I've also never suffered an 100 degree heat operand. So hard to say, but I really do like it. That gets to the next point though, which is that the temps were quite cool at times. I mean, it was still hot, but I think this race course in the heat of the summer. I mean, anything in the heat of the summer kind of sucks. Like if it's 102 degrees, being at the pool kind of sucks. Well, we always, we have this like trip that we always take on our way to Forest Hill, which is the place that we spectate at mile 62. And whenever we walk into the grocery store, it's like just walking into the grocery store on the asphalt is heinous. It's an inferno. It's so... Like 11 a.m. So, so hot. But this year, I was like wearing a sweatshirt into the grocery store and was like, what is happening right now? And then when we got to Forest Hill, which is mile 62, the main aid station where everything really happens, in the shade, we were getting goosebumps. It was wild. And it was, one, it was really nice because baby Leo got to be there. And a lot of people got to say hi to him. But it also totally changed the race dynamics. So, I don't know if we can fully talk about this in the, without, you know, the temperature or discussion. That being said, I think the race course as an objective thing is great. As a subjective thing, as you experience the heat, could be bad some years. But this year it was quite different because of that cool weather. Well, I do think it's fascinating how in trails, there's courses for everyone. Like for me, like I would much rather run westerns deates than hard rock. And I'm sure there's 50% of the population that feels the reverse. Definitely. And so we love the course, but we're also very partial to western states. We were talking to one of the board members after the race who we've interacted with at the time. And we're just like, how much do we owe Western states? Like us personally, not just the whole community. Oh, so much, yeah. So much of our coaching, our podcasts, everything was built on success at Western states. And the platform that that gives businesses in this space. So thank you, Western states. We love you. Your course is perfect, no matter what this damn painter says. Well, I also wonder too. So you were standing up for us. And I could see ideas percolating in your brain. And I started to get with a little excited, a little scared. And you're like, Megan, I think I want to run this race. I do. And you've never, we've usually been melting it for a sale. And they're like, oh, fuck, this looks horrible. So it was kind of curious to see you change your mind. Yeah, I mean, that's the hard thing. It's like this year was such a different experience. And the whole time, it's just like, oh, man, I think I do actually want to go for a golden ticket next year. But maybe I need to have like an intervention. Like, maybe I have over stokes syndrome right now from seeing the race unfold. I don't think so. I feel like if you see that happen and you want to do it, I think you should lean into it. I'm excited. Well, you should shoot your shot. I mean, shoot your shot at least. Yeah. So a tentative personal plan is to go for a golden ticket. Maybe sooner rather than later. We'll see. This year when I did Kenyans was not for a golden ticket. I wasn't thinking about that. And I wasn't going to do that. But I think I'm ready. I think I'm ready now. I do think you're ready. I think part of it is because I'm older. I was going to say you turned 35. That's exactly where I was going. I feel so slow to switch right now. I'm just sitting here in every single second. My type one fibers are becoming more and more expressed. Oh, slow to switch. Yeah, you know how when you take a dog into the groomer, they have like a check box after this is anal glands expressed. I got those type one fibers expressed. OK, and then the coverage was stellar. You might have been able to follow along very closely via Dylan and Grins amazing commentating. So we loved that. That was so cool. Well, our voices are a little raw right now. Can you imagine their voices? Oh my god. We talk to a lot of people out there, but they were talking. And they were talking like professionally all day. Yeah. And we love it as though we screamed. And you can't miss a screen on a YouTube live stream. Like so much screaming. And so that's why I'm in these just a little bit, a little bit tough at the top end here. And then finally, our personal experience before we got into all the other things is we learned this year that you can run with athletes for a pretty extended time at Forest Hill. And then which ends up being like a mile at least. Oh, it's what I think 1.6. So you can run all the way from that road, which is where athletes come in down to the end of Forest Hill, which is like this 1.6 perfectly downhill mile stretch. So that's a fun stretch to do with athletes. And you know, we had a number of athletes, I think six athletes at the top of the women's race. So we were just running back and forth and back and forth. And you ran 31 miles on the day between that. And then for athletes coming into the finish, we could run from Roby Point to the finish, which was about like 1.3 miles. And it was so fun. It was so fun, but I got so exhausted. I looked out on my watch at the end of the day and my body battery had been on zero for an extended period of time, like, oh shit. Well, at one point, you were complaining. So you had to help me navigate up to Roby Point. Because I wasn't entirely sure where I was going. So I was going to run in Megan Leia, who were in 9th and 10th. But I needed you to help get me there. And you were kind of complaining at one point. You're like, Megan, like, oh, I've been on my feet all day. I was cracked. I was cracked. I was like, you bitch. If you want to run Western states, you better not complain about running to Roby Point right now after hanging out in the lawn chair for part of the day. It was wild. And actually, I was going to tell the story later. But so as we're running in from Roby Point, so you're running with your athletes. Priscilla 4G, who finished 8th. She's incredible. But she didn't have a big crew. She just had her partner. Dan. And so I'm running with them. And I'm running right beside her. She's actually dropping Dan a little bit because she's so fast. She's running down this section at, like, 55 minutes per mile pace. It's insane. We'll talk about the physiology of that in a few minutes. But we're about to cross the bridge for people that know this area. And I missed her. Well, Leah, Megan's athlete, is bearing down on her. She thought Leah was right around the corner. And she basically was. It was like two minutes separation. And I missed her. Thankfully, someone was there to scream. Because if not, I would have ruined everything. And I think it was like a five-second stretch where Priscilla hated me so much. And then she turned it around real fast. I'm sure I'd have been so pissed at you in that situation, like, so, so pissed. And it was like that ultimate, David confidence. It's that way, even though I've been here a million times and should know this for now. I've known this, David, confidence before. And then you get five miles in. And you're like, we are really in a wrong spot. All of a sudden, Priscilla and I are like, somewhere in Auburn on a petal boat. Pulling a gym. Yeah. Okay, so let's get to a race recap. We're gonna go through some storylines. We're not contentioning everything. But I think that this will give you some interesting context of the experience. Even if you're not a fan of this, we'll try to broaden it out for soda-piced everybody. Can we start with Courtney DeWalter? My cells are exploding. It's just like they need to talk about Courtney. My anal glands are exploding because I need to talk about Courtney. Okay, so what Courtney DeWalter did out there. First, we interviewed her, go back and listen to that to get a feel of the type of person she is. I think was the best performance in ultra-running history. I think it's one of the best athletic performances we've seen in human history. It's such an outlier over what is possible that I don't know if it's even possible to put into words or numbers yet. I think we'll need a few years to fully understand the context of what we just saw. Well, I think there's so many ways that you can put it into numbers. And every single way that you do it is even more impressive. So she was less than an hour after the first male finisher. As we were watching her finish, I was like, I don't know if we've ever seen a woman finish in daylight. It was wild. And she was six overall in the race. And then her race, what I thought was cool was, I felt like she could have run this comfortable. She had so much time up on the course record. What was it an hour and 15 minutes on the course record? That she could have gotten the course record by 30 minutes and been like, I'm gonna comfortably run this in. But she kept ratcheting up her effort. It was bananas. It was so wild. So her split from four sold to the river was 210. And the previous fastest non-courtney time was 233 for men. So 22, 23 minutes faster than that. And that's a 16 mile stretch that's on trails at the midpoint of an ultra, like it's insane. And so that comes from an age station fireball tweet, which is a great Twitter handle. It's Liam provides tons of great stats. I wanna give him credit there. But it was faster that split than all but Tom Evans and fewer than 10 men in history of the race. Courtney ended up running a 15, 29. She was 55 minutes faster than the previous course record from Forest Hill at mile 62 to the track. So in the final third of the race, 55 minutes faster. I think there's an argument that this is the best endurance performance of all time. Not just in running. Oh, easy. I mean, I would love to see anyone that debates that. Yeah, because it's like an hour 15 minutes over a previously untouchable course record. When... And so many of the historical legends in sport have tried to go for this. And I think people can downplay trail running sometimes. We're like, oh, it's not really that competitive at the top end. It's not like that at Westerner states. We have had tons of 230 marathoners do Western states. We have had Antreson, who's one of the best athletes of all time do this race at time. We've had people from the track, people from all the goats of trail have done this. And Courtney's time beat them all. Not just women, you start to think about for time was better than killing this run here. There was so much... There was actually an Instagram, like, I don't know if you call it like a meme or a stat. That's one of all of the men that Courtney has beat at Western states in terms of time. And it was like the legends of legends in terms of men. Yeah, you can't compare across the years, but it just... Yeah, exactly, because of the temperature. But still, that's a very impressive... And it gives context. It's just like what we saw out there, I think, I mean, absolutely chills thinking about it. She has fully reset what is humanly possible. And not only did she do that, I think in the process, lifted up the entire women's field because everyone was getting the Courtney tailwind. You know, it was in her slipstream. So, I wonder what this means for the future of altars for women. Well, as I was gonna say, I wonder what it means for the future of women and how women won this race, too, because I think the women's top 10 was historically fast. It was so fast. So fast. And some of that is temperature explained, but I think a lot of that is the Courtney-Dowalter effect. When you have Courtney-Dowalter going out there and running so fast, it has this slingshot effect of pulling everyone along. I think not just this year, but in future years of this race. Yeah, and I think what we're seeing in these things, in these races, is when physiology starts to hit these wild places, where you're not really trained for even if you've done great training, it sort of becomes about sticking your nose in it and seeing what happens at the edge. So, a great example of, I think, how the Courtney effect plays in practice behind Courtney is the women that we're running in three to eight. So, Courtney and Katie Shide at one two went out together. Katie Shide going out with Courtney was impressive. Yeah, and maybe we talk a little bit about that right now. So courageous. So, Katie Shide went out on what seemed like a suicide pace. It seemed like it was the type of pace that would cause an athlete to collapse and reminds me of that pre-quote. The best pace is a suicide pace and today feels like a good day to die. That's kind of what Katie did and not only did she do it fantastically, she finished second, also under the course tracker a few minutes under and it was wild because I think I'd love to have seen how that race plays out with Courtney's not in it. Would Katie have raced like that? Because Courtney was going out so fast or would have been different. I don't know. The decision making process to go with Courtney to Walter in a race is absolutely mind boggling to me. Also knowing how far under the course tracker you are in the snowy high country and I would say a master class of being a boss in terms of watching this play out out there. Reminds me a little bit of motor pacing and cycling. Yeah, in cycling they have athletes ride behind cars or ATVs or things like that at times. So Courtney to Walter's a Ferrari? Is that where you're going? Yeah, exactly. And Katie's like, I'm sticking on this wheel and there's a reason they do that in biking. Because you can get the same effect from riding in a peloton but they're riding behind motor cycles. I think partially because they know that motor cycle can keep accelerating and they stay behind it anyway. And I think that what Katie did out there was incredible. But on the athletes that were like three to eight or three to seven or whatever, they came into forest till all grouped together within a minute or so, which is something we've never seen before. And when I saw Katie who I think was in seventh or so at the time, I got to run with her as we were talking about. Katie asked me if she could. Katie asked me if she could. And what she was setting to me was, she was clearly like focused, right? And focused in a way that I think some of people that were watching and maybe even some crew members thought wasn't productive, thought it was a little bit too difficult. And what I said to Katie is like, okay, this is the moment. Like this is the time when you've got to go and Katie knew it. The reason that she was focused is because she knew she didn't know. She didn't know what her body was going to be able to do. All she knew is she was going to stick with everyone else and see what happens. And what Katie saw is that her body had a depth of reserves that she didn't expect. And Katie ended up running also one of the best times in history. I mean, I think before today, it would have been the third best time in history or second best time in history, something like that. And it just points out that like the edge there, the margins of performance are starting to be explored in ways that I think are going to affect how every one of these altars is running the future not just Western states. Well, I love that you brought up Katie Asmuth and also her decision. I think it was a very conscious decision to stay focused. I mean, Katie like thrives off of like fist pumping, motivation and like amping up everyone around her. But she brought like consciously a different energy to this race. And I find that really curious because there's a lot of, we're going to get ahead to some interesting research about like cognitive demand and how that can impact performance. And I think she did a great job of preserving her cognitive energy, knowing that she was going to go to a place that her body has never gone before. And I think like as a, it's almost like a performance strategy to do this. And I, we should dive into this more. I love it though. Katie was like, you know, I was like, I was like pretty quiet out there and controlled. And then Jenny Quilty, who finished 11th in a time that was one hour faster than the previous fastest 11th place time in the top 10 are invited back at this race. So quite tough in that regard, but Jenny was so happy. She was so great. She had a great quote actually. I think one of the best quotes of any of the finishers that came through, she's like, the happiest 11th place to show that ever existed in this sport. But what Jenny said when she heard Katie say that like I was kind of quiet out there, is like, Katie, I heard you from a mile away. Because Katie just lifts everybody up. I mean, she's like, yeah, I love you. High fives hugs, much like Courtney in that regard. And it was very cool to see Courtney express this love even while she was doing something that was clearly incredibly difficult. Like Courtney never shows how difficult things are in the moment, but you know, when she crossed the finish line, she was supposed to give an interview. Oh, she was so sick. And she got too sick to give an interview, which she's human, thankfully. I mean, it's almost like, at this point, Megan was like, is she a cyborg? Actually, she did give, she gave like, I think 90 seconds of an interview. And in that time, it was just like, thank you guys. Thank you to my crew, thank you to everyone, and then she got really sick. So it was just, it was a bunch of thank yous, which is so classic Courtney. But I think getting back to her discussion before about like self love and joy, I think Courtney actually does exude that very much in like a cognitive preservation sort of way. Like I don't think she's, she's not like fist slamming out there, but I think she does run on that. Yeah, and so the women's race totally reset what's historically possible. If you're a woman out there listening to this podcast, understand that I think what this race shows is there is more meat on the bone when it comes to performance in this world. And any limitation. There's more corn on the cob in terms of the vegetarian approach. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, exactly. And just anybody that has my GI issues when they eat corn will have to think of another area. There's more coffee mate in the creamer thing. But I think make sure that there's no little element of yourself that selling yourself short as a woman in what you're capable of. Because like there's been a lot of pop science online. Oh, our performance is gonna converge between men and women the farther we go. I don't think that's ever gonna happen because there's physiology there. Yeah, I don't think so, yeah. But I do think. I get to ask that question all the time as a researcher. If we had a nickel for every time the New York Times called us. Yes, it was like, and there were like are women gonna beat men at Ultras? My answer is no, but yes, yes, yes. And the butt is there's a lot left. And I think sometimes what's causing athletes to maybe hold themselves back slightly is some like societal history that is implicit in the process. So it's not like something an athlete's processing, but it's something that as a community and as physiologists, people have thought about for a really long time. Hence like female athletes participants being excluded from studies and things. And as we go to a place of being like, no, actually this is possible. We're gonna see that rising tide where it lift all boats. And I think the next 10 years is gonna be the year of female domination in Ultras. I'm so excited to see what happens. And I think also too, we're also coming into a time too when we're thinking so much more about science. Not just for the general population, but also for female athletes too. And I think there's so much science feeding into these faster times. Like how we think about training, how we think about recovery, even carbon and trail shoes. And this sport is just gonna elevate more and more. And that's so exciting. And I hope that we're helping push that conversation forward a little bit on how this goes. So let's go to the menstruation real quick. So let's start with Tom Evans, who won. I'm so inspired by what he did because he planned this race meticulously. Like with Courtney, she's doing hard rock after this. She's such a goat. Do you think she's gonna do hard rock? I was actually wondering like, she was so sick. And Courtney, she recovers really well, but she was so sick after the race. I was like, oh Courtney, like that has to be hard in the body. I think Courtney is gonna win hard rock overall. Overall. Overall. Oh my God, take, I love it. I've decided at this point that, you know, I predicted Courtney getting the core tracker. To you, behind the scenes, I predicted 16, 15. Yep. And I was off by 45 fucking minutes, even more connected to the fastest time of anyone that you could ever imagine. Yeah. And I think it points out that like, until I'm proved wrong, I'm gonna start guessing that Courtney does impossible things. Well, do you think the Western States performance is going to, how do you think she would do it hard rock if she had not run Western States? Like do you think it's going to be a additive or a detractor, understanding that Courtney's physiology is an ally? Like I think for any other athlete, it would be a detractor. I think for Courtney, it actually might be a positive. What do you, I mean, I don't think it could be, you know, I think like physiologically, that would be impossible, even for an ally. And that gets to one of our training products, things that we're gonna have coming up. So I would say with Courtney, it's a good point. Physiology, physiology, and she's incredible, but I think she's not a cyborg, right? No, yeah. It's easy to think she is because she is so unstoppable. I think she'll do great, but I do think if she hadn't done Western and States, she'd have a higher performance potential at hard drive. But you know what, maybe that just directly contradicts my, don't say anything negative, or don't say anything that's not unthinkable or be ever advanced, so we'll see. Tom Evans, you know, planned meticulously. He knew everything he was gonna do in this race and became the first European man since Kylian to win. He ran a 1440, which actually aligns with the model predictions we talked about, which was 1441. And so he beat the model, which is incredible. That doesn't happen in men's racing, unless your name's Jim's mom's late. And he just did it in like a workman-like fashion where I don't think at any point in the race, it was really in doubt for people that like, we're watching it from these sidelines. Well, that's sad about being the first European man to win this since Kylian. I think it's extra curious to me, because there's been so many European top European men that have come over and tried to do this. And I think it goes to show how some specific training related to the terrain of the course matters a lot. Like, Washington States is about so many different things, it's about durability, it's about foot speed, but I think training specifically on these trails and having that history, because we see when U.S. men go over to you, Denver, almost a parallel phenomenon where it's so hard for U.S. men to perform over there, because the terrain is so different. Yeah. And I just think it's a curious point. And probably why Jim moved to France. He knows that, you know, and we don't really have those trails here. Whereas in Europe, there are some trails where you could train for Western states. So I don't think it's possible. Like a road. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the mountain roads. A gravel road, yes, exactly. So that was cool. Also, I saw today from a physiologist that he had over 100 grams of carbs per hour out there, which, you know, amounts to over 400 calories per hour. It gets to some of the research on extreme fueling approaches we've talked about that if you're able to take in more carbs per hour, you're gonna have less muscle damage. And in the context of long races, that'll make a huge difference on your performance. So try to ramp up that fueling if you can. That's what the champions do. Well, I was excited about that too, because you always see 90 to 120 in research. But for me, doing that at Western States, in an area where there can be so much GI distress is kind of unthinkable. So seeing that happen and play out to me was exciting. And we try to recommend that to our athletes, but sometimes in practice, it's much harder than that. Yeah, and so I always default to the more liquid fueling you can get, the better, because those are free calories in the country, because you don't need to hydrate anyway. So keep your liquid calories coming in this event. Okay, then some other stories from the men's field. I thought it was very interesting how tablet green and Jeff Colt, two athletes who are famous or notorious for closing really fast, started fast this year. It gets out to my point in the high country. If you want to podium, you have to stay with that top group in the high country. And tower green and then second, I think Jeff was like seventh or something. But everyone's really close together. I kind of think at Western States, other than like people that are just off the charts, it's kind of all the same. It's all kind of like similar experiences in the top 10. But that was really interesting thing gets back to, at Altrus, go for it sometimes. Like people are gonna be pushing the limits here. And I think sometimes, you know, as long as you're below lactate threshold on climbs and aerobic threshold on the descents, going out easier is not better. You're not gonna have more at that point. Your body's still gonna get fatigued because you're gonna have the mechanical breakdown. And you're not gonna get any benefits from, you know, we're serving glycogen because you're not actually burning that much anyway. Well, I'm excited to see it. So Tyler Green historically has gone out easier this way. It has always chased people down. It must be horrifying to know Tyler Green is behind you. Oh my God, yeah. You're almost like adding a spot. You're like, well, I'm in third, but I'm actually in fourth. Tyler Green is coming for me. This is really hard. But I'm excited to see if he uses the strategy in future races. Like I wonder if people that haven't necessarily gone out hard before, if all of a sudden they realize they're capable of so much more. Like I wonder if Tyler Green, this is gonna unlock a new racing potential for him because he's just gonna go out harder. Yeah. And I think that that's what we might see is that this race changes what people think about what physiology is capable of and what their physiology in particular is capable of. Okay, then in third, Anthony Castales, unsponsored, great. He was wearing a Chico state singlet. It was so cool. Yeah, this is cool. He's gonna- Someone sponsor him. Think about how much money he made. I see he came onto the track. I was just gonna say I asked that question. How much do you think he just made with this performance? And I said 150,000. Yeah. I think 50K over three years. So someone give him, but back up that dump truck full of cash at his door. And then just thinking about how the race can change so much. So at Forrest Hill, Tom Evans and Dakota Jones came in together. Dakota Jones, absolute legend of the sport. They were running so fast. Oh my God. Like unthinkable fast. I mean, I think they were running 530 pace. Don't waste it for so. Dakota looks like he was running 515s. I actually think Tom split under six minutes there, which is insane. But Dakota was flying at that point. And then a few miles later, he had dropped back out of the top 10. And I think it just points out too that even as we're saying this, it is not a linear process out there and managing the sort of thing. It's so important. Dakota's still at a great finish, but- The hard part about Ultras is, you can get to mile 90 and DNF. You can get to mile 90 and feel good. I mean, we saw that with Killy Hennager. She fell and unfortunately, he dislocated her shoulder. And it was actually wild. So you can't receive medical attention outside of an aid. So they were having her roll over herself to try to pop her dislocated shoulder back into place. And that gives myself the heebie-jeebies. Because I've dislocated my shoulder and it hurts. It's wildly painful. Yeah. Honestly, I would say my dislocated shoulder was on par with some of the pain I felt in labor. Oh my God. Yeah, I mean, it's like very, very, I mean, in a very, in a more localized way. Labor pain is a full body experience, but yeah. So you had to choose between labor pain or dislocating your shoulder, but nothing comes after it other than- You're like Megan, you would break your whole body for another baby. That's where you're going. But there's no baby involved, which one do you choose? Just look at your shoulder. Okay. Yes, okay. But just barely. It's my point. Yes, just barely. There's competition there. Okay, and then final reflection on the race as a whole is the golden hour. So that's the period of time from 29 to 30 hours when there's cutoffs. And, you know, I didn't really get emotional all day. Even with these incredible swaps, right? Oh, really? I was fighting back tears all day. Well, maybe it's because I was just so focused on coaching. Yeah. And that was really cool. But the golden hour vibes, I was just at the track. And every single time someone would pass, I'd start getting teary-eyed again, thinking about what they went through to get to that point and the fact that they were going to finish their journey. And then everyone was screaming. If you've never been to Western states, you should make a trip next year. And, you know, watch the race it far as till like, that's pretty cool. But make sure you're at the track for golden hour because it's something I'll always remember. And that's where I draw my most inspiration from. It's like, yes, the front end of the field is very cool. But everyone undergoing this journey, it's absolutely wild. It's like what we talked about with Broken Arrow. The middle of the pack and back of the pack is where some of the coolest stories and most uplifting narratives happen. And getting to see that encapsulated in the golden hour, something I'll never forget. Well, I don't think a narrative that we talked about enough on here is chasing cutoffs. Yes. So we're seeing that at golden hour. So you have to finish under 30 hours. And someone came in with like 15 seconds to spare. And it gave me so much anxiety. So they hit you, they hit you know, 200 meters. And I was doing the math and I was like, oh, they got it, they got to run for it and go. But just how much anxiety it has to be when you're chasing cutoffs all day. Definitely. I mean, in some ways it like mentally segments the race because it's like, get to the next station and the next station and the next station under the cutoffs. But it's a totally different race experience. And I don't think we've talked about it on the podcast here enough because it changes the mental context and it also changes the strategy of how you race too. So, golden hour, absolutely, you know, it was so emotional. Oh, and Lucy Bartholomew's dad. Ash, he came through. So he came through two minutes after the cutoff, which was absolutely heart-wrenching. Actually heard he went off course, which is one of those. We're an extended for like 30 minutes. Which is one of those tragic things about ultra running that sometimes just you just can't control everything out there. And he was coming around the track. It was so inspiring. Totally leaned forward. I think because of back pain. I think back pain. He also looked like he had no integrity in his quads. Like he had just left everything out there. And like moving fast still. By lean forward, I mean, right angle with his face. It was actually perfect hiking form uphill. Yeah, it was. Just on a flat ground. On a flat track. And that was I think maybe the coolest story of the day in some ways to see someone dig so deep and find so much within themselves on maybe a day that didn't go perfectly. Just like hell, yeah. And also, Lucy being out there with him. She wrote something about it. That was beautiful. And she paced him. I think she paced him from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. And having that like father daughter time out there like how magical is that within the context of the race. And that's why I love Ultras is it's not just about finishing. It's like that time that you have with pace with crew with and those people love you so much. Yeah. And it's just I don't know. I think it's a really cool experience. And that's what Western states is love. Okay, so final little things for us. It was an awesome day from a coaching perspective. Like bananas, awesome. Like I don't think like it feels kind of like surreal self self uplifting to say that. But it was like our athletes. But we're just so proud of them. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's like I cannot even express how excited I am for them. It's like being a parent and there are kids or something. And I'm like, what just happened? Yeah, and I think I think people that saw us out there actually really liked, we got an amazing text from somebody that was just like they saw how much we were suffering at times. You know, like it's hard on us and like our bodies were breaking down. Clearly as you can wear voices. Yeah, it's like I can't go here and over here. And they're just like, okay, you know, seeing that in person is for them as inspirational as watching one of the racers and I'm like, okay, that's too far. But also at the same time, like it means a lot because we do invest like our whole lives in that. And in these people, you know, that we care about so deeply. And also we care about these people so deeply. But then they became friends out there. I mean, even a lot of them, like I've interacted at training camp and training runs and many of them are friends, but they work together out there. And it was like they're swapping back. It was like having siblings or having like kids and they're like starting to like enjoy each other's company. And to me, like as a coach, that was really cool. So we had four athletes in the, four women athletes in the top 10, five in top 11, six in the top 13, 14, something like that. So Katie was fourth, we told her story today. Katie is the greatest person ever. I mean, seeing her in action, there is nothing she can't do. Her story of inspiration of this, of like having to have a full reset due to a severe surgery, maybe a career and threatening surgery. Nevicular surgery is part of the non-care routine future. And I remember us talking in her saying, David, is it possible? And I was like, I don't know, but we're gonna try to make it possible. And not only was it possible, I mean, Katie had one of the fastest times ever. Wow, I mean, I'm speechless, it blows my mind. It also wasn't a linear recovery from surgery either. So I mean, she's been mom of two young kids. Yeah. So like by necessity, she has gotten sick so many times in this build. And I think she had to form a new relationship with rest days. And it's like, it's just, it's so cool. She has so much going into this race and it paid off. One other thing I like about Katie, so at Roby Point, my own 98.9, Katie at that point was kind of fighting for a podium, but mostly worried about number five, Emily Hogghead, one of the best athletes in the world behind her. And I saw her and I'm ready to pick her up. And she goes, shh, be quiet. Probably because she knew you're gonna yell and go bananas crazy, yeah. I didn't think about it at the time. Immediately I was like, oh, maybe she's just a little bit overstimulated. And she's just kind of being funny. But what she actually was doing is trying to make sure that Emily couldn't hear their crew and get motivation to catch. Which is extremely smart. It's extremely smart, but also no one was catching Katie at that point. Yeah, exactly, yeah. She almost dropped my ass. Why did the same thing? So Priscilla was coming through in eighth. And I saw her and I went bonkers, but I didn't realize the fact that Leo was coming up behind our Leo who I coach. And I, were you trying? Were you trying to be like, oh, no, no, no. Not at all. They're all so happy. Yeah. I did tell Leo, Celia crested up Roby Point. I was like, I think you can get like, you know, I wasn't entirely sure how fast Priscilla was going to move. So I told you I was like, I think you can catch her. But yeah, yeah, but I love that though. I mean, I think Priscilla would have loved if Leo caught her too, because it's, it's competition. Yeah, unless it was because I misdirected it. Yeah, right. So Priscilla and eighth, absolute superstar. Her, she only had Dan there, her partner. And they were just such a super team. It was great to see. And yeah, like, just, I'm just like so much love for them. You told me a story about Priscilla and Katie that I think actually fits really well in our earlier discussion of the podcast that when they were running up that final hill, they were talking to themselves and saying things like, you got this, yeah, you got this. It was even better than that. So independently, both of them, when they hit, there's like a final hill that's like probably 30 yards. Like it's a very short hill, but it's pretty steep on the road right before the final downhill to the track. And both Priscilla and Katie were going up it, running so fast and both of them going, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. And I thought that was amazing of the types of things of self-talk it takes to get through these events. What would you say to yourself if you had to have one statement going up a hill? I think, oh God is perfect. The fact that they both came to it, it's like convergent evolution that like eyeballs have evolved separately. Converging evolution on God. Yes, exactly. It's like God is making this happen. And then Leah in ninth, our third athlete in the top 10, she ran a brilliant race. What was her PR? So probably a huge PR on this course. Under 18 hours. She's stuck her nose in this. So last year she ran from behind and anyone who has run in front of Leah is scared to death, or Leah. Every single person we saw, well, especially Leah or Priscilla and Katie were both like, where's Leah? And also where's Riley, who we can talk about in a second, knowing how fast they close. Yeah, it's like Tyler Green coming down on you. Actually, Kryn Malcolm referred to Leah as the Grim Reaper. Yeah, yeah. She's picking up the souls of everyone else ahead of her on the course. But she ran faster at the front this year and she ran so fast and really proud of Leah for putting herself out there and doing that. And she had a great race. I'm so excited to see Leah's future. I mean, I feel like she just keeps building and growing and it's exciting. It's gonna be wild. And then Meg Morgan, oh, your other athlete, also in the top 10. Second youngest participant, Meg Morgan is 25. You forgot. First 100, she's ever run in the top 10. So she, she ran it out, she was F 10. I am speechless. Meg Morgan, like what she just did out there was banana. She was cracking the best joke. Oh, she was so funny too. Leah was hilarious as well. Yeah. How are you in it this much? It's amazing. They went so fast, historically fast times. Then Jenny Quilty in 11th. In all time, top 50 time before this year, and still top 60 points out like how wild the women's field was this year. But Jenny will be back if she wants to be. But if not, she can go, you know, win a race like you can be. She's that good. Her attitude post race was inspiring. And then Riley Brady, I believe in 14th, and had GI issues out there. And my gosh, so we got to run with them in through Forest Hill. And I feel like you can tell a lot about character based on how someone deals with puke. And Riley was like so kind and, you know, still in the race moving well. And was just trying to troubleshoot and work through things. And, oh God, I just feel for them so much. Yeah, these are going to a good day, you know. They could podium. Yeah, definitely. Easily. Yeah. And so, you know, seeing them out there grind and fight and still be so kind to people was so cool. So, Riley, yeah, I do feel a little bad for some people because if, you know, Riley decides to come back, that's one less golden ticket for other people. Exactly. Because Riley's going to take one at will, but they're the best. I love Riley. It's so cool. Okay, so some takeaways real quick before we get into a study, we're really love talking about Western states. Oh, we should. I mean, it's a holiday. It is. Is it the best day of the year? How can we not talk about Western states for some higher episode? But we've had a lot of science tangents too. Yeah, sure. Okay, so first takeaway related to Riley's thing is GI issues and how you can deal with those along the context of these races, especially when we're talking about taking in this many calories because it can be difficult. Yeah, I mean, I feel like every direction, like just the number of GI issues that can happen out there is kind of mind-boggling. And you have to be comfortable with poop, like in vomit and stuff like that. Like that is this sport and that is running. And I think people sometimes don't talk about it so much. Actually, I was thinking about one of the ways that we're really comfortable with poop is our neighborhood listserv, our email listserv. Someone sent around, I think a bear went to the, is here and then a picture just an attachment as these neighborhood listservs can be, of a big ol' honkin' log, steamin' log. And someone responded within like two minutes and was like, I don't think that's a bear. And every single runner out there was like, I know what that is, we're on a very popular run route in Boulder, that's not a bear. Oh, I was zooming in. I was doing like friends and evidence of this poop and zooming in on different spots. That being said, I did see some nuts and seeds and like some berries in there. So it is, I think it is. A plant-based runner. That's what I'm gonna say. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So as you're thinking about this, main recommendation here is to gut train on as many long runs as you can. We're talking about a hundred grams of carbs per hour. You can only do that if you practice the cell lines in the gut turn over really rapidly. Make sure you keep that happening coming in your training and train in the context of what you do in races, even overdo it sometimes. If not with fuel, at least with water, get your stomach used to that type of load. And I think sometimes also practice with other things too, because you're gonna be out there at mile 70 and maybe you get sick of gels. And you wanna grab a handful of potato chips. I think sometimes that's actually even beneficial, because there's fat and protein and other things that you don't necessarily get from gels. So I think mix it up. Sometimes troubleshoot on runs. Sometimes even like start runs with more stuff in your stomach, like eat a big breakfast, go for a run, like that's GI training. Yeah, I get on you for that a lot, because like you so often don't put stuff in your stomach before running. I mean, you'll do enough to fuel and to make it not a fasted run. But if you're doing Western states, I'm gonna make you eat like a giant cheeseburger and go for a run. Let's like do home in our podcast favorite do home in. Every time he runs in the afternoon or whatever, Sasha tells me like, he'll take a huge thing of like tortilla chips and salsa, and then just be like stomach training and out the door. A few other random things, avoid supplements in the day or two before races. Just don't put any of that in your stomach. Control veggies, artificial sugar and fibrous fruits, like avoid that within day or two before races. Emphasis on liquid fueling out there, like that really helps. And then you can consider things like, we saw some athletes out there when they got nauseous taking zo-fran. Which is a prescription anti-nautia medication. And it seemed like it worked like magic. I mean, I've taken zo-fran before for like other stuff. I actually took it in labor. It was, I was so nauseous in labor and then I took zo-fran and I was like, oh, I feel great. But it's hard, I mean. Not a recommendation box. Yeah, be careful taking prescription medications. But I think there are solutions. Like if you struggle with severe nausea during races, work with a doctor. Exactly, yes. You're running coach podcast hosts. Yes, exactly, yes. But I wanted to mention that. That was, Megan was skeptical about me mentioning that at all. Because I saw athletes take it, we've never recommended it before, we never will. But when you see athletes take something, you kind of end up being like, why are multiple people doing the same thing? Yeah, and it seems it works like magic in some of these races. The other thing that I saw too, this race, so one of my athletes actually struggled with constipation. Which is really hard heading into a race. And I got curious. That's the opposite of, I know that's like, opposite I think of what happens to 99% of people. We get the nervous. I didn't even have constipation during the race. I went to the bathroom so many times, Megan. We were nervous pooping for our athletes. Yes. That's the role of a coach. It's the role of a coach. That's so true. We do it so they don't have to. Exactly. Yeah, we're manifesting it into ourselves. We're digging away from them and putting it into us. Our anal glands are getting expressed on their behalf. Along with slow twitch muscle fibers. Yes, at the same time, yes. Yes, so your athlete did something. So, well, no, I prescribed tummy time. I was like, because for Leo gets constipated over a little seven month old all the time. So I was like, maybe just lay in your stomach and do some tummy time. But no, I mean, I think I should do tummy time. I don't know. I didn't follow up. What they should have done is lifted her knees to her stomach over and over and over again. Exactly. Is that what we do to Leo when he's a little gassy? But there's a whole cohort of people that they get impacted by stress by having constipation. So I was like going through the biology, I'll spare you the biology of like how this all works. Thank you. But I didn't recognize that this was such a big issue. So I feel like if you struggle with constipation because of stress induced nerves, like think about hydration, think about even like hot teas, hot coffee, sometimes to get things moving. And then I think this is an area to like warming up well before the race starts. That way you can really get things moving. But the first thing I did to her crew was like, did she poop? Did she, and did she? Yes. Okay, great. Yeah, our plan worked. Did she poop during the race? Oh, I don't know. Okay, we need to ask you. The most important question. Next up is strides. We often say strides, mother fucker on here. But we got to run with these athletes through forest hill and then after Roby Point. Both times, I was reflecting on the fact that like, this is a speed event. Oh, yes. Every ultra thing. Even if not the entire time, you're dipping down. I mean, so many of our athletes, I was running with Leah and Meg. They were hit in six minute pace. Many multiple times during this 100 mile, even if not like sustained. Just for a period of time. For periods of times. And that short period of time is speed matters. Yeah. And the main thesis of swap is that by raising your ceiling, you raise the floor. Yep. And that's what the studies back up to now. There was a study that just came out earlier this year that found the only predicting, predicting variable at UTMB at 160 mile mountain ultra, or 160K mountain ultra, what is velocity at VO2 max. So keep building your speed. The lesson from these types of events should be that speed truly matters. And there are people that are insanely talented out there that might not need to do this and can still excel. But for the rest of us, that's where it comes from. So like cut off chasing speed. Getting into the top 10 at Western states speed. That is the way to do it. And especially in the modern era, because these times are just going to get faster and speed is going to become even more prominent. And consistently stay in touch with it. And I think the third point too, is eccentric muscle contractions. Definitely, yeah. So as we're sending out there and watching people hammer these absolutely rolling on these downhills, that is eccentric muscle contraction after a centric muscle contraction, after a centric muscle contraction. And thinking about that and training in terms of prioritizing verge, like I think moderate amounts of strength training or minimal dose strength training can also help with this too. And just how much it matters, this isn't. The six to eight weeks before your ultra, it doesn't really matter what you do to that point. As long as you really fit, you're pretty fast. At that point, start to think about weekend vert blocks. Like we call them just say no to rabdo against where you do a substantial amount of hurt, even more important than mileage. Do that so your body can adapt. Because the repeated doubt effect shows that helps. And then there's a study that came out just this year that also shows that ultra performance is determined by who slows down the most on downhills, not who slows down the most on uphills. Because everyone's gonna slow down. And most of that slow down that determines ultimate placing happens within the context of downhills. So preparing yourself for that is probably more important than anything. If you do that on a background of speed, like you give me any track runner that's a fast 10k runner, and you give me eight weeks with them. I think I can have them almost ready to top 10 Western states if they're a good technical runner. And I think this is where the back-to-back long runs come in as well, because there's been a lot of research coming out recently looking specifically in muscle contractions, showing that the repeated belt effect actually heightens breakdown. So if you do one effort and then another effort, you heighten and build breakdown. And so I think that's actually a great point as to why back-to-back long runs work really well, is because you're practicing, like your body is under a huge eccentric load, and you're practicing clearing and working through this. And I think it's clutch for races like Western states. That's fascinating. So we were actually looking at study that came out today in the European Journal of Applied Physiology. I didn't make that connection, but it makes so much sense. So the title of it describes it all. We don't need to get into details. Mild to moderate damage in knee extensor muscles accumulates after two bouts of maximal eccentric contractions. So in other words, 24 hours separating, in this case, I think it was like lifting or something, increases the amount of strain. And at Western states, that obviously matters to like harness the repeated belt effect, but over things like back-to-back long runs, you're doing the same thing as the study protocol. That's so interesting. Exactly, and I think I read that as gains, because if we can get better at doing this, we can get better. I mean, Western states has essentially repeated belt effect, because that's for many athletes a 24-hour race. Yeah. So so interesting. All right, what are their elements here? Do you want to talk about? Well, I want to talk about the idea that I think cross-treating is great. So we, just like us, were big proponents of cross-treating, cross-treating is amazing for aerobic volume. But I don't think it always necessarily feeds into this eccentric muscle contraction equation, obviously, because if you're biking or doing elliptical or swimming, you're not having eccentric muscles. They're concentric motions. Consentic motions. But my question, and this is totally anecdotal, is do those concentric contractions repeatedly without having a ton of vert, or having a ton of these eccentric muscle stimuli, do they actually take away from your body's ability to handle these eccentric muscle contractions? So I think, example, I mean, and this is just a hypothetical question, Dakota Jones biked two, and it was great. He was raising money for, what was he raising money for? In environmental cost. Environmental cost, yes. I was like doing the math. I was like, there's so many different things to get raised money for by biking to Western states. But he biked 650 miles to Western states and then did the race. And I was wondering if that was actually a disservice to him, because he's doing all these concentric muscle contractions. Does that then limit his ability? Does that take away from his eccentric muscle contractions, even if he's done the prior vert? Yeah, and similarly Heather Jackson, one of the best cyclists in the world. I mean, she's... I thought it was the best human. Oh my god, we love Heather so much. Based on one of our big conclusions, Heather Jackson is one of our favorite people that we've ever met. Heather Jackson for president. Yeah, everyone followed her. And her dog. Her dog could be, yeah, first lady. Everyone follow Heather Jackson. Absolute superstar. She's gonna win this race one day, I'm sure. But, you know, she struggled a little bit for her at this event, and she's also won, and what was the race? Belt and Waffle ride or something like that? She won that bike race, the gravel race, which means that she's one of the best professional cyclists, professionals are gravel cyclists in the US, maybe the world. And I think it points out a little bit that like, it's... Someone in this biking probably needs to do more of her. Yep, exactly. To counteract those concentric muscle contractions that they're having. And we don't know the exact mechanism there, but I've seen it anecdotally and myself and others too. Yeah, especially in biking at a high level, like Dakota and Heather are biking at like, this is not just like having one cross-training day for a week. Oh, cross-training is great. Yes, yeah. But even then, you need to think about it a little bit, because it's amazing for the aerobic system, and it's amazing for climbing. Yep. Concentric motions. I don't know if it's great for eccentric, so it just brings in the balance of training theory. Well, I think about it for myself. Whenever I've been doing big biking blocks, and then I go into running blocks, and you know, I've had running consistently, because obviously if you're going for biking to running, you're going to be heinously sore as you transition. But even if I have running interest first in some of those biking, we're biking heavy blocks, I tend to get more sore. Yeah, that's the same. Yeah, same. One conclusion I wanted to have about training is careful with huge acute stresses in the few weeks before race day. Oh, 100%. Every year, we'll see people do incredibly long runs. Like 50 mile long runs, like two weeks before Western state. Or something like that. And that doesn't mean that it doesn't work for some people. But I just guess, like, gets back to the cells, right? Don't think about the body. Yes, your body might recover if you're really good at recovering. It must go scholarly. Of course, need to water to that, should probably be fine. Yeah, but so early, there will be impacts. Like if you took someone into your research study, it's guaranteed you could find some long tail impacts from doing those huge acute stresses. As long as you're not an outlier. Like I think, according to Walter, probably an outlier. She could probably do that. Even some level, we'd find it, if we really wanted to. Yeah, but I think for like 99.9% of the population, those huge stressors don't matter, especially getting back to mile 70. Like what matters at mile 70 is that you have the legs, you have the energy, your cells are ready to go. And I don't think they always are in this context of huge stimuli right before racing. So we love to do big training for, and sometimes three weeks out. But then basically start to, and maybe even do like some hard workouts two and a half weeks out. But final two weeks, it's just shutdown time. And so their shutdown can be 18 miles and 12 miles, two weeks out from the race for a trained athlete. Because that's like not even enough to raise their cortisol levels. Exactly, yes, yes. But if it is, don't even do that. And Katie Asmeth being a great example, like she took so much rest in the final two weeks. And on the week of the race day, or race week, I think took four rest days, you wanna just be fresh at that point, cells matter. So think a mechanical framework most of the year with some cells involved. And then once you get to tapers, and especially the last month, start to think, how do I get my cells most ready for this event? Man, I'm pro cell. I'm like, think about cells most of the year, man. Yes, sure, it's the most important thing. Finally, do you wanna talk about shoes at all? That's kind of interesting. It is interesting. A lot of people are switching into carbon road shoes, or carbon shoes in general, at Forest Hill. So that might be, I think there's a brave new world out there where we're gonna see really good carbon shoes happen. And when that does happen, it's gonna change trail running, just like it's changed road running. Well, my prediction is, I don't think we're necessarily seeing 4% gain. Like we're seeing so for carbon-plated road shoes. I think it's probably more along the lines of like 1%. But that 1% can matter. And I'd be curious to see like what happens as we have courses that are like this, that kind of have a transition point. Like, I think Forest Hill would be an amazing point to change shoes. Or even before then, as we're heading into much more runnable terrain coming off the high country. And I mean, like, you think about 1%. It's just 1% most of the time. But if you're around a threshold, and 1% puts you above that threshold, then 1% can turn into 60%. Yeah, exactly. Adding up 1% gains can be a huge margin. Yeah, and so that's something to focus on. Make sure your shoe choice is dialed in, anything else? Well, I think just be cautious of pacer selection. So we've seen a lot, especially our top athletes, dropping their pacers, which in some sense is empowering. I would love, I would get so much motivation, energy from dropping a pacer. But at the same time, like, pacers are helpful. You need them. I like that. So I think select pacers that are either at your level or faster than you, because you never know what's going to happen in one of these races. I love that personality of yours. What? But just so you're like, I just crushed one more bitch. One more bitch is now crashed. This is going to get me faster to the finish line, yes. I love that so much. Yeah, so I always like, I mean, if I do this race, I'm going to want you to pace me at the finish. But before that, I'm going to ask Drew to pace me. Yes, I'm not fast enough, yeah. Well, no, you are fast enough. Oh, no, no, I'm not. No, you're plenty fast enough to run with me. Yeah, but what happens if I have to, like, I want a motorcycle. Yes, exactly. I want to motor pace. Well, you also, that pacer could have an issue. Like, what if I have to, like, take a poop or, you know, and then I can't catch back a fact to you? You're so good. There's no world in which you're not. But what I'm saying is, like, you know, I really, really want, I mean, I do, I want the motorcycle. Yes, yeah. And I think that that type of mindset is helpful. Well, the Drew cycle is the best thing in the world. The Drew cycle. So now we have a really interesting study that we're going to get into. We ran really long in the Western state stuff that is worth it. This is 2017 in nature. And I think it applies a lot to some of the things we've talked about with Western states. I think it also applies to the pacer discussion too. So we're going to talk about some of the cognitive demand and how that can zap performance. But I think if you have a pacer out there, and it's like zapping your cognitive energy, whether you're too engrossed telling stories, or it's just, like, someone that you're not clicking with, and it's taxing for you, that can be problematic. So I think it's helpful, as we race, to think about how can we reduce cognitive demand on ourselves? Definitely. And so here's the title, a trade-off between cognitive and physical performance with relative preservation of brain function. So the context here is that there's this evolutionary theory of the quote, selfish brain that humans, homo sapiens, were able to develop these really big, energetically demanding brains by investing less energy in things like muscles in the digestive system. So the idea that the brain takes away energy from everything else. Which makes sense, because we need brain for literally everything that we do. And so as they were studying this, what they did was they took 62 male student rowers, and they had them perform a mental test, so that this was a mental test that was using free recall. And then they had them do a physical test, which was rowing on the argommer. And they did it in isolation. And then they paired them together. And they wanted to look at how power, output, and recall were related in this process. Yeah, and it's pretty straightforward study design. Yeah, very straightforward. It's a question for nature. Nature usually, when I'm looking at nature studies, there's like 47 different steps. And I'm like, oh my god, we're not even going to talk about that in the podcast. I mean, one time we did a 40 minute discussion on here about a microbiome study in nature, because it was so cool. How about 18 different steps? Yeah. It was more complicated than microbiome itself, which does a lot. Yes. I think that this could even be more relevant in ultras, because the brain isn't able to storm us much energy. So the glucose trade-offs and how lactate relates to that can get really complex in these really long events. And so the results were what you would expect from this. Both power, output, and recall decreased when measured together. But the decrease was greater in physical performance than mental performance. So in other words, when the brain was being called on during a strenuous event, the body suffered more than anything. And that makes sense, based on what you'd experienced. But I think it really points out how to think about the mental approach to these events. Well, I think one of my takeaways from the study wasn't just about the cognitive aspect of it. It was about the idea of, well, let's not get depleted. Because the brain is using so many different reserves, even if we're not having this huge cognitive demand, the brain is taking up a lot of energy. So if we can limit depletion, it's going to help all of these different variables like throw substrate at it. Throw substrate at it. And I love that quote. That needs to be another swap t-shirt. Number two is overactive brains are a negative. This is something that's especially difficult for a lot of people. I know for me, my brain loves to do cartwheels all the time. For me at 2 a.m. Yes, for me, for me during athletics, you're pretty good at shutting down your brain. My brain, yeah, I often don't think. Sometimes I don't even hear music on when I'm doing hard efforts, yeah. What reminds me of actually is Camille Herron last year when she was top 10 at Western States. When I saw her running through Forest Hill, she was running with her eyes closed on the road because there's a period of time where you don't need to see the road. And I'm like, that's probably fascinating. She probably learned that in track running that it's like she's just limiting her cognitive demand when she had an opportunity to. Well, she's just napping and moving at the same time. Maybe, yeah. Maybe, I mean, it was fascinating to see, but I was also impressive from a technical standpoint. If I would eat shit, try to do that so fast. She's practice, you know, and there's a reason that she's a world record holder. Yeah, and it's not just her body because obviously her physiology is outstanding, but it has to be her brain too and how she does that. And then trying to practice reducing thoughts during exercise. This is really tough, but it gets back to mindfulness where you recognize thoughts, so you let them float away. Do that all the time. It'll really help change your performance. I love music for this. Podcasts don't do it for me in that regard. Like when I'm trying to do hard efforts, they're fine and easy, but like music, I can usually start to just tune it out, let it be rhythmic in the background. Well, I think if you struggle with this cognitive overload too, working with someone that can help you in, just necessarily have to be meditation, but some form of like clearing this load is so helpful. And the more that you can practice it outside of running, the better you're gonna be at mile 70. Yeah. And that's so important in these ultras. So I don't think it's just ultras though. I think one of the reasons that like, track racing can be so hard on people is because of what it does with your brain, and it requires you to shut off your brain over time. And you read about these stories of people that aren't able to shut off their brain in track, and they almost always burn out in really like, you know, magnificent ways in a public stage. And I think ultras, it matters a little less because you're getting, on one end, you're getting cognitively demand less because it's less difficult. It's less hard like in a true like difficulty sense on the cellular level. But on the other end, you're more depleted. So it's more difficult in that sense. And so learning how to like harness the selfish brain for your benefit is hugely beneficial. And that gets back to I think loving thoughts. Like loving thoughts are so much easier to deal with than negative self judging thoughts. And like, like you gotta say, I love me some me out there. If you're able to do that, I think it helps a ton. Or, oh God, oh God, as you're running a pill. Yeah, exactly. But that could just be you. You could think you're a God. Yeah. God, I'm so good. Okay, do you want to do some hot take or one or two hot takes for the road? Let's do some hot takes. Okay, where do we want to start here? We have a bunch of Lynn down, but we're not going to go to get to too many. I love actually, let's start with the one all the way up here. So more people should check in on the relationship with Strava because ultimately it is social media. And some of us just can't hang in that space. No, not can Strava specifically. That's just something I think probably deserves more attention from people with brains and sport histories like mine. But I think this gets into what we were just talking about is that if you are out there on a run and your brain is doing cognitive cartwheels, thinking about your Strava file, it is not productive at all for performance. So I agree. Yeah. Man, you Strava, you're running with athletes at what's inside. Oh, but I fucking love Strava. It takes no cognitive demand for me. But I think that is important because I think five years ago Strava was problematic for me. I think I was playing the comparison trap. But I think if you're like this, for me, it forced me to do this deep dive. I think any time you feel emotions that aren't positive, it should make you come back and do internal reflection. Like whether it's jealousy or comparison or anything like this, what is that actually making you feel about myself? And I fucking threw those to the water. I actually do, I genuinely enjoy using Strava but I wasn't always like that. So yes, I think going off Strava is great. But I also think this is a chance to reflect on like the work that needs to be done in order to use tools like this. I love that. Yeah, it's been amazing how you've evolved in that regard. And I do think everyone should check in on anything related to media, social media. Like I learned that I have to stop following news outside of comedy. Oh, yes. Oh, for sure. So like I consumed some comedy sources of news but like it's just too much for me. It's just too much. I can't think about the future of democracy and enjoy my own life right now. Unless it's submersibles. You can tell me about submersibles as you're out and paddle about that's very helpful news. I did follow that story pretty closely. You know one of the most interesting things about that story is that James Cameron, the director of Titanic, director of Avatar, all many of the best-scorcing movies of all time, is like the world expert on submersibles. So he was being interviewed and like I kind of think James Cameron's the coolest personal life. Like there's so much shit that he does. At one point he was like, yes. If I was the captain of the Titanic, no one would have died. He's just so confident in himself. And I'm like, I trust you. I would want you to be my life coach. This sounds like the coordinate to Walter of submersibles. Yes, yes. Exactly. Okay, here's another one. We'll just do one more. Some short troll races have been unjustly overshadowed by altruists and it's time for a change. Sub-altrued troll races are fast, gnarly and much easier to spectate. For runners, they're more accessible, less damaging and can hurt in some ways as much or more than an altru. Plus, you can race way more of them a year without digging yourself into an early grade. I concur. Well, Marathon to Montblanc was happening at the same time as Western states. Yeah. And I felt like it wasn't getting necessarily the hype had deserved because you know, Western states was happening, but that race is so cool. So EOI freaking Heming. Second at Marathon Montblanc, only behind Remi Bonnet, one of the best U.S. performances we've ever seen, such a fast freaking time. They were both right around the previous course record. And it's very exciting to see an American man doing this, table-hanging top 10, absolute beast. But yes, I hope one thing we do is really uplift that. Like for me personally, I want to do altruists, I want to do Western states, but we're gonna always do sub-altruiracing as like our first and foremost thing. One, because that's what supports the speed that is just as important at 100 hours as it is at like one mileers, but two, because it's so fun. It's so fun, so fun. I wonder, I feel like it's different over in Europe though. I feel like sub-altruir is like, the spectator nature of sub-altruirs over in Europe is different though than here in the U.S. Like more, like more spectator. Oh, it's huge, it's a huge deal. Like Marathon to Montblanc over right now in Europe, huge deal. Like the number of spectators out there on the course, it is like probably one of the most fun environments to run in. Yeah. Even more so than Western states, because Western states like, you know, people are running many, many miles alone by themselves, and are they sub-altruiraces, especially ones in Europe that are heavily spectated? There's like, like walls of people always cheering you on, it's so cool. And I think that's a big takeaway for everybody. It's like, do the short stuff, no matter what. Yeah, you don't have to race it. Well, I think it informs the longer stuff too. Like talk about like going out harder. Like I feel like you find what you're capable of sometimes in the shorter stuff. Yeah, if you're not trained for a 10k, you're not trained for a 100-hour. Like, you know, I mean, that's a controversial statement, but I think it's true for most people. Maybe not the freaks, but outside of that, like that is what will lead to your best performance. So you don't need to race it, right? Unless you want to. We are the biggest fans of local trail half marathons. The most fun you could ever have with your community. But you don't need to do that. It's more about training for it. And then in the six to eight weeks before your events, rant that shit up, get lots of dirt, especially on the weekends, and then delve from there. Well, do you know what I was doing? I was doing like mental gymnastics with, I feel like at a cool Western state's year, 100-mile time almost approximates 5k time in minutes. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's close. Kind of, I mean, it's hard. I think we're going to need. I think it's a little slower than that. Like, in terms of Western, so in other words, Tom Evans, 1440, he's faster. He'd run probably 13th. But I feel like Tom Evans could probably run faster than 1440. Yeah, he'd run 13-something. So I'm saying similarly, like... I mean, I don't think Courtney can run much faster than the one in the year. Yeah, but swap him that we're running 17-something. No, they're much faster. 16-something. So I like the... Yeah, I was trying to do the math on it, but I was like, not close. But I think, I mean, I think maybe for someone like Jim, I mean, I think Jim could go like 1320. What would have Jim have run this year? Oh my God, like 1330? No, no, no, no, no. I don't think so. 14-09 or something is the core sharkard. I think he had a broken 14. But I, Crenan, maybe saying Jim couldn't run a 1320 is like saying Courtney couldn't run a 1529. Yeah, I'm all inspired. So inspired by this whole weekend. Oh my God, what a weekend. So incredibly wild. I'm so proud of you. Like me? I just do the athletes. You're the best coach in the world. Well, no, no. Megan, you are. And seeing it in practice, like... Well, I mean, literally I didn't do the hard part. Yeah. The athletes out there, it was, I mean, I'm just speechless right now thinking about what everyone went through out there from, you know, Tom Evans, according to Walter, all the way down to the Golden Hour finishers. And the people that didn't finish. Yes, yeah. Yeah, we love you all. So amazing. Okay, let's get to the listener corner. But before that, I want to say athletic greens promo, which I forgot to do, drinkag1.com slash swap SWAP SWAP. We hear, you hear us talk about these athletes. Almost all of them are taking athletic greens. I saw a lot of travel packs out there, which are the things that come bonus if you use our link. So use that link, you get travel packs and vitamin D. Most of these athletes are using it. That doesn't mean that it caused it. It just means that, hey, these athletes are being drug tested. They're performing at the top level. Clearly something is working. Well, I started taking athletic greens again. I am back on the athletic green string. It's so much fun. I decided to layer it in this week because I, my, clearly, my cell's needed at this lake. And my voice, I don't know. I think my voice sounds stronger than yours. So maybe it's working. I think athletic, it seems like your numbers have gotten good. After you, you know, not worrying about passing ethically yo anymore, it's pretty remarkable. So drinkag1.com slash swap SWAP. We believe in it fully. Once you try it, because we know it works. Finally, let's finish it up with listener corner. This one is a fun one. Not about running, but very fun. Oh my gosh, I listened to Megan talking about, quote, lactic vaginas and it reminded me of corgasms. I discovered that this was actually a thing when I was a teenage track athlete. As a nerd who spent most of the time running and studying, I didn't have a boyfriend back then, but I had the strongest core ever. That's incredible. We actually had a number of people reach out about lactic vaginas to the common. Yeah, we also heard of lactic penises. Oh, did you didn't tell me that? Yeah, yeah. How did you not tell me that? Lots of things go lactic, Megan. How does yours not go lactic? You even told me this. I guess I don't think about it. Maybe it does. Yeah. I can text you like Megan. We just talked about thoughts like a cognitive demand. Yes, I imagine that would take, I feel like for men, if the penis goes lactic, it would cause so much cognitive demand that nothing else is happening in the body. Well, you know how they say a cold in a normal person becomes man flu in a man? Yes, yeah. It's kind of like lactic vagina in a woman becomes like an absolute grade A medical emergency. Like, you definitely need a surgeon called in immediately to do something down there. So corgasms, apparently a thing. I googled this. I did not get a chance to google this, so you have to explain this. Many people get orgasms when they do core work, including men, not just women. Wait, this is so cool. I'm also kind of sad that you don't get them. Yes, because I would have such a strong, I haven't done, I haven't done, okay, I would do so much strength work if this was the case. But you get orgasms when you hop on bikes, right? No, no, just figurative. That's what I think. If someone's listening to the podcast for the first time, they don't know that joke. But yeah, I know it's definitely a thing. I've heard this talked about on other podcasts, actually. And a number of people. That's so cool. Way more than you think. So on a broader sense, I think what this points out is that anything you think is weird about you. Oh, someone else experiences that. This is kind of a fun, weird thing. Oh, this is really cool. But there's like weird things that people have that they think are bad too. Yeah, yeah. Someone else for sure experiences that. Yeah, someone else experiences it. And also, it's fucking awesome. Oh, it's so cool. Like if you have something really weird about you that you're like scared to tell people about, it's like, it's cool, like being human strange. Also, you can tell us. Embrace it. And also, like, you think about athletic performance. Like Courtney DeWalters, this wild outlier and is so celebrated for it. Obviously, court basins are different. But also probably a wild outlier. Probably a wild outlier. And you should celebrate all wild outliers. I agree. We shouldn't want ourselves to just be middle of the bell curve. Like sometimes that'll be Courtney DeWaltar. Sometimes it'll be, you know, doing a fuck ton of planks because you don't want to go out that night. That would be so fun. It's not a good way to be an introvert. Yes. Okay, so let's get out there. Let's do our strike for work and see everyone should go do a plank and see what happens. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're going to have a lot of planks. Yes. We love you all. So much for being on this journey with us. Huzzah.