162. US Track Championships, Tour de France Science, and Speed Development!

Woohoo. Welcome to the Summer Girl Play Podcast. We are so happy to be with you today. Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday. And I'm over here dreaming so big on this fine Tuesday. What are you dreaming about? I have no idea what you're gonna say right now. What do you think I'm gonna say? Well, you did just put your head in cold water and anytime you're in cold water, you just dream big from your soul on up. So maybe that's it. Maybe it has something to do with that. Actually, it was great. Yeah, I wanted to take a cold shower but I didn't want to do the arduous task of taking my sports bra off and putting it back on. So I just put my whole head in the shower and my bun is like raining cold water right now. It's delicious. Yeah, it's amazing. I'm getting a wet sports bra view here, which is very distracting, but it's so very, very fun. You're practicing pre-cooling like the study say, remember, before all of your runs and races try to start cool. But what are you actually dreaming big about? I have had big dreams of construction projects or whatever. Because last night we had the best teamwork. So on last week's podcast, we talked about the fact that you assembled a car seat. I did. Successfully, I was so proud of you. We really struggle with like assembling things around here. It's freaking impossible. I have no idea how it works. There was one time in my life, in our lives, I guess, where we tried to assemble like an IKEA bookshelf. And that thing stayed up in our California apartment for many years, but it was leaning. It couldn't really hold anything. It was a disaster. How does anyone do this? It is so challenging. The instructions are all so vague. It's like six steps in one. It's like just install all the parts and then you're good. And they give up like a picture and it looks like the Rosetta Stone. It looks like European, Egyptian, Hieroglyphic. It's so wild. And then they're just like, this is very clear. You should figure this out on your own. And it's like estimated time, 10 minutes. Well, last night we assembled a bike rack together. And I was so proud of ourselves. It took full teamwork. It took lots of loving energy and positive self-talk. I felt like we are embracing all the mantras from our podcast to make this happen. There was one time where the bike rack was just lying on the ground and I just looked at it and looked at the number of screws there were, which didn't seem like enough screws. And I just went, oh, you made so many noises like that. I did. And I used to do that. Actually, that's one thing that I stopped in my running. Sometimes it would be up high, like doing a long run. And as soon as I would look up and see where we'd have to go, I would just let out this desperation, oh, yeah. And I have purposely stopped doing that in my turning. I noticed, it seems like you're just a much better mindset when you're climbing right now. Yeah, I'm just that piece with life. But we were at piece of this construction project and we've fully put together the bike rack. So I went into the bike shop and I was like, how long is this going to take? And they're like, at 10 minutes, they were so nonchalant about this. And I was like, oh, shit, this is going to be hard. And you know what? We did it. And it took 70 whole minutes. It took 70 minutes. And when you have a baby, that gets really stressful because the baby's over there being like, why aren't you paying attention to me? Why are you fooling around with those screws? You're really screwing this up. So I think baby Leo thinks a little bit less of us, but I feel much more about us, about myself. I feel really good right now. I have these vibes. I'm like, I want to do it all. I want to build a house at this point. I'm like, let's escalate. We can do it. It's going to take 85 years to build a house, but I believe. Yeah. It's so frustrating to me. I feel like, basically, if you wanted to go to Mars or something, one of these companies would give you like a four-page instruction manual that like page three just says, step three, like the fire. And I'm like, it's like talking about. Then just drive to Mars and see what happens. Yeah. We're working so well together right now. And I was really feeling it last week. So right before we got on this podcast episode, I clicked on my Strava and saw a comment from yesterday from a listener named Evan Ayers, who said it was a great episode last week. And he was really happy to listen to the end. Because apparently what happened is when we clicked stop on our recording software, it picked up what we said to each other after the fact. Which is incredibly dangerous. Yes. Because you never know what we're saying to each other. Oh, no. I mean, usually it's like very loving, but it's actually probably too loving to the point where the listeners are like, that's creepy, you guys. I purposely listened to it before I told you about Evan's comment, is I just going to delete it and not tell you if it was one of our bad weeks so we're talking about sexy things or something. But what I said really quietly is we finished and I was like, ha, ha, and then a couple seconds later, I was like, that was a good one. And so we're showing that even though on this podcast, we talk about positive self-talk, we also bring it for ourselves that really good self-energy. Well, why were you whispering it? Well, I don't know, because I wasn't planning on the mic picking it up. And I feel like after the fact we're just kind of like, it's a different vibe. We get really jacked up for the podcast and then we come down with some sexy whispers. And then we whisper really sexy things. Remember the Gingang twins, the Whisper song? Oh, yeah. She's talking like this about really sexy things. Your abs look so good, right? Actually, they were saying things that would make our podcast quite explicit. I mean, I feel like it kind of already is. Yeah. No, no, this is perfectly clean. In fact, last week I was running and a listener stopped me on the trail and just said, oh, my daughter's in the car and she loves the podcast. And I got to meet her. I don't use her name in case, you know, for confidentiality purposes. But she's 13 and she's a big time podcast listener and she's awesome. And if you're listening, when you're listening to this out there, no, you're incredible and we think the world of you. But it also made me a slightly bit disconcerted but that being said, that's a great father for introducing his daughter to a bunch of cool, like people talking about interesting things. I was like, oh, damn, this podcast is not meant for teenagers. I feel like we should just be kid-friendly and start spelling things out like S-H-I-D. Oh, yeah. S-E-S. Yeah, I think it actually is really friendly for teenagers. Like, oh, for teenagers, for sure. Yeah. I just worried if there's kids in the background absorbing this, but we're issuing warnings. They know what's coming. So I think it's a good thing. My parents never insulated me from anything as a kid. So I was able to watch already in movies as a child. And I think it was really good for my brain. Like, I was exposed to a lot of things and I feel really, really open-minded, I think as a result, because I was just treated like an adult from a young age. So that's what I've been doing with Leo. I just show him hardcore pornography every single day when you're gone. That's what I do. But I feel like you're the exception, because I feel like your neurons are 100% wired to love and kindness. Imagine if we did that on a population level and just showed all our four-year-olds are rated movies early on. I feel like the results would not be quite as good. Maybe, maybe. Well, we'll let the listeners decide. We have an amazing episode for you today. Tons of really cool topics. We're going to talk about iron levels in altitude, a little bit on running uphill, touching on that Megan just talked about. How to run strides, a very quick reminder on that based on some things we've seen. A big breakdown of the US track champs and some cool science that might relate. Two science quick hitters on the best studies ever. Talking about Tour de France, some just quick hitter takeaways. Maybe a menstrual cycle study. Maybe a question on coaching an AI that we loved. And finally, hot takes. I'm so excited. Well, this weekend was the US track champs and the Tour de France. And we had so much fun viewing all of these. And as I was going about watching them and doing like deep dives on everyone involved, I was like, I'm just doing podcast research. Yeah. He's sitting on the couch right now, absorbing all of this great content as work. It is really cool to have work be involved in athletics. And basically with the podcast, we talk about everything on here. And one of our science quick hitters is not even related to exercise. And so I think it makes it so that when I'm just scrolling Twitter, I'm like, this is billable time. You never know what you're going to find. I was thinking about that this weekend because the US track champs were really hard to find initially for like for some of the early days. I don't know what's happened to track streaming, but it's so hard to watch track live whereas it's kind of bonkers to me because like we just watched Mount Marathon the other week, which is a three mile race in Alaska. Crazy elevation. With 3000 feet of climbing. So 1.5 miles of it goes up, or 1.3 miles of it goes up 3000 feet. And they had drones out there. They had people on the summit. They people at Mid Mountain. And it was so much easier to watch Mount Marathon than the US track champs. And I was like, what is happening right now? We did intervention for USA track. Otherwise like I'm worried track is going to die. Yeah, it is interesting. I mean, I wonder how much is related to USATF, how much is related to NBC and partnering with them, how much is related to ratings? Because I did hear, I was reading on the letter on actually that the like US women's golf that was replacing it got better ratings last year than the US track champs. Which is, okay, golf is amazing. But like we can do better in track. Yeah, I think we can. I think some of it's based on how it's presented. I think some of it too is understanding what is intriguing and what isn't. Like every time track is broadcast, I see people being like, where aren't you showing every step of the 10K? And it's like, okay, if you're broadcasting on NBC, we have to have different understandings of what is interesting about running and what isn't. Yeah. So I think there's ways to present it where we're not just showing a camera, slowly panning a tactical 10K of people running along the track 25 times. So there's ways to do that. And I do think though that as track fans or as running fans, we need to be open to like letting those ways get expressed. That means telling stories that are unrelated to the race. Cutting in and out. It means doing really interesting things with visuals. And so I think it's flexibility on both sides are required. Well, I feel like we need to look for the Tour de France for inspiration. Yeah. Because I could watch six hours of the Tour de France and kind of they're riding through like beautiful pastoral France, which is a little bit different. And but they have great ways. They're like cutting out to stories. They're cutting out to reporters telling more about the course. And I feel like we could entertain that in track. Yeah, in the Tour de France coverage, they have Steve Perino. Oh, he's so good. I have such a media crush on Steve Perino. Every time they cut to him, he's like somewhere in the mountains, talking to people, clearly like two wine glasses deep and just gonna give a fuck. And I really admire it. But you know, maybe that shows that there is an opportunity in trail running in the sense that like, I think trail running and the altres and stuff are much more similar to things that you'd see in the Tour de France. Oh, exactly, yeah. Especially things like Golden Trail. Well, beautiful scenery. Yeah. Beautiful scenery, like really cool stories. Whereas, you know, track, like there's a reason that it doesn't gain many viewers in those types of prime time settings. I wonder what would happen if we put some of the more interesting things in running in those same prime time settings. I don't know if that's gonna happen anytime soon, but I kind of hope it does, because there's amazing stories, amazing scenery, and if you bring in really knowledgeable people that can then explain the science as it goes, that's awesome. And I think maybe that's my big conclusion is in cycling, they don't dumb it down to like the least common denominator of someone who doesn't know cycling at all. They're talking about watts, watts per kilogram, the climb grades, things like that. We should also do that in running. Like we try to do on the podcast, like even if you don't like running, hopefully you think our love of the science is somewhat infectiously interesting. And I think that running kind of has to get to that point. Great, and the announcers were amazing. So Carick Outcher was announcing, and I could listen to Carra talk about anything, like Rass, or like just with a 200 meter viewpoint looks like from the track over and over and over again. Yeah, it was so fun. So we also had so much fun this week, because the high country is opening up, and you were up there at 12,000 feet. And this really stood a little bit of a discussion of something else, I didn't want to say, we got above 12,000 feet. And you said the words to me, I love you, which is amazing in that oxygen deprived state. I didn't even whisper them. I said it loud and clear. In fact, I was so pumped on life, I think I was yelling them for all of the mountains to hear. I wasn't saying I love you, I was saying I love you to loud mountains. Which is amazing, because in the past, when we've been up that high, usually you've been so oxygen deprived, and you have never performed that great at that elevation, that often it leads to arguments or at least quiet. So this was a huge step, and you had gotten your blood tested a day before, and I was like, my strategy was something like, this is how I know Megan's iron is good, because she said that to me. Well, do you know why it leads to arguments? Because I feel like up there, we're always in this one two stepping glory, I feel like, but I feel like when we're up there, we're one five peaking, because you see a summit and you get really excited. And then as we get to that summit, you're like, oh, but there's another one, and then we get to that somewhat, and there's another one, and it's always there's another one. So it's like, when you see one peak, it's always there's gonna be five peaks that come later, which is amazing for you, because you're at like 120 heart rate. But for me, I'm at 170 heart rate, and another peak and another peak and another peak, and it's beautiful out there, but it starts to add up on my, I definitely feel it. But you responded so well this week, which I thought was interesting. Well, I feel like I'm a new person, honestly, with running and training. I feel like after my heart happened, I'm so much more willing to just accept adventure, accept being at higher heart rates and the high country, and just being like, I'm grinding out here, and I mean, I really truly feel like a different runner. Yeah, but I think the science of that is really fascinating, because on the drive up that day, when we were driving up from Boulder to the high country, you had gone to blood tests the day before, and we did, we put down bets, where we were betting what your hemoglobin was, so the red blood cell content in, you know, your bloodstream. And what did you guess? I guess something like 13.5, which is not that high. I think you guessed 13.3. I guess not, okay, okay. And I guess 14.3. Yes. And your blood test came back, and after this run, I was like, clearly, I was the right one here, and sure enough, what was your actual hemoglobin? It was exactly 14.3. So I guessed your hemoglobin, just from seeing your athletic attributes in the field. I think I deserve some hubby credit, and also some coach credit. Are you gonna give that to me? I think you're a lucky, lucky bitch. I know exactly what I was talking about. So you've been really focused on that. What have you been doing with iron recently? Well, so about eight weeks ago, or I got camera work somewhere between eight and 12 weeks ago, I had gotten a lower hemoglobin read. But I think it points to the idea. So the lower hemoglobin read that I got and eight to 12 weeks ago was in the afternoon. And I think I was looking at studies, and it's wild actually how much hemoglobin fluctuates and varies throughout the day, just based off of hydration status, based off of exercise, based off of so many different things. And I feel like whatever you do with your blood testing, always get it done in a consistent time. So for me, I think that like four p.m. hemoglobin read was falsely a little low, because I had like, it was a rest day. I had hydrated a ton. And then last week when I got it tested, I did it after an eight mile run. And I feel like that context is totally different. So I did get a nice. You're just hiring to downplay my brilliance on it. That is such bullshit. And it's not true at all, because after the last blood test, you made concrete interventions to make changes. So clearly you thought it was a real signal. What were those changes? Okay, embracing a lot of Z1. So I love my Z1 time, actually it's funny. So I've been loving like Z1 time on the elliptical. And this weekend you kind of made like a backhand comment like, oh, it would be great if you added some surges or some strides. And I got a little pissed because I was like, no. That is by time to watch Andre, to like read Andre Odyssey via audiobook. And just hang out and she only elliptical and I love it so much. So I got a little pissed. But Z1 time I feel like it's been really important. Then I've been taking a book ton of iron. So my iron storage I got in like a little low for me, postpartum, and I just started taking like 130 milligrams of iron, which is a lot. Yeah, and sometimes more than that, right? Because so I think specifically you told me you were taking two by 65 milligram natures made iron. And for perspective, the 100% daily value is 18 milligrams. So think about the percential value. Oh, it's a lot, yes, yes, is a lot. And then on top of that, you would add a multivitamin, first endurance multivitamin, which is the brand we really like, not partnering with them, but we see great results with it. That adds I think 25 milligrams. So 130 plus 25, you're taking like 160 almost, these might be 28. Plus what you get through your nutrition. And then your blood test came back, not only was your hemoglobin up, your iron stores were still not that high. And it points out I think some of the understanding of iron is so important to talk to athletes about constantly. So I'll be talking about it on this podcast because this is the number one thing influencing how you feel, not just at altitude, but like whenever you're pushing hard because the red blood cells are what transport oxygen and your body and energy. So you know, you figuring that out and doing this experiment of one was really fascinating. And I'm proud of you because, you know, so I imagine every time you're taking those pills, you're like, is this too much? Well, no, I mean, it's coming off of, I've heard a lot of anecdotal evidence recently of top exercise physiologists prescribing 150 milligrams of iron to athletes, which is really, really high. And I think be careful with that. Like this is not a blanket recommendation. Like everyone's iron levels are so different, test and measure and understand your iron levels. But I feel like at the top level, we're seeing much higher doses of iron supplementation than I can even add them. And you wonder like what are the long-term impacts of that? Like, you know, be careful for sure. But what are the long-term impacts of anemia? Or even children anemia? I think that's the problem, is everyone thinks, if I'm not anemic, I'm okay. And I actually was in an athlete's training log today, and their ferritin came back as 21, and their doctor is like, you're clear, you are so good. And the point being, no, that athlete is gonna be exhausted and not know why. And it gets back to a study that just came out last week, which was a research letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association, called prevalence of iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia, and US females aged 12 to 21 years. 3490 participants, and basically just found that when you use 50 ferritin as a cutoff, which is around what the research estimates nowadays, 80% of young women are deficient. So this is not anemia, but it does indicate they'll probably be having their performance affected. So something pay attention to. And this study wasn't even done in athletes, do you know? This was just in the general population. And athletes who are sweating and they have footstrike molasses and, you know, menstruation of all these different things. Like iron levels, we expect to be a little bit lower too. So this was an end-hane study, which is like a national survey. I actually do a lot of work with end-hanes and epidemiology. So it's fun to see Jema, which is like a premier medical journal talking about iron deficiency. And then also end-hanes too. I was like, my fields are meeting. Things are collaborating. This is great. But no, I was really surprised too. But also too. So like if you use to cut off a 15 for ferritin, which is pretty low, still 17% of this general population of female adolescents were low. And that's really, really high. And those are not even athletes who are having footstrike molasses or like excessive sweating. So to me that number is wild. And do the math on that. So 17, 77 minus 17. So 60% of people are between 15 and 50 on ferritin, which probably is the gap of iron supplementation. So like probably most people fall in that range when they're not being athletes, like, or not just training in a specific way if they're not supplementing a ton for young women. So it points out the need to supplement for most young women. Just make sure you get tested. If you're out there, go get your ferritin and your hemoglobin tested now. It's worth it and try to make sure your ferritin is above what's your usual recommendation. Oh, 40 is usually my recommendation. So 50, I was actually curious to see the music cut off of 50, which I thought was fascinating. But 40 is my usual recommendation. And one question, this is like kind of a theory that I've seen more, is that like, yes, above 40 is optimal. But I would much rather an athlete have 80 than 40. Definitely. And especially thinking for athletes that are at altitude and really needing that stub street for red blood cell building, like make sure your levels are optimized, yeah. Yeah, make sure your levels are optimized because this will be a limiter all the time. Even in your ability to respond to heat, not just altitude or hard training, anything you present to your body. Actually, I love that you brought that up because I was just talking to an athlete last week and they were like, what is, what are some like the best things that I can do for heat training? And my new number one recommendation is get your ferritin levels measured, get your iron levels measured because it can be such a limiter for athletes that are performing in hot environments. That's like one of the easy things to think about. And especially if you're doing a ton of heat training and you're sweating a lot, there can be kind of that like inflection point of like, you know, are you stressing your body to the point where you're impacting your iron stores and would you rather do a little bit less heat training and have higher iron stores? So I do kind of think about that with athletes, yeah. Yeah, there's a study we're gonna talk about next week on alistatic stress, so like constant stress on the body that probably has relations to like iron levels and things but this is all very fascinating stuff, the cutting edge of science and performance. So make sure you're paying attention here. So we talked briefly about your climbing output in the high country. That was great. What has changed to make you such a great high out to do climber? Is it just the iron? I think it's patient, I mean, I think it's mindset. Yeah, I think it's total patience. Like I feel like I've been coming back, you know, I felt like, I've said this so many times in the podcast, I really, really felt like I had an athletic death. Yeah. And now I feel so patient out there. I'm like, I'm just doing my thing, just climbing, but I think in that process, like a lot of the uphill treadmills that I've done have made me a patient too because it's just like one foot in front of the other. Like I'll get there, I'll get up there in just slowly grinding, being patient, avoiding those, like, desperation as I see. But you could feel them still. Yes, as I see like the bigger hills and you're like four plus summits that I have to go to. Yeah, reminds me of the Game of Thrones that what is dead may never die. And you have died, so you may never die. But I think that actually brings up something I was thinking about with climbing in general, is I would love to see a randomized control trial where you test people on the treadmill and don't tell them what grade it is. So somehow deny their like senses to prevent them from knowing exactly what they're climbing and then measure their output reduction based on that. And I bet if you could somehow turn off your brain from knowing exactly what you're doing with the climbs, you'd be able to put out more power at lower heart rates than if you knew. And so as one of the reason I wanted to mention that is to bring up to all athletes, how can you control that narrative in your brain about going uphill? Because if you can do that, I bet your performance will objectively improve. Well, I think for me, it all gets back to the element of judgment. And I think for me, for whatever reason, sometimes my brain starts to panic a little bit above 12,000 feet. And I think it does have to do the lack of oxygen up there. But I think in that sense of panic, it's heavily like to judgment for me. And I'm like, I'm slow. I'm moving so colossibly slow up here. And I think as I come back and I've had this more patient, more understanding approach of my own body, I have shed that judgment. And I think for me, I often have these parallel forces between judgment and perfectionism. And I think I've recently leaned into the idea that perfectionism, I can control perfectionism. Like I feel like so often. You can be perfect to control perfectionism. Yeah. You can perfectly control. I can perfectly control perfectionism. Exactly. I can imperfectly control perfectionism. Yeah, perfect even better. Yes. Because I feel like so often for me, I felt like perfectionism was this personality trait that I could never get rid of. But no, it's I've actively pushed back against that. And I think in the high country is a perfect place to practice that. It's like, no, this is, I'm getting rid of both perfectionism and judgment at the same time. Have you found that trickling into other parts of life at all? Oh, yeah, everything. Yeah, everything. It's been great, yeah, yeah. But I think also being a parent too, it's like, you just give your folks to be honest with you. And that's really, really helpful. Yeah. Yeah, including about parenting, honestly. The longer I go in parenting, the more I think, does anything I'm doing right now matter other than vibes? Like, I think vibes matter. But I'm not sure how much any parenting style actually matters. Maybe not until he has memories. Not until he has memories. Basically, until he's four, I'm clear. I'm in the clear. I just have to be like, basically, I just love and enthusiasm is my only requirement. And he can get love enthusiasm. And he can watch TV with a lot of love and enthusiasm. For you, he can watch our rated TV with love and enthusiasm. Yeah, the street core pornography. As long as it comes with some enthusiasm, he's good to go. OK, a quick training discussion before we get to the U.S. track champs. And this is a reminder on strides. So we've talked a lot about strides on here and their benefit. Hill strides, like 20 to 30 seconds fast. You can go back to our Alexander episode where he asked us specifically what a stride was, which was through the looking glass moment. One of the greatest moments in my life. Yes, absolutely. Better than when Leo was born. Better than assembling a bike rack. Worst than when you told me you loved me above 12,000 feet. But the fascinating thing about strides is how much it improves output at every level. But I think to get that adaptation, you do need to be hitting relatively high outputs relative to your capabilities. Your max power capabilities. And I think when we've talked about strides on here, sometimes we've emphasized control so much that I've gone into athlete files recently and had trouble seeing the strides in their output files. So you can kind of see them, but I think sometimes they're like, oh, I'm just going to increase my turnover a little bit. And it's almost imperceptible in a GPS file. And that's not how a stride should be. Even though we're saying they should be controlled and not sprints, you need to put out power. And that's what we went to emphasize today is if you're not able to focus on strides like that, you're probably not going to get the benefits that you could. And I think that heavily depends on caliber of athlete, too, because if you focus on power, you'd be doing strides at 345 miles piece, which is great and really helpful. But I feel like doing that once or twice a week, you're risking injury or risk. I mean, it's so much biomechanical output. And you're also probably recruiting some of your faster muscle fibers, too. So I feel like it heavily depends on the athlete. But I feel like especially for athletes that are just building in a sport, just getting started out and who might not necessarily have the highest peak output, that's when it's really important to focus on it. Yeah, and I think that's the point, though, is the goal on each stride is peak output, not average output. Exactly. So if 22nd or 32nd stride is not, let's say, a 32nd interval where you're trying to see how fast you can maintain over the whole thing, it's you ease into it, you work into your close to max output, but just below that. Just for like five seconds. Yeah. Actually, this brings me back. So I did my first track workout this week, 300 meters on the track. Oh, yeah. So much fun. Another reminder, too, that going uphill is way fucking harder than running on the track. Like the track hurt is totally different than uphill and herbal hurt. And it was so nice to be on the track and just be like, it's all going to be so flat. And you rocked the track. But it was so fun. But what I was thinking of is, so as I was doing the 300 meters, I was really, my whole ABC and D-Go was don't pop a hamstring, don't get hurt. But I was really focusing on the last 50 meters of each 300 meter of that's where the higher output is. And I feel like it's the same corollary in strides is it doesn't have to be the entire time. In fact, it probably shouldn't be. But as long as you're having some, I would say like a 10% chunk, that's higher output. It helps a ton. What I always look for is that peak number, including on your 300 teeth. And I was looking for the peak speed. And similarly, I think that on strides, a lot of our tests involve the peak speed that people average on these, not the average. So as you're doing this, you're not sprinting, but you do need to really work on that output. And I think that, you know, maybe we undersold how hard that push can be at times. So like on a 20 or 30, let's say a 30 second hill stride, like I often do hit 345 grade adjusted pace or 30 grade adjusted pace, which I couldn't hold for that long. So it's not a gentle effort. But for me at this point in my career, that's what I need to prevent muscle loss with aging and to keep my power really high. And I think that's what most athletes need, particularly early stage athletes, like you said, or athletes that are later on in their careers and might be slowing down slightly. Would you give athletes like faster strides once per week or is it something that you're having them do across most stride sessions as having this higher peak output? I want it to be every stride session. Every time you do a stride, it is a chance to work on close to peak output. Again, it's not peak because you don't want to be sprinting like someone in the US track 100 meter finals. Like that's a different form where you're like swing your arms that much. But you can basically get to that with long distance form. So what I always like to think about is an athlete doing an 800 meter race where you think about how fast they're going so fast. So the women would be going female athletes would be going almost four minutes per mile pace on their strides if that's 800 meter effort. So I like athletes that think 800 meter effort, beginner athletes might even think 400 meter effort, which isn't a full sprint for them because they haven't lengthened it out that much. But that type of mindset I think can really help guide you to the best physical adaptations, which primarily here for me are plyometrics. So we don't do plyometrics, but we do hill strides. And so that gets a lot of the plyometric and strength training benefit without doing the types of things that are non-specific to running. And I think you might see pretty immediate gains. Doing this too. For me, for example, so this weekend, during our long run, even at high altitude, after doing those 300 meters on the track, I feel like I just had so much more pop in my stride. And I think that's what you're going to see is, if you do hit this higher peak output, the pop that you feel in your stride is going to feel so much better. Just be careful though, because I feel like still ABC and Degault don't pop a hamstring. Yeah, don't pop a hamstring for pop. Yes, yes, yes, exactly. You can get by without this stuff. It just helps a lot. So I mean, even with you in your track workout, I noticed a pretty fundamental difference on Saturday when we were getting to higher turnover running, it just seemed like it was more effortless for you after one session of higher pace work. Well, I think some of that too relates to cadence. So for me, on those 300 meter efforts, my cadence is around 190, sometimes even 200, which is really high for me. And so I think it's biomechanical pop, but I think that's also a neuromuscular pop too. And that gets back to the magic of strides. Yeah. Some is mechanical, like muscular. Some is biomechanical, biomechanical form. Some is neuromuscular, like how the brain conducts these signals. Some is cardiac in aerobic, based on how the heart rate has to expand. And that gets back to part of the benefits too. It's like, if we're looking for the cardiac expansion benefits, you need to get your heart rate high, which means you need to have higher output. So it was very fun to run with you this week. I'm very excited to see where things go from here. Even more excited than our bike rack is seeing you run this weekend. Well, I love to run together this weekend. Can I tell one story from the run? Oh, no. So we're up in high country and we're running a Teddy again. Teddy is one of our good friends and we've been doing a lot of long runs with him. But he's a wildflower education expert and he was like out there being like, that's Lupine. That's like so-and-so wildflower. And then there's like, forget me knots too. Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was like a really interesting flower name. I'm like, huh, that's interesting. Well, a lot of the flower names were interesting. Yeah, I was like, I wanted to know, I was like, what's the origin of this? But then you just kept coming up with parallel flower names and you're like, that's bitches be trippin'. That's still Dre. And it was like, it was very funny, David. Actually, I think it was forgot about Dre's. Yeah. You don't forget about Dre. Those flowers don't know what they're doing. No, thank you. I was pretty proud of that. Okay, so before we go to the track champs, I have one quick hot take I wanted to insert here about my own training. So you've rocked your training. We haven't talked much about mine. But I did a hundred miles last week on six days of training. But only if you agree with this hot take and I'm gonna say it for you. Okay, I'm so excited for this. Which is, elliptical miles count as running miles. Oh, damn. What do you think about my hot take? I agree with our doubles. So if you're doing like six days a week of elliptical, yeah, definitely not. But if they're like supplementary doubles and elliptical the way you do, which is I can hear it in every room at the house. I can hear it on the fourth floor. I can hear it outside. Then yeah, probably counts. Yeah, you can probably tell that you're down there and you're like, man, but just be trippin'. That's bangin', so I'm just bangin' so much on the elliptical machine. You also steam up the entire pain cave. It's interesting. And you've been loving going down there and watching succession as you do this. So I also hear succession music throughout the house. Which is like the perfect combination because I can hear so much output, paralleled with that like the ominous succession music. Yeah, I do love my Nicholas Bertel score. He's the like composer of that. Yeah, so that's my, the reason I wanted to say the hot take is because, you know, I think one of the reasons I need to think in that manner where I count my elliptical miles is running miles just in a one-to-one sense. Where I'm like, you know, 30 minutes on the elliptical is like four miles running. Well, I feel like you get that to like, I feel like you get to count like 10 to 15 miles. Yeah. The rest be on that. Like I feel like if you're counting more than like 20 elliptical miles per week, it's like, yeah, no. So it's going as double thanks. Okay, perfect. Because like for me, it motivates me to do the elliptical rather than go out for a few junk miles running. Because when I do the elliptical, I'm using great form, great cadence, I'm pushing hard. We have a video on that online if you want to look at it. Like what the elliptical looks like when done, like we think it should be for runners. And I think that's far better for my long-term development. Then going out on another four mile double, where I'm just slogging and, you know, breaking down a little bit, particularly as I get older, where like, I don't think when I'm 50 years old, I'm going to be doing 100 mile running weeks and not, and staying healthy. Well, can I give out hot take? Okay. Well, hot take in return. Yeah, we're for spittin' hot take. Oh, okay. You just said the word junk miles. Yeah. And I'm going to say that 99% of the time that people use the words junk miles, it's actually full of shit. It's total bullshit. Like, yes, I agree, those elliptical miles are great for you, but I don't agree the corollary that like the four mile double is junk miles for you. So you call me a bullshit artist right now? What are you sayin'? I'm sayin', you're, I would say you're like, a bullshit finger painter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one, actually. Good quickness there, Megan. Yeah, I know, I mean, I agree. I think any aerobic work is good. Yeah. I think where junk miles to me come in, I think in the past a lot of people have said with junk miles, oh, it's too slow or it's too moderate or whatever. I don't agree in that sense. In the aerobic sense, there's no such thing as junk. Everything is good under the river. Yes, yeah. Where I, in framing junk, is in mechanical breakdown over time. I agree. So as I've gotten older, I'm quite sore often. Unless I do my eight million recovery modalities, we talked about it on Patreon last week. Patreon.com slash swap, SWAP, you can hear all of our on our bonus episode in our questions. You can see all of the things I do to make sure I don't feel like a hunk of shit every day. And you can also hear about his eight million things that he responds to the placebo effect on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we talked about that last week, but as I do things like, if I go out in a three or four mile double, which adds to my weekly mileage total, might be backed up by training theory, I just end up feeling a little bit beat up. And that's the hard part about running, is like, so where meat junk comes in for me, is I don't want athletes to feel constantly beat up. Oh, yes, yeah. So something's wrong is not exactly instituted correctly. No, 100% agree. I mean, I do think miles are junk if they're adding to the stress bucket in a way that's overflowing the stress bucket and the body's not adapting. But so often, I use it, like in terms where that's not going to be the case. Like easy, like purely, purely slow miles. Exactly, yeah. So fuck junk miles. Yeah, well, or I think put those junk miles in your trunk. Oh, yeah. Because that type of aerobic development is really helpful. Well, if your trunk is adapting, do the junk. Yeah. Perfect. Okay, do you want to get to the track championships? I'm so excited to get the track championships. Okay, so what we're going to try to do here is even if you're not interested in track, broaden it out to stories, things we found interesting. This isn't a full comprehensive overview. So if we miss one of your favorite stories, sorry. But we were so inspired by watching this as difficult as it was to find. We had to download Peacock for this in the Tour de France, which no one should have to download Peacock. That's something I wish upon zero people in my life. That was quite traumatic. Great, we didn't do the extra steps. So for day one, we had to download USATF TV. Oh, yeah, we definitely didn't do that. No, no, no, no. I'm not going to USATF.tv. You would, like, I don't know. You'd make me do that with a gunpoint, maybe. Even then, I'd be like, you know what, shoot me. Even if you could write it off, you'd be like, yeah, no. No, no, no. The first story we want to talk about is Nikki Holtz. They won the 1,500 meters at the US Champs. And it was so, so exciting. I think I almost cried when I saw them win because just knowing the journey they've been on over the last couple of years, they actually recently started training and flagstaff under a new coach, Mike Smith. And I've taken on this, like, belief mindset recently. And it's so cool. Also, side note, Mike Smith's athletes freaking stepped up at USA's. I think he had three USA champions, plus he just coached NAU to, like, an incredible NCAA season. And he's like a big focus on aerobic gains. And I'm like, damn, Mike Smith. This is so cool. Mike Smith is who I view in US coaching right now as... I think the best coach. Yeah, best coach. It's really fascinating to see here, how he's evolved. You hear it mostly through great fun, but some of these athletes are in Strava. And you see a ton of aerobic development, a lot of threshold work, very Norwegian-esque in that regard, a lot of speed development. So top-end speed development remains paramount throughout. Very similar to the ways we found for trails to work a lot. And it's inspiring to see him out there rocking it with these athletes with an approach that I think is sustainable for most people. Like, even, you know, relatively new athletes can take, like, hopefully, like, a Smith or swap-oriented response or, like, training and use it for themselves. But I feel like right alongside that aerobic development, he seems to have this ability to develop belief in athletes too. And I feel like when you put the two of those together, there's, like, the synergistic effect in the mitochondria. And I'm like, whoa, this is really legit. But, okay, so back to Nikki Health. So they won. And I feel like they've done incredible things for the trans-athletes community, for the non-binary-athlete community. And I saw this quote from them post-rease. And this was the quote. And I feel like this is what gave me goosebumps. Nikki said, I saw that trans flag out in the crowd. I thought, I thought, I bet they brought that for me. I saw them after the race and gave them a bit. They were the reason I won, or at least for one of them. And I feel like it's, what Nikki has done for the trans and non-binary-athlete community is so special. And I feel like seeing the flag out there and having them draw belief from that is so cool. Yeah, and the person that had the flag actually responded on Twitter, quote, tweeted that quote. And said, yes, that was for you. You, like, give us life. And that sort of thing. And in some of those moments, like, oh, this is a community thing. That is amazing. And so one of the more interesting things is how they've gotten belief over time. So they posted a journal entry that they did, where they essentially said to themselves, all I need to do now is believe. And that's what I'm promising myself. Is that I believe? And independent of how things unfold over the next year, because they were talking specifically about the Paris Olympics next year. They were underscoring belief as the most important adaptation and thing in their development. And so to me, that's really exciting, because once an athlete that's working that hard really engages that belief, like muscle, anything becomes possible. I think the first word for me that comes to mind to his momentum. And I feel like Nikki Holtz has been building that momentum and building that for years. And I think it's like, the training for me is this whole harbor in which you can build momentum on. And I think that process to me is really paramount. But it reminds me, we're going to keep talking about Andre Agassi in the podcast, because we're still listening to his audiobooks. It's so long. It's so long and so good. But I feel like for him, momentum has been so huge in his career. And I feel like for athletes, it's like, you have to yourself the ability of the ability to have momentum, momentum and belief, momentum and training, and keep building on that and recognize it and name it. And I feel like Nikki Holtz has done that. And that's like roadblocks in front of your momentum, every time you have a bad day. Like, I guess the problem is like, if you need to be convinced to believe, you're never going to get there, because athletics is full of so many roadblocks. What if like momentum is seeing the up and down graph of an athlete's career and being like, no, I see a slight up in that. And I think that's what Nikki Holtz has done. I mean, they've had challenges over these last few years. And that's what Andre obviously did in his career is like being able to see the long-term slow growth trajectory and believing in it. Yeah. And even if you can't see it necessarily, like buying in, as long as you're doing what you need to do, like that's where it's at. So we actually got a wonderful email from a listener that's not really related to Nikki, but it's semi-related to the general topic. As you know, we're incredible proponents of trans-athlete inclusion. And we'll probably do relatively soon another breakdown since there's so much misinformation in this area, particularly recently, particularly with the politicization of it in certain circles. But we wanted to have a little bit later email from a listener here, which is this. While all of your advocacy for trans-athlete rights and trans rights in general is fantastic, the most valuable thing you, well, Megan, have contributed for at least this transgender man, is the description of the side peak. Okay, this might not be 100% true, but I had to share my love for the side peak. Impending TMI. Is there any such thing with you, too? I don't think so. No, isn't. But there are various devices that can help people with my anatomy pee standing up. And they can be a pain to carry in use and running shorts, not to mention having to remember to bring them. When I first transitioned years ago, I had read some descriptions of techniques that some women and trans men used to pee standing without external devices. But I was never able to make them work. It probably didn't help that my knowledge of my own anatomy was not great at that time. I decided to try it a while ago, after hearing Megan talk about it a few times. And the side pee is so liberating and so much more convenient. Side pee for president. Yes. Yes, it is so liberating. Actually, I did it the other day in bike shorts and I was empowered. Whoa, how is that possible? Oh, you really got to, you really got to use your triceps and pull those shorts to the side and like leave a nice area for yourself. Yeah, I was, but it was great. How much was on your bike shorts at the end? Zero. Zero? I'm a side peak queen. I mean, yeah, if you had a lot of things, you could say that I was like, I'm a boss bitch pee. Actually, you are actually, I have to give you that. There's zero hard times given there because you'll do it in public and no one will know. They'll just be fine. Oh, actually, I'm pretty sure they know the thing is that they just don't, they don't comment on it. I did it the other day. So right before our long run, there was a car driving by and I, I was like in the middle of a side pee and it was feeling good. I didn't want to get any moon on my shorts. So I just kept rolling with it. And I think the trick is, I think, to side pee was so much swag that people are like, okay. Well, it's kind of a little thing. Don't ask for permission. Ask for forgiveness. Yeah. Your corollary is don't ask for permission or forgiveness. Just do that shit and don't worry about it. Exactly. Okay. Other stories in the 1500. A thing move in the 15, she stepped up from 400 meter super star, 800 meter gold medalist to finish. I believe second in the 1500. And I think like she was jogging out there and it was a thing of beauty in the 1500 meters. But she took a lot of flak because people were like, can she actually race the 1500 meters? I mean, it is pretty wildly different as the allergy than a 400 or 800. And she got to buy at USA's. So she gets to automatically make the world championships team because she won a gold medal at Worlds. As she should. That makes a ton of sense. But yeah, she looked like she was jogging out there. But I think I'm curious, actually. I think for her gaining some expertise in the 1500 meters is gonna light her on fire in the 800. Yeah, what was that? I think that like the strength and the aerobic components of the 15 are really gonna feed in to the 800. Plus, I feel like there must be like a mental component to it too when you're racing two laps instead of almost four. Yeah, and the aerobic development, it's like undeniable. Like to be able to run a 403 on a slow start, 1500, which is equivalent to a 420 mile. Your aerobic system has to be pretty badass and her speed is clearly fantastic already. Kind of excited to see what she ends up doing in the 15. She could be someone that sets a world record. Do you think she'll, I kind of think she'll focus on the 800 at Worlds? Yeah, I think she should. Yeah, I think she won't do the 15. Yeah. We also want to shout out Anna Gibson, who did the 1500 meters after finishing second at the Broken Eros Sky Race. Fuey Sio made the final, did great. So cool. It was so cool. Actually, I saw an amazing thread. Threads are a thing now, but on the threading university. Oh, yeah, yeah. But it was great. You're starting new social media tools here? Actually, I'm not really starting them. I just kind of like made an account and was like, I'm just gonna lurk on here. Okay. I don't have time to actually use it, but I just like scroll through it every once in a while. But someone made the comment like, wow, it's so incredible that she came back from Broken Arrow to step on the track of a 15. And I feel like it goes to show that, yes, you can keep your speed after running on the trails. But she had an amazing response and she was like, yeah, I'm just a surprise, too. It was like, it was a really like boss response to it. Yeah, and that story and Grayson's stories and basically a lot of what else we've seen in trails, I mean, trails do not need to make you slow. No. It only makes you slow because people start training totally differently for some reason as if trails are different. And I think it gets back to my conclusions about training theory development over time. A written article that's coming out eventually for true owner magazine on the evolution of training theory over the last 100 years. And my big conclusion at the end is if you are doing things fundamentally differently than you see Mike Smith do things or you see, you know, Renato Canova do things or any of these people, you're ignoring our history in how it's developed and why it's developed that the science has driven the theory as much as the theory has driven the science to wind up at this place. And in that process, there have been thousands, maybe millions of little experiments that have led to a general understanding of aerobic development and speed development. So as we're thinking about training theory, like make sure that we're understanding that like shit has been done and dusted when it comes to understanding physiology and we're improving all the time, but we shouldn't be remaking the wheel for ultra training. Like running economy and speed are the keys just like they are on the track. I love that point. And I think we're gonna continue seeing it too because I think we're having this evolution of more dual sport athletes coming into trails so people competing at the top level on track and roads than also doing trails as well. And I feel like in that process, they're gonna crush some bitches. And we're gonna realize that, yes, like track training or at least like the speed and principles of it really, really matter for trails. Especially now that track training is so aerobically driven anyway. Like Smith is doing training that looks so Norwegian-esque, right? You couldn't, like it's so similar to that even though it is different. And I think that's really cool. But by little comment, I didn't put this in the article, but I saw a few weeks ago from the 1990s, someone that was doing research on insulin responses and diabetic patients, published a statistical analysis that they did where they were like, I figured out this new way to chart blood sugar changes or something. And it was integrating the area under a curve, at least charts. So in other words, this got through the review process that they reinvented integration, basic calculus that Newton, I think, started many hundreds of years ago and published it in a paper. And I'm like, okay, we shouldn't do that with training theory, we're re-eventing integration. It's like people have done this before us, we need to respect the people that came first. Also, it should make you a little bit skeptical of science out there because getting through the review process, I mean, it depends on where you're publishing, but sometimes is not bonkers arduous. So, yes. Yes, the thing, it depends where you're publishing. Yeah, it really depends where you're publishing. So, I mean, we're always super careful with that with studies on here. Okay, but last but not on a Gibson is, I was going, I literally went back through like so many of her different results. I don't think I've ever seen her run a steeple chase. She would be an incredible steeple chase athlete. Yeah, that'd be scary. That'd be scary. But do you know also my weird hot take? What? Okay, so growing up as a kid, I love to come up with all of these like weird schemes for differentiating sports, like changing the rules of sports to make them different. I feel like we should just throw steeple chase into a lot more track events. Just like an 800 meter steeple chase. How fun would that be? I like that. What about just obstacles in general? Yeah, exactly. That'd be great. What about like rocks and roots? What reminds me of at the World Championships on trails. There was this like road stretch and they decided to put some like fake looking like rocks and shit like over the roads. And athletes kept like spreading their ankles there because they was so poorly constructed. But yeah, I love that idea. Basically what I'm arguing though is just to make it trail-wise. Yeah, exactly. On a track. Actually, trail racing on a 400 meter track would be so fun. Yeah, but just have every track be different. Like so that it changes. Yeah, exactly. This sounds amazing. This is a good hot take. We're gonna change the world. Yeah, I love it. Okay, next one just a very quick one on the three-case steeple. Kenneth rooks one from BYU. And he won after coming back from a fall over one of the barriers. Which is almost on the heart of in the steeple chase at the pro level. But you see it sometimes, which is. Stephen Fahey did it on NCAA's, I think, in 2019. But good remembrance there. Good memory there, Megan. Oh, he's from Stanford, he's a great guy. So I remember that. But it's, I mean, it's really hard to do. And I feel like it's, it's showed so much grit. Yeah, but I do think that the amount that I've seen that happen probably indicates that the surge of emotions. The adrenaline surge. Yeah, it can actually be a positive thing. So think about how you can control that. A quick story about Kenneth rooks that I love. When he was a recruit, they were playing basketball with some of the upperclassmen at BYU. And one of the upperclassmen just absolutely manhand them. Just being so physical in a really negative way. And almost like a hazing type of way. And Kenneth was a little bit down about that. And as the story was told, once Kenneth matriculated at BYU, he ran every single workout with that guy and made sure he never got dropped. And then he would sprint past him at the end of every single one. And I think that shows a little bit about his personality that like he's not, he might get knocked down, but he's going to get back up and he's going to come back swinging, which in his way, in a positive way, was on the track. Well, I think there's a certain personality tree and type in top level athletes that when they fall, it's actually performance enhancing to some, I mean, there's oftentimes when you fall, it's like there's physical reasons why you can't get back up and win. But I feel like for a certain type of athlete, it's performance enhancing. I feel like my recommendation to athletes is be that athlete. I don't think that's, I don't think it's a ingrained personality like inherent part of you. I think it's a choice. A decision that then becomes maybe part of character. Yeah, exactly. I like that. I'm going to start thinking that with like wrong turns. Yeah, or wrong turns are hard. But I'm going to be like, I'm embracing it. Yeah, my three mile wrong turn, I can still come back with my physiology. Especially things like falls. I love that. Yeah, I think it's a little harder in ultra zoe because you think about the adrenaline surge and how that might be great in a 3K steeple chase, but in a 100 mile race, like that adrenaline surge might eat up a lot of, you know, by Virginia. That's so true. Okay, then in the 3K for women, Chrissy Gear one, it was really cool to see her finish because no one expected her to win. She closed in this amazing fashion and it looked like she was in a little bit of shock after she won. Her kick was incredible. Yeah. I mean, I would be in shock and she actually said she was in shock and the posters interview and she said she was a little afraid to beat Emma Coburn because she grew up and Emma was one of her idols. And Emma has been 10 and 0 at USA's in the 3K steeple, which is a pretty wild stat and Chrissy Gear. So Chrissy Gear also, she ran a 912 and her previous best coming into this year was a 938. Wow. Imagine that. And her kick, her kick was lightning. Actually, her kick reminded me of Shelby Hullian. I don't know if that's like okay to say, but I mean, it was like a power kick like the last time I feel like I've seen that in women's sports with Shelby Hullian. Yeah, I think, you know, it's always okay to say, I mean, it's undeniable that Shelby had a great kick. Though hers was coming off of it. Hers was aided. And it was coming off of 1435K, right? Yeah. And whether, I mean, whether it was a Brito or a actual like PD aided, I feel like still remains to be clincene, but. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, complicated as we talk about track in general, like, you know, we don't think, no one that we're talking about, we think everybody's clean. Yeah. But we have to be honest that if you set certain incentives for people on the track, we would have to be idiots to think that, you know, there isn't at least someone that was at the field this week, this week that was doping. Yeah. Hopefully none of the people were talking about, we don't think it was. So really excited to see what she does. Also big shout out to Emma Coburn. I mean, that streak of dominance is wild. Wild streak of dominance. Well, I feel like Chrissy gear to her progression has been, I mean, she ran for Furman and then she ran at Arkansas and her progression collegidly was like linear. And I feel like we're still seeing that linear rise. And so I'm excited to see what she does at Worlds. Yeah. And actually the linear rise brings up Isaac Updike who made the team. He left college. So after all of this training with a 421 mile personal best and for perspective, you would need the equivalent nowadays to make a team of like sub 350 miles. And if you've been training that long, you should not expect that to lead to wild places. And as he said, nothing that says, you're gonna be able to run pro was in those times. It just felt like I enjoyed running and I had friends that also enjoyed running. And we all thought we weren't at our ceilings. Things just progressed. Small goal after small goal after small goal. Fast forward seven years and small goal making the team. That's incredible. Isn't that wild? Also seven years. I mean, I know it's like the increments of small goals, but I imagined he had some big moments during the seven years where he was like, should I do something more traditional? I've seen that in so many pro runners. And you just keep investing. It's so hard. And that's what every one of these stories really underscores. Next up, men's 1500. Very quick thing, they had a lot of heart rate data on the screen. Oh, it's fun. It was so fun, which you can imagine. Probably a lot of our listeners were like, oh, Megan and David are salivating at this data. And it seemed fairly accurate. I think it was a polar, like it was short on the forearm. Yeah, and it seemed pretty accurate. Whereas we've seen some track races before where they're using other devices. And it was like, yeah, they would start to shift away from the heart rate. We're like, yeah, the polynomial. Yeah, they go off the screen. Yeah, yeah. It actually makes me very interested in these polar straps in general. I'm an invest in one to just get some data on it to see how accurate it is. But Negus, who won the race, his heart rate on the screen got to 202 by the end. That is very nice. So why? And that made me do some research. And I found that it aligns with what we do see in these events. So there's a study from 2008 called how to humans control physiological strain during strenuous endurance exercise. And what they found is that there's a substantial number of people, as you do like the air bars, that actually hit their true max heart rate at the end of 1500s and five cases. So in 10Ks, you don't start to see that at all. So very interesting. That study may will do a longer discussion of it at some point. Which is why, actually, to this day, I think I'd be more horrified to stand on the start line of a 1500 or five compared to 100K. It's like, I'm not touching that in 100K. OK, I do. I mean, it is reactively different types of pain. Yeah, but racing at 15005 is very painful. Yeah, I mean, I've raced them, yes. I think it's probably physiology differences though. That's a good point. So for me, I wouldn't mind doing an all-out mile. And I think I could run very, very fast. We were talking about this last night. Oh, great. Yeah. But that's because I'm more of an intermediate fiber athlete. And my body kind of loves that shit. Yeah. Whereas, you know, the main thing I'm preparing for at the grindstone 100K is the pain cave. Like that deep, dark place where I'm like, I don't know if I can finish. Like that's the reason I want to do it is to explore that more. Whereas I think if I did 1500s, I wouldn't explore it at all. Well, you're exploring it for like a 200 meter close. Yeah. But my thing is it doesn't hurt in the same way that you're like, I think it hurts someone like you. Because my body's made for that, at least once, one time. And then multiple intervals, I start to feel it a lot more. Well, we should have a thing which should get you to do a track mile. Yeah. Would you be interested in doing that? Post 100K, post grindstone. Yeah, OK. Sure. Actually, know what I would be interested in doing a road mile. So here in Boulder, we have this gravel road called Monarch Road. And it's like beautifully downhill. And often the wind has like a 40-man hour tailwind. We should set you up there. Actually, I would do a lickskillet road down there, which averages 18% grade on a gravel road. And for me mountain biking, it's very scary. Very, very scary. OK, anything else you wanted to talk about from the track champs? There was 5Ks and 10Ks, too. Any big takeaways for you from that? Nothing huge, it was just inspiring. Yeah, it was really fun to watch those athletes. At least Cranny did a 10K, 5K double that was impressive. I think Molly Haddle was the last woman to be able to pull off the 10K, 5K wind. And Elise has openly struggled with reds and has been like really open and sharing her journey. And I think that's been inspiring to a lot of young athletes. And so how did she overcome reds? Did she increase her fueling? Like, did she change her thinking about it? It seems like actually she's had. And she's been honest about this. It's hit her at multiple time points in her career. And I think she's getting better at looking for those early warning signs and throwing a lot of fuel at the fire. My interesting takeaway there is that the 5K and 10K had very similar breakdowns of who was doing great. And it points out that aerobic development is kind of a aerobic development and the specific nature of individual pieces probably are less important than we sometimes think they are as long as an athlete has the ceiling developed. So I think the 5K 10K similarities and overlap is essentially just reminding you for beginner athletes to do your strides, for advanced athletes, make sure you're fast. That's a great takeaway. I mean, the 10K for women was almost an exact replica of the 5K. So it was curious to see that happen. Replicate. Replicate. That's what you said. I said, oh, I meant to say replica. Oh, okay, I thought that I wasn't trying to be fancy. I just fucked up. I thought you thought the word was replicating. I got so excited. So I was going to be like, oh. Did I, it's funny because in my own head, I said replica. Oh, yeah, you definitely said replica. But you know. That'd be a fun thing to wrap with. I think that's what we should do. It's just make some words like they glee sophisticated and not say a single thing on the podcast. I think our listeners would love it. Oh, that'd be curious. That'd be fun. Perfect. So how about some science quick hitters before we talk about the Tour de France? Okay, but just leave enough time to get the Tour de France. Because I am like a Tour de France groupie over here. I am loving it. It's so we have to get there. Yeah, you are like at Pogaccia's trailer, throwing your wet sports bra at him. Oh my gosh. Well, Pogaccia is wet all the time. We're a match made in heaven. It's true. He's been practicing pre-cooling and cooling during races so much. Yeah, he's, all of his team, UAE, has been dumping so much cold water on themselves. Points out some of the benefits of this, that I think the science of cooling is really infiltrated the Tour. And do you know what I would love to see too? Is the science of being silly. Pogaccia is textbook silly. Like he's just a goofy guy. And I don't know, I feel like for whatever reason, it gives him superpowers during the race. Yeah, I mean, he's a silly killer. That's a killer. Oh, that's my dream. Be a silly killer. That is like my dream in life. I love it. That's what we need to create Leo as like, he's silly, but he's also a killer. Yeah. Well, I say all the time to lay. I'm like, Leo, you're so silly. And that's how I feel about Pogaccia. Pogaccia is silly. Yeah, so you're going to say it only out. You're so silly. But you're also a stone-cold killer, bitch. OK, a couple of science quick hitters. The first just came out in nature. And I wanted to flag this for people because it's one of the most excited I've ever been by a study. And I don't know why. So maybe other people feel the same way. This is on minimal cell modifications. So what they did here is they took a bacteria that already had a really simple genome, and they modified it so that it only had 493 genes, which is a cut down of around 50% in its total genetic code. Basically, they gave it no degrees of freedom. Every gene was essential to its life. And it was the life stripped down to its bare essence. And when you do that, you think about the idea that mutation is inevitable. Well, mutation is inevitable in all of life forms. But mutation is especially inevitable in this case. And you think about where is this going? Yeah. And I feel like for me, the most logical hypothesis is death. Like, it can't be possible. It is stripped down to the bare minimum. How is this going to work? If you stripped down to nothing, what happens next? Especially when a lot of the things that were stripped away were things that would repair mutations that were not advantageous, and would lead to cancers in bigger life forms. But in this type of life form, we just lead to death and disintegration. Well, when I get stripped down to nothing, it's like a torquing party. That's like the first thing that comes to my mind. And that's what the cell did. It had a torquing party over multiple life forms. Yeah, if you ever go into a coma or anything, you're just going to be in the middle of a coma, just torquing all of a sudden. I don't know if that visual. So the fascinating thing here is that the initial effects of it were it had 50% less fitness. The author's called it, it was sick, essentially. But it totally diverged from expectations after 2,000 generations of these bacterial lines, which equates to like 40,000 human years, they said, or 300 bacterial days, they recovered all of this fitness cost, but they did it totally differently than the non-minimal cells. So the cells that were unaltered, adapted, but adapted in different ways than the minimal cells, which regained all of their abilities through the power of evolution in just this many cell lines. So wildly cool that like life can do this. And it just makes, it really opens my mind to potential in ways that I don't understand why it does this, but I love this study. Well, it reminds me of Jurassic Park and that quote, like life finds a way. That's your death gold plumb impersonation. Yeah, perfect. Really, really tried to emphasize the pauses there. But every time I'm out running and for me, I feel like a lot of the terrain that we run into feels like Jurassic Park. There's like the big leaves and fronds. And I think about that out there, I'm like, I gotta find a way. I love it. Yeah, and as a coach, what it makes me reflect on is that in physiology, we're taking systems that are developed over millions of years, not just 40,000 years, and applying them to our activity. So the main place I want to mention for athletes is like all of these stress responses that are a manner of adaptation, from inflammation to adaptation, are developed to improve survivability and things like that. But constant stress decreases fitness and survivability. In fact, there's a study that just came out in psychonural endocrinology about this allostatic stress that just this constant stress reducing cellar of fitness. So as we think about training, make sure we understand that evolutionarily, we shouldn't be under constant stress. Things like rest days are so important because evolutionary processes dictate that if you're under that constant load, bad things are gonna happen. It's not a question of who wants it more. It's a question of playing by these rules that applied when we were single-celled organisms and are now applying in a much broader, harder to see, but also very important way. Well, I think when we think about what we're doing, and we were asking our bodies to do at the top level, and even at the back of the pack in sports, is really wild when we think about what we've been evolved to do. And I think so often when we think about it from like, I sell your perspective of performance, but it's like, no, everything that we do to think about performance comes also from an evolutionary level and a level of like mutation and adaptation and response. And I feel like to me, like when I'm looking at these science studies, I really like these just because the science is interesting, but also it does have some perspective of how we think about what we're doing from our athletic feats. Yeah, exercise physiology is evolutionary. So exactly, yeah, and there's more papers coming out, actually, there was a paper just last week that I didn't toss in our podcast outline, but highlighting that idea of like thinking about exercise to physiology from an evolutionary perspective. And to me, that's like my new favorite field of research. I wanna read all of this. Well, you've run out exercise physiology to be about the set, or at least training theory, to be about the cell so much, and the way you think about things, and the way you influence the entire field. And I think this is a brave new world. And this study isn't about exercise, but I do think it's really cool to understand the general field. Okay, next one is really quick, and this is called sex differences in fatigability. Just came out today, and all, it's very simple design, took eight males and eight females, had them do knee extensor, maximum voluntary contractions, before and after a five K. The reduction in women on that knee extensor exercise was only 4.6% after the five K, while in men it was 15%. But what I found interesting was that that actually stopped. So the sex differences that we were seeing in the fatigability stopped after 20 to 30 minutes of rest and recovery after the five K. But I like this because I am fascinated. I do think females often have higher sex-specific abilities in terms of fatigue resistance. And I think when we're seeing sometimes, some of the, I mean, women are not gonna overtake men at the 100 mile distance, but we're getting, we're like really closing that gender gap, and to me that's exciting. And I think a lot of that does have to do with fatigue resistance. Yeah, so this is fascinating, especially as we think about fatigue resistance in so much in coaching, and especially in altruism, things like that. What I love is to get this data on someone like Courtney in comparison to others that like we might be able to see, like I love if we took a cohort of athletes we coach and got to put what we know about their actual in the field fatigue resistance and apply it to maximum voluntary contractions right after activity. So this is very exciting for the women athletes out there. Know that something in female physiology might lead to better ability to withstand fatigue and we don't know exactly what that is. Well, and I feel like weird sometimes connecting lots of things about female athlete physiology back to labor. Like I feel like it feels almost like a little bit sexist and sexist. But it's evolutionary, and it gets back to what we were just talking about. And after having gone through 60 hours of labor, I can totally undersea, I can totally see why this adaptation might, not adaptation, but like why this might get there. Counterpoint. I went through labor too. We went through it together. And you were crushing scrambled eggs. No, no, you know, Megan slept. As you went through like the real part of labor, you know, I was doing, I was having a trouble too because you know the couch was really uncomfortable for sleep. So as I was sleeping, my back was just a little sore. And yeah, you were going through contractions or whatever. But Megan, my Rudy rest wasn't perfect. Well, I was a little pissed. We haven't, I don't think we've like fully gone over this but I was an active labor. And I was like, dude, I am an active labor and you are over there sleeping your ass on that couch. You've been in labor for 60 hours. And yes, it got active. But it was active. There's a real big difference between like, just like the beginning stages of labor and active labor. I was just like this. I was deep breathing and you were over there deep sleeping. I was like, this is no different than going up hell and out to see. You were just like, oh, and I'm like, suck it. I'm suffering, you know, it was amazing to see. And I think that likely does have some relationship. Okay, do you want to talk about some Tour de France story? Yes, please. So I've been waiting for like a full hour for Tour de France, I'm obsessed. Yeah, it was like one of the only times I had to bribe you to get us to talk about random scientific studies. What the fuck's up with that? I was just so excited to talk about wet pogacha. That's why he talked about it before you even got to do it. I know, right? I couldn't wait. Yeah, he's such a cool dude. So Tadebogacha is one of the Tour de France. He was second last year to Jonas Vindigo. Watch the Netflix documentary. What's it called? Unchained. It's wonderful the over viewing that race. But getting back to our belief and momentum conversation in I believe stage five or stage four. He got dropped by Jonas Vindigo and... Which everyone was expecting. Yeah. I mean, I think everyone fully, including me, I was like, Jonas Vindigo is gonna win this tour going away. And Tadeb broke his wrist eight weeks ago and hadn't been racing. So you would assume some fitness loss and... I should think it was longer than eight weeks ago. It was April like 20th, what is that? Okay, do you... That's like 12 weeks ago. Do you have his planner on your phone? What the fuck's up with you? I have everything about Tadebogacha on my phone. I do love Tadebogacha. And when Jonas did it, he broke away with a historic Watts per kilogram of performance. So the type of performance where it's like, okay, this just means he's the better rider. Not only did that not happen, the next day, Pogacha played his card right while Jonas got greedy and tried to ride away. And then Tadebogacha put on an attack like you've never seen before. Go look at it on YouTube. It is so worthwhile. And if you're not into the Tour de France, make sure, go back on YouTube and just watch the five minute daily summaries. You can go through all of them in like an hour and see where things are at right now. And since then, he's whittled down Jonas's lead to just 17 seconds right now. And it's gonna be the most fun tour, get into it now because you'll get to see Wett Tade do epic shit. Well, he is tough as nails too. And I almost wonder, to some extent, if the injury was actually helpful for him, I wonder last year if he showed up to the Tour de France a slightly overcooked. And he's famous for racing all the classics and he does incredibly at these one day races that traditionally athletes didn't do, like Lance Armstrong say what you want to about him, the way he structured his season was just to do essentially good at the Tour de France. Everywhere else, he was a rather pedestrian rider for someone like him. Oh Tade, he has this competitive spirit with him. I feel like he would win. I mean, if he was doing like a bike commute, he would try to beat everyone around him. But he would be laughing. Yeah, exactly. He's carrying a piece of bread in his back. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's just who he is. But I feel like he has that competitive fire that's like impossible to turn off. And it gets back to the idea that I would much rather have an athlete show up to a start line with a little bit of room for cream. And especially in the Tour de France too, because you can race your way into fitness. It's like being a sled dog to some extent is that like someone, if you show up with a little bit of room for cream, I feel like he might even get stronger and stronger as the tour progresses. It'll be interesting to see. Yeah. You know, the complicated thing is doping. Of course. Yes, yes. So Tyra Hamilton's the secret race. Book I've recommended a lot recently. Talks about how on the first rest day of the tour is when they would do blood transfusions. You know, they call them BBs, blood bags. So who knows how people come out of rest days in the tour? I hope they're all clean now, but knowing the numbers. Actually, I saw one very hopeful thing. Looking at historic numbers. Even though they're putting out a lot of power, they're I think 19th and 21st all time and altitude adjustment performances. So, you know, top 10 are all crazy doped. And probably like it gives hope that they're not doping anymore. Well, I feel like we're starting to see elevated performance as a cross the board in so many different aerobic baseboards. And I feel like it's because also too, we're understanding deeper elements of aerobic performance and also to nutrition. Yeah. Actually, that leads to the next point. Yeah, can we talk about nutrition? Because they have been doing, well, okay, so biking to me, I have a little bit of like inner battle as I talk about this, because cycling has such high rates of relative energy deficiency in sports and low energy availability that it's frustrating to me. But at the same time, they also do incredible in race feeling and like post-race feeling. And it's just kind of an interesting counterbalance. But I mean, I think that it's going a slightly different way in for some athletes. Yes, there's a lot of that because watch for a kilogram on the bike is very different than in running. Like in running, all that matters is your strength. Yes. I can't emphasize that enough. And consistency. I'm such a better climber now that I am 15 or 20 pounds heavier than I was as a kid. And there's a, it's because it's not a watch per kilogram, it's not a power to weight ratio. Cycling unfortunately has an element of that, though it's starting to go a different way. So there was an incredible article recently on a rider on Uno X that was about what he's done for nutrition. And he gained 20 kilograms, which, you know, amounts to 40 some pounds. And it's led to him making the Tour de France. So I think cycling started to understand too that even for that sport, power is what matters and strength is what matters. And he actually had an interesting thing. So the first time that he did it, he actually struggled a little bit as he was like adapting to his new body. But then he got stronger and stronger and stronger. And I feel like that parallels a lot of what we see in running is sometimes when athletes recover from reds, there's a little bit of this like rebuilding adjustment period. But then the body like calibrates and adjusts and builds new muscle. And then it's like the body is lit on fire. And he had a great quote on this. He said, you won't have the same power or watts per kilo in the same year. And this was after putting on weight. You have a hard year, but then it gets better and better and better. And that's what he's seen in his progression. And I think it's going to mean, the Tour riders aren't talking like this. And to see him do this and then to see the results that he's had, it's great. And I think they're talking about that a lot more. Let's put some numbers on it actually. Here's what he said. Before I was happy when I got over 900 watts peak, now I have like 1500. That is such a massive difference. And that's what we want to encourage with running too, because as you're able to build up that type of power, everything becomes possible long-term. But you need to be able to have that power, which requires lots and lots of fueling. And that gets back to some of the fueling strategies they're using right now. Uno X's team nutritionist is really open about exactly what exactly they're doing, which is rare in cycling. These are a lot of the times they keep things behind closed doors. We're seeing three grams per kilogram of carbs pre-race in the meal right before. 120 grams per hour of carbs on the tough stages. And then immediately after they finish, four to five grams per kilogram with protein as well. And that's impacting adaptation, post-race. It's impacting their ability to perform, impacting their ability to put out watts. And too, they're also taking it. So it was fun actually. So DC Rainmaker, who does a lot of gear reviews and reviews it basically, everything. He breaks down things to like a tee. It's great. He should design those constructions. He should design any packages for like, building bike racks or anything construction that we're putting together. It would be so much better. Oh yeah, I don't know. I feel like we're pretty much beyond health. Well, we should just, we should do like a YouTube series where we just like put stuff together and make fun of it. But then also like provide helpful tools for people who suck shit at building. Oh my god. I actually think you have a great YouTube idea. It's to do that. And then sometimes we're just like fuck this. We're done. And we just like throw out the window. And we just give it up. Yeah. Or shows the aftermath of what happens. Like we're gonna drive on 70 later this afternoon. And they'll just be a bike on the side of the road and be like, we fucked up our bike rack. I love that. It's kind of like house that on the television show where usually the patient would live but sometimes the patient would die. Everyone would watch it to see what happens. Like the suspense is building. Exactly. So so much interesting stuff out there with DC Rainmaker Saul is that precision, the company we talk about precision fueling, and they have little keys on the head tube for athletes. So they can see exactly how much they're supposed to fuel to get those really high carbohydrate totals. It points out how methodical you have to be in a really scientific way when you're trying to skirt the limits of what the human body can actually absorb. And it was personalized for each athlete. I had so much fun zooming in on each athlete's individualized nutrition plan, which was different. What I was, what I found fascinating was that they usually started with chews in the beginning and then they progressed to gels. What do you think would be the reason for that? Oh, probably just like, you know, it's easier to chew when the stage is easier. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, when you're not, I mean, for me, I have such a hard time chewing and running at the same time. But the precision shoots at tasty. Yeah, but then the gels, you can just like, you know, they're the... They're the squirts. There's the, you know, the gel is super, super squirter. You just, it ends all in your mouth. And I'm great at that. You're just okay. But I mean, this points out to me, the broader theory that we were talking about, I think it's possible that the advances we're seeing in sports are largely fueling based. And if that's the case, essentially fueling your body adequately, especially during training is the new steroids. That's my hopeful take on all of this, is that understanding fueling has led it to a place that athletes are able to perform better, adapt better, and become very similar to the things that Olysset drugs used to do. Now we're just talking things like gels, appropriate post-run fueling, treating your body well, letting yourself find your strong. And what that does to the body on a cellular level. So I mean, there used to, everyone, like decades, I mean, if like a decade ago was so worried about gene doping. And I feel like fueling the body adequately is just like giving your epigenetics a gift. Yeah, it's like gene doping but in electrical sense. Yeah, yeah, but clean. Clean, very clean. Yes. In the case of precision like see-through. Yeah. Perfect. Or actually kind of goopy and opaque, let's say. Oh, precision's not goopy. That's not a good adjective. Precision goes down clean. It does. But perhaps my hope here is kind of misplaced because a study just came out this past week on Tramadol, which I believe is some sort of painkiller, right? It's an opioid, actually. Yeah, it's an narcotic. But it's legal in competition. Is legal in competition? Oh, cyclists use Tramadol. I mean, I don't know if they're using it legally. Yeah, yeah, no, it's legal. I mean, it's a prescription medication. I mean, okay, sorry, this blows my mind. I didn't realize that Tramadol was legal. I think this is highly addictive medication. Should I Google it right now while we're on the podcast or just let it let this sit since it's near the end? I'm pretty sure it's legal. I'm pretty sure it's not. Okay, well that blows my mind. I mean, maybe it is. But yeah, I mean, the point is, this study found a 1.3% improvement with Tramadol over a placebo in time trials. And that's pretty significant. So I think it is legal actually. Okay. And if something like this that shouldn't be legal is legal, there's a big problem. So hopefully this study is the impetus to ban it if it's not already banned. And if it is banned, maybe I'm still stuck in the tower Hamilton years of side. Well, I don't know if it's banned or not, but I mean, you can't just go out giving people Tramadol. It's a highly addictive narcotic, it's a prescription medication. So it seems weird to me that like exercise physiologists on a team are giving athletes Tramadol, but I guess that's what they do. And the old days exercise physiologists on teams used to like wake people up at midnight because their blood was so thick with red blood cells that if they didn't wake up at midnight and do jumping jacks, they would die in their sleep. Well, the use of Tramadol is scary to me, but I think it also, but 1.3% is a huge margin. So we were eating dinner last night and you're talking about the idea of like, how wild is it that in the 1500 meters on the track, what separates good, or what separates like great from world class is literally 1,000 to 1,000, 3, 1000. No, you can stop it one and a half. Yeah, exactly. And when we were counting down like that, how something 1.3% like Tramadol impacts that equation. I mean, that's like 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1,000 sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. The hard part about talking about performance at this level is understanding exactly all the into like how things are integrating. So you know, things that are are legal and probably will stay legal for example, are exogenous ketones, which the peloton's using a ton. And you know, some of these other other methods of like, you know, bicarb, for example, like sodium bicarbonate, which kind of common oral forms or topical forms where you rub it on your skin. And those types of things probably are gonna stay legal. How do they affect performance when all used together? We don't know. So it's interesting to explore that world of physiology. Yeah, well my question is how does it affect health when you use all these things together? I mean, Tramadol is like highly addictive. And it also works on the central nervous system too. So I feel like I'm both fascinated from like a physiology perspective and also horrified too that we're using this narcotic to help people perform better. Okay, so I'm just glancing at the outline here. It says off label premature ejaculation. Oh, what's that about? Oh, so Tramadol fascinating is used to prevent premature ejaculation off label. And so I saw that yesterday when I was researching about Tramadol and I got curious I was like, is there some sort of mechanism that relates like premature ejaculation to performance? Interesting. Yeah, because you think about like premature ejaculation probably has a lot of like central nervous system fatigue related elements. And I think about central nervous system fatigue being impactful for like fatigue resistance and things like that. So basically, I'm thinking about premature ejaculation as having like connections to... Connections to fatigue systems. I mean, I was gonna make a joke but I actually think that's a fascinating connection because anytime... Okay, totally just my brain doing weird associations. So there's like no science like in that. But when I saw that I was like, oh, that's curious. Yeah, and then you bought a bunch. Where are that? No, but what's interesting about that is it just makes me think like, what other like approaches are there to stop premature ejaculation? And if any of those would be related to performance and fatigue resistance, we have to get back to you on the podcast. Positive self-talk. Positive self-talk. Thinking about baseball, thinking about grandma improves performance. Is that what we're talking about? Exactly, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, I think, okay, one other thing when we end up talking about them sort of, maybe a few other things. There Tom Pickock on Strava. He's the mountain bike gold medalist. He posted one of his files from a flat stage. His heart rate hit 47 during the race. Points out the power of drafting. Holy shit, that's low. And he put out only an average of 126 watts, which is so low. Like for me, I don't know if I've ever done a ride at 126 average watts. Yeah, I mean, it's wild to think about like, these can go from the hardest physical activity in the entire world to something that for him is no different than a slow walk, not even a fast walk in terms of his heart rate. Well, it actually made me happy because thinking about 21 days and they do have rest days built into the tour, but it's a lot of days of back-to-back racing. And I actually got secretly happy for the sake of their own selves and for the premature ejaculation that they have these easy days. Yeah, the tour is so awesome. So get on board now. The reason we're gonna talk about this in the first week is so that you can all catch up. Do that via YouTube. They have either short or long recaps. You can do the short ones, go back and look at the long ones if you want. And then catch up each night. It's so fun and it's so interesting. I go through this point of like withdrawal post-tour when we don't have our nightly Tour de France to watch and I get so sad. It's so sad. Okay, you wanna do hot takes? Let's do hot takes. Awesome, the first one here, I'm assuming you won't need to read the ones in yellow highlight. Yeah, that would be great, yes. The first one is manifesting is stupid bullshit. Oh, I disagree. I disagree too. In fact, I think it goes against a lot of what we said on this episode. I agree. Believing is step one. A manifesting is step two. Or you can just call, I mean, manifesting can essentially contain whatever you want. But anytime I've manifested in life, I mean, I've not necessarily like gotten there, but I felt a whole lot better about myself on the process. Yeah. Nothing will happen unless it's on your dream board. Yeah, exactly. Dream board doesn't have to be literal. But like, I think- Some figurative part in your brain manifest. And the point about belief is not that something will happen. Right, that's the hard part I think for people to understand is they're like, oh, well, shouldn't believe because the chances of this are really low and then I'm letting myself down. No, the point of belief is to give yourself a slight tailwind, to improve your chances by one to three percent. For when you wake up every morning and the going gets hard. Like, I feel like for me, I want to go to Western states. I'm putting that on my dream board. Who the heck knows if that's going to happen? But you want it's going to help me each day get out there and do upheld terminals. Or stop moaning on uphills when it's around 12,000 feet. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the ellipticals that I did this week were hard. And realistically, you know, I'm trying to get to the point that my manifestation, like my manifesting, becomes reality to myself. So I don't want to cut myself down and say what I think the percentage chance are that I win grindstone 100k. But because I think they're too low right now and I need to get them higher. But, you know, the only way I'm ever going to win is to think I'm going to. So I got to stop cutting myself down and start manifesting. I love that. Okay, next one. F Nike and their ultra fly shoes. This is after we talked about them giving it away at Western states. After eating Karegoucher's book, I can't support them at all. I don't know if any of the other big brands are better, but I know Nike is bad. Yeah, that's a spicy one. That is a spicy one. Honestly, I disagree with this one too. Yeah, I mean, okay. So we go to absolutely mind blowing incredible people that work at Nike. And so I think perhaps Nike at times has not had the best intention. And they were fucking terrible. Yes, they're horrible. Yes, we can say that. But there are some incredible people now at Nike that I know are trying to change the culture. And I think Nike is trying to make steps in that direction. We're not in turn enough to know how that's actually happening. But I don't know, I forgive. I also forgive when their shoes are really freaking fast. Yeah. I forgive a little easier when you can wear ultra-veless. Yeah, when you get that 2% benefit from Nike ultra-veless thing, you know, you can look past them things. But I mean, I think this is an interesting point and one that's important for us to address as we talk about things like Nike or anything. It's we try to always ground ourselves in giving room for change in openness in every discussion. Yes, yeah. So Nike has been horrible. We have hoped that it has improved and will continue to improve. And we know it has improved from how they've dealt with athletes we coach or sponsored by Nike. And I think that the understanding of ethics in general means you have to give people and companies room to grow. And the only way that you're going to give people room to grow is to allow past mistakes to be forgiven with a background of accountability. So Nike needs to be held accountable. I think they are being in general. And as long as that accountability is ongoing and constantly checked, then like writing someone or something off due to mistakes, even intentional, horrible mistakes, I think is a problem. And I think it's something about society in general that we need to be really quick with forgiveness as long as that forgiveness is coming with accountability. That's well said. And I'm actually going to thread this into the next hot take, which I am coming up with on the spot. Sorry, we have so many ways to skip that. We have so many amazing listener hot take. This is our last hot take. This is our last hot take. Is that I am impressed and proud of Shelby with a whole hand for getting the world record in the beer mile. And I think that actually relates and it relates to some of our earlier conversations where so Shelby got, I think she ran like a 543 beer mile, which is the first woman's sub six beer mile. In the process, she ran a 425 mile in drag and fly spikes. Oh, and then the rest of it was beer drinking? Yes, the rest of it was beer drinking, which is fast. But people, there was a lot of shit about Shelby stepping up doing the beer mile because she is on a suspension right now for her Nandra loan ingestion, whatever that was. And I don't know, I guess from my take on it was, I thought it was a really cool performance. It's the freaking beer mile. Yeah, exactly. So we have to laugh about it. And I understand the different takes coming out and saying that it wasn't ethical that she raised. But I don't know. I feel like I have open mindedness and compassion for what she went through. And for her as a person. For her as a person. And I just, I thought it was cool that she showed up. And I thought it was cool that the beer mile probably for a reason to get out of bed every day and train when she's on a four year suspension. And that's hard. And so I have compassion for her. I'm so proud of you for saying that. I mean, I mean, I think it comes back to like, we try to preach loving kindness on here all the time. And what that means. And I think what it means is giving loving kindness to people that deserve it, sure, which is everybody. But also when you think people don't deserve it, trying to still give it in finding reasons too. So as long as it's on a background of accountability and she's being punished. Yeah, she's lost her career. Oh my god, she's lost so much. Yeah, so so much. Yeah. And the beer mile, who gives a fuck? Let her race. Yeah. You know, like, I think that also we should ask her questions about the burrito after the beer mile. I'm sure we get a real spicy take. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We should actually do it like a beer 5K and then just like interrogator about what actually happens. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, it's a hard, hard thing. And then when you think about something like Nike, which is a company that doesn't necessarily deserve loving kindness, right? Corporations don't deserve that. We're thinking about the individuals there. Yes. And being like, yes, yeah. We love them. And we're trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Because if we write off their whole company, we're essentially saying that their life's work is useless. Yes, yeah. So it all comes back to like, you know, the love and kindness we preach about yourself, like in how you should approach it to yourself. Try to give that to others. Honestly, especially when they don't deserve it. And usually that'll lead you down brighter paths, even as you need to understand that like, some shit can't be forgiven. Well, I feel like we also don't always have the full picture of whether or not someone should deserve it. Like in Shelby's situation, we probably have 20% of the picture. And we're making assumptions and judgments. And I feel like the same goes for corporations and Nike and so many different people is, yes, there have been terrible things in that 20% that we know. But we also never know the full story too. And I feel like that's why I think we're both pretty open-minded to love and kindness too. Yeah. I like it. Your hot take led to like a love take. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. A universal love take. Yeah. A kindness type of love, surprisingly not a sexy type of love. No, not a sexy type of love. Though it can lead in that direction. Do we need to talk about premature ejaculation more? No. Okay. You know what we can talk about? What? What might help with premature ejaculation? Listen, our corner. Athletic green. Is athletic green helps with everything? Dude, how did I miss that? I know. It's okay. That was my chance. I have to do the promo. Well, no, I mean, I just, I miss my line. Yeah. I fucked up. That would have been so good. It's okay. You've missed the athletic greens tee-ups a couple weeks in a row recently. Just not a good salesperson. You're hemoglobin earlier that you got measured. You started taking athletic greens. I do think, I mean, I feel like hemoglobin actually, like having high stress levels is not great for hemoglobin. So I do think athletic greens helped. Yeah. So we have reduction of stress from, probably the ash or conda in it. Yeah. So there's a number of different micronutrients in athletic greens that can help reduce stress. Stress is connected to everything we've talked about from the evolutionary responses to things like your red blood cell production. So, you know, we got into the point with athletic greens that the reason we talk about it so much is we genuinely think the shit can be magic for athletes sometimes. Even if we don't know the exact mechanism and that shows up in blood work, it shows up in race performances, it shows up in adaptation and aging. So, athletic greens.com slash swap SWAP SWAP. Actually, drink AG1.com slash swap SWAP SWAP. They have a new link now, so make sure you use that one. It's wonderful stuff and we think it really works. And if you use that link, you get bonus product and you get the vitamin D dropper, which is another thing we see that's really low on blood tests. Travel packs, which is so convenient. Yes, yes. So, go for it. And now we're going on to listener goner. I'm so excited for listener chroner. I love you guys in this community so much. I was on my first trail run after having an unplanned surgical procedure six weeks ago. I was feeling all the feels of appreciating my body for its incredible resilience, dot, dot, dot and practicing its sections for where I'm at with joy. Then, you two spectacular people used a hot take I sent in about a topic I'm extremely passionate about. Stop judging people's bodies. This is something we talked about last week. You did an awesome job of uplifting all bodies like you always do. And I lost it on the trail straight up ugly cry. I didn't realize it when I sent that in. But today, crying on the trail, I found a deeper version of that hot take. Stop judging your own body and uplift the sexy ass beast you are. I absolutely love this. Yeah, I feel like it's so hard. I mean, I feel like that judgment of the judgment of self is so, so challenging. It actually reminds me a book of, so there's a book called The Opposite Butterfly Hunting, which is by the character Ivana who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies. And she had a long struggle with eating disorders and she was really open about that. The book was basically about that struggle. But one of my favorite parts of the book was that she was getting a lot of criticism online and she decided to join in the criticism. And so she created a fake, like a fake handle for herself and just started blasting herself on the internet. And it was like very cathartic to herself. But somewhere in that process, she was like, fuck this. This is not healthy. The voice inside of my own head is so negative. And then she took that same handle and started just creating a loving voice. And it was this beautiful evolution of her on the internet. But I feel like it's so often that we have this negative voice inside our head that would be the first to criticize us or the first to send mean Instagram messages and stop it. Yeah, turn that into a loving voice. I mean, it's so interesting to think about if we wrote down our negative thoughts about ourselves. Just how mean it would seem. How vile it would be. It would be like the point. The people that were giving her gross comments were like, oh my God, that's so vile. And she recognized just how mean the voice inside her head was. Yeah, it's honestly, I think about that all the time when I'm criticized by the grab bag of... Oh, we get criticized all the time. Yeah, the grab bag of douche canoes that are on running internet. And what I always think is like, well, you can't say anything worse to me than I already think about myself sometimes. And sometimes is a power, but also something I'm trying to work on more and more over time. Like, you know, I have this, we call them low self-esteem days in our house. We both have them. And maybe it would help sometimes to just like give more voice to exactly what we're feeling with each other so that we can reach this place and being like, you know what, we fucking rock. Well, Ivana Lynch said exactly that. They're like, her being meaner to herself than everyone else in the internet was a superpower. Interesting. Until it wasn't. And then she realized like, this is the wrong superpower. This is not self-sustaining. And I feel like it points out so often what we say that like, it's really hard to run on anger and fury for a long period of time. Yeah, so we love you. And you know what, make sure today you love yourself. And to do that, you might have to address that little negative voice and really reckon with what it's saying and just how wrong it is. What would you say to yours? What would I say to my negative voice? Yeah. Oh, it's that you're enough. Like, you're safe. Like, for me, almost all of my negative thoughts come down to like, you know, essentially, you're just not like, you're bullshit, you're wasting your life, like that type of stuff, you know? And it's like, no, this matters, you know? And you're helping people and that's enough. And so that's what I come back to. I love that. Same, you're loved. Yeah. Also like, why? Why? You know, like all this stuff, I feel so self-important and then I take a step back and I'm like, I'm good. Yeah. Yeah, you're a good sexy beast as you are. I love you. Has this everybody out there? Woohoo! Huzzah! That episode was so sexy. So good, so good. I love you. I love you. You're so sexy.