168. Leadville 100 Magic, UTMB Preview, and Lower Volume Training!

We're so happy with you today. Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday. And it's an extra good Tuesday. Because for the first time I may be podcast history, we just did a group burp before the podcast. It was great. Yeah, we really synced up there. So all of a sudden, we're both getting ready to record and things like, David, stop for just a second. And I was like, do you have to do what I have to do right now? Because we had been sharing a Coca-Cola. And sure enough, without even saying a word, we did one, two, three instead of woohoo, we burped together. It was a great moment. But that being said, you carried us. You were the duende of the team because you let out this like, rip-roaring burp. And mine was silent. You know what? I was there in spirit. Yeah, but you have like these sneezes and these burps that are really soft and dainty. What's that all about, Megan? Yeah, that's a good question. Fuck that. Yeah. I feel like somewhere in my existence, I was like, I don't want to take up space by sneezing wisely in a classroom. And so I would do these like silent sneezes and probably kill a ton of brain cells. Yeah. And same with burps. That's the patriarchy right there. Yeah. It's just like those little sneezes, that's the patriarchy at work. We need to fight the patriarchy with sneezes that can wake up a baby for rooms away. That's the only option. Well, you're fighting the patriarchy for both of us because your coughs, your sneezes, everything that comes out of your body is loud, boring, and aggressive. And I kind of like it. Yeah. But sometimes I'm not going to lie. It's a little much. It's a little worrisome for you especially because you've never loved some bodily functions like throw up and things. So my burps might seem a little intense. But you know what, Megan? I just got to impersonate a freight train sometime. It's just who I am and it's what I do. Well, yeah, I feel like whenever it happens, it's like there has to be something coming after that. It is too loud for that to be the only thing going on. But it is. I just, Megan, I take up my space in the room. You've heard about man spreading where people spread their legs on the subway. I'm doing that right now. Well, see, you're good at like one spreading. I'm actually, I am really good at woman spreading. Yeah, yeah. So you take up space literally, but you need to start taking up space figuratively. Like I man spread with my excretions, with my noises. That's what you need to start doing with your sneezes and burps. What do you think? I'm down for it. It's going to take some practice though. It's hard. It's like a deeply ingrained train. Yeah. Well, we're going to get over it, Megan. One day at a time, much like running training, it's every little sneeze is a brick in a very big sneeze wall. What do you think? Well, maybe this is what we should do for anniversary because it's our ninth anniversary anniversary. Yeah. Happy anniversary, Megan. Happy anniversary. It's a long time together. Yeah. If you think about it, that's like a lot of runs together, a lot of milkshakes, a lot of Strava titles. Yeah. And a baby now. Yeah, it's great. It's been 13 years since we met. I love you so much. You're the smartest, like coolest, most beautiful person in the whole world. I have some critiques about your sneezes, but you know what, not everybody's perfect. You can work on that. So it's been such a fun time. It's such a fun time. And our anniversary is going to be this week. I got really sick last week. So we're postponing it. Yeah. And that's one of the things I love about you is, so we were in Aspen, Colorado. We were planning to go to the spot where we got married, show Leo, have a little picnic up there. And the day before, I got really sick. Yeah. And so we had to modify our plans and come back. And but do you know what happened? On our way back, it was our anniversary. We went to Taco Bell and let know. And it was the best night ever. And something about that made me fall in love all over with you again. Yeah. Because it's like plans could be, you know, plans got the window. We had to pivot. And along the way, we just had a lot of fun doing a random Taco Bell date in the middle. My love language is the Leadville Taco Bell. It is the Crunch Wrap Supreme. So in fact, that was kind of perfect because all along, as soon as you started coughing and then getting really sick, I was like, this is perfect. Because I know exactly what this is going to lead to. I saw the future. I was mapping it forward like an oracle. And I knew it would end with a Crunch Wrap Supreme. So I was very, very happy about that secretly. All coughs that take up space wind up at the Crunch Wrap Supreme. That's how life goes. But I'm also pretty proud of what I did, which is as soon as you got sick, I was like, I always get a little worried because in coaching sometimes you'll see one partner get sick. And then the other partner goes and sleeps in another room and isolates for a week. The first thing I did it, I was like, come over here, Megan, and I lay one on me and we kissed. And then I was like, no, I need more tongue than that because I need to get your virus so you're not worried about it. It was so intense. Yeah. A rap song, you're like harder, faster, stronger. And I was like, I don't consent for any of this. Oh, I know. You, but you did consent. I mean, I, I would be grudgingly do. Okay, I can't joke about your consent. But it was intense. And I was like, dude, I am not, I mean, I don't know. I was like fully comfortable living around you. That was not my plan at all. But like jamming my tongue down your throat. I was like, I don't know about this. I needed to be, I needed my tongue to be a COVID test so that I would get what you had. And then, yeah, sure enough, a few days later, I'm like, you know what, Megan? I was really proud of myself because I didn't want you to feel self-conscious about being sick. And then you were just like, I wasn't self-conscious, and he's talking about it. I was fine with you getting sick. So somehow I've seemed to have dodged it for the most part. I've still been able to train, which has been pretty delightful. So thank you for having a sickness that doesn't, you know, get on me on our anniversary, either. I'm not surprised at all. I feel like you dodged 99% of what I throw at you. You know what the reason is? Why? Athletic Greens? Yeah, you were taken like three times athletic Greens. Yeah. And I was worried because we all know that you responded to the placebo effect. And I'm like, you know what? He's going to feel good. And now this is just going to be his new thing. We're going to be at the point where you're just taking like 100 athletic Greens packages per day. And we're like the one consumer of athletic Greens. I was starting to do two days. I was taking it in the morning and then in the evening. And I was like, this is going to be the only thing that helps my immunity because your sickness was quite rough. And it's still a little rough. You're coming out of it. And I'm very impressed. You're doing the podcast right now. But I feel wonderful. I've had great training. And I think it's the A.G. I definitely think it's the A.G. One. And so if you want this too, drink AG1.com slash SWAP SWVP, special offer right now just for a couple more weeks where you get 10 free travel packs, which is like a $30 extra value if you use that code. Go to that website now because it's only going to last a couple more weeks. The travel packs are exciting. And I feel like if you're like us, you might need them because I feel like everyone and our podcast universe is heading to Shamini. And we are too and I'm soap on. Shamini, this week, that will be the perfect anniversary celebration. Who knows if this is going to go off for sure because you don't have a passport yet. Our baby doesn't have a passport yet and we're supposed to leave in three days. Well, there's this thing called an exfitted passport process. And how is skeptical of this? I was like, passports take so long. Yeah. But little, you can make a passport appointment if you have an urgent travel appointment, which getting to Shamini on the trails, very urgent. Yeah. I assure the passport agent agency is like, we have a big work trip. This is very important for our future. I like that that the federal government is thinking about procrastinators. That is perfect. Yeah, my passport expires. You have to do like a thousand different steps to get expedited passports. And so I'm viewing this as an adult scavenger hunt because I'm kind of dreading these next couple of days. There's like 12 different places I have to go before we secure these passports. So fingers crossed that happens. But I have this like deep scavenger hunt ahead and hopefully it pays out. I'm really excited for Leo's passport photo, the baby passport photo. If he doesn't get a passport, I'm pretty sure we can stash him into like some of our luggage and get him to get him. Like he's pretty chill. We can cut some holes in there, put down some wood chips, a little durable thing of water. He'll go there. I'm pretty sure we can get him to Shamini. He'd probably do that. Honestly, Adi Dog. When he's all throw them in, Adi and, well, Leo wants to be Adi's best friend. Adi wants not no business to do with Leo. But I feel like they would have a great time traveling together to Shamini. That would be the perfect buddy comedy. Like that would be, they should be a cartoon is those two traveling under the plane. Adi would get to Shamini with no hair. Leo loves pulling her hair out. So she was just. And Adi being a little skeptical. Like, there's a long, long hair pulling journey, but we should also toss the dump truck in there. So Leo's favorite toy is this dump truck that we've been talking about that sings, I'm a powerful dump truck. And it's great. But we should send that to Shamini and bring it out there for our athletes. I'm so excited. It's going to be such a cool trip. I'm really looking forward to it. We get to cheer on our athletes that are doing all the major races. You know, we have top pro athletes and each one. We're really nervous about it because there's some of our best friends too, but also really excited. We've never been there for these races. And so when we're doing the UTMB preview, we're going to see it unfold this year. And I think it'll give us a lot of cool takeaways for the podcast. I'm so excited. How are you talking to your athletes? Like, I feel like once you get over there, there's this incredible energy, but it's also a chaotic energy and kind of a stressful energy at the same time. How are you helping your athletes protect themselves against that? I'm telling athletes to say no to everything. I love that. Yeah. Like literally everything and everyone. Part of the reason here is because of all the sickness going around. So Megan's sickness that she's gone right now, if you're out there anywhere in the United States at least, you're probably aware of friends or you yourself have gotten sick recently. There's a lot going around, short of COVID, like Megan tested negative for COVID. A tested negative for COVID, but honestly, this is probably the sickest I've been since like fourth grade. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I really don't get sick. And so to have this going on for a week, I'm like, what's happening? And coaching is a fascinating window in depicting meology. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We really see these things start popping up all over the country in different waves. Like a few weeks ago, you saw East Coast waves and then West Coast waves. And now we're seeing Colorado and a lot of unexplained viruses and things like that. In COVID, too. I'm seeing a lot of tech and COVID cases too. And so one thing I'm telling athletes is this is a great excuse to wear masks, say no to things that we probably want to do anyway. And so much like COVID, we're able to extend a lot of the social excuses that 2020 gave us in 2023. And so for these athletes, yes, make it a vacation, have fun, but it is not a social vacation, especially for professional athletes. Yeah. A lot of people are asking stuff with them. Now is the time to just relax, be with your loved ones, don't go to yet another sponsor obligation for someone that's, you know, paying you pennies on the dollar. Go out there, enjoy every second, but don't necessarily feel the need to say yes to social things. I love that so much. I feel like this name goes for any race. It doesn't have to be UTMB, which is kind of like the world series now of trail running. It can be any race to have that principle. And that week of just relaxation is so nice. At the other day, you gave me time where I could just stay at home until after a hard training week when I was a little bit run ragged, and then you took Leo. And I just went on Netflix, and I watched the show Suits, which is like at the top of all the Netflix recommendation algorithms right now. And I had the best mindless two hours in my life. I just looked up and all of a sudden it was like I had blacked out and come to and I was like, okay, now I'm rejuvenated. That's what I went every athlete to do on their race weeks. Well, you're in the heart of a big training block for growing someone okay, and you're crushing it. But I need to give that to you more often. I think once a week, this is going to be, I'm just thinking about this now. I would love for you to have just a two hour suit state with yourself and Addy and Netflix. Yeah. That's perfect. I love it. Yeah. And we talked about like girl dinner. This is like boy appetizers, just like me sitting there with song vinegar potato chips, watching kind of like a mindless show that's also quite fun. Yeah. I think it's going to be good for your physiology. I don't know. It's a lot. I feel like to be a parent and to be training this hard. And you work, like people don't see how hard you work, but you are taking Saturdays off, which is good. So maybe over time, you're going to have this progression into this nice work life balance. Well, I'm pumped because though when you got sick, I was panicked because not panicked in a big way, but you know, I was going free and just deep with my tongue. You had this interesting, it was kind of like Dr. Jackal Muster Hyde because you were like, give me your tongue woman. And then like that night as I was lying there and I had, I had a pretty high feet. And I was like, ah, David, I'm dying. And your first response was, what a fuck at this. And I was like, what are you talking about? I'm dealing with these like two different people. So the problem is on one hand, I thought, oh, this is a sickness. I can deal with this. And then on the other hand, you started coughing for like two hours at a time. And I'm like, oh, fuck this sucks. I don't fuck this. What did I do? Well, you talked a big game early on, and then you realized how bad it was getting. And you're like, a poor mission, a poor mission. But what I did as a result is I was a training camel. So I assumed I was going to go through a sickness desert. So I tried to stack in some water, AKA training. And I had a great training week. But all of a sudden I didn't get sick and I was kind of like, I need a rest day. Fuck, I'm tired now. I'm so sore. So fortunately, I got through it. I'm healthy. I'm going to go to Shemini, get in some training for the Grindstone 100K. I'm going to be ready to rock. I'm going to be ready to go for the win there, which is going to be really exciting. So this has been a really fun journey. And I am just so excited that we're at nine years now on the, you know, with this year's anniversary. And 13 years since we've met, and I just can't wait for hopefully, you know, dozens and dozens and dozens more of these, unless I like stick my tongue down, down your throat too far. And it doesn't end well for me. So many more Taco Bell dates, but no, I like, I mean, I can't emphasize enough that I was just, I loved you so much for being flexible. And knowing that, like, I didn't have to do anything to please you on, on the anniversary and that, like, you know, hanging out and talk about was enough and just here for the simple things. Except French Kiss Me when you can't breathe through. That wasn't really good. Okay. So we have the best episode for you today, a quick roadmap. We are, might do a new study on energy constraints. We're going to talk about that. A ledville 100 mile race recap and takeaways, such cool things there. A UTMB preview, talk about two performance studies on heat and interval duration, a follow-up on food doping and hot tics. I love all these topics and I love to. I feel like for the last month, we've talked about UTMB in every single episode and food doping. And I feel like the two go hand in hand. So it's this perfect synergy. Yeah, it's a perfect time to talk about it too because races like UTMB are really changing at the front end because of how people are feeling. So yeah, that'll be perfect topic. But before we get to those, quick promo for John G. We just partnered with John G. We are pretty damn obsessed with this company. Go to their website, J-A-N-J-I dot com and use code SWAP SWAP for 15% off. We are so obsessed that I'm going to be a little bit embarrassed if, like, most of the podcast revenue comes from us. We're in need of clothes, right? Yeah. And they have so many good clothes and clearly they know when we're ordering because it's like coming to our address. Yeah. Like, oh, is this embarrassing? Yeah. Is this bad for the environment? Because I kind of want everything. You know it's bad when they gave us some free clothes but it wasn't enough so now we're using our code on top of it. Yeah. Like the primaries of our code is going to be us. Yeah. Is that embarrassing? No, no, Megan. It shows we stand behind. We believe in them so hard. Yeah. And we really believe in their shorts. Their shorts are great. I'm so excited. I got the three-inch. I think it's the multi-short. Yeah. It's incredible. And that has this. So I've never been a huge fan of a split short. Maybe it gets back to my sneezing. I was like, I don't want my quads to take up space. Yeah. But you know what? My quads should take up space. Yeah. Because they're incredible shorts. Yeah. I mean, I think it has a huge split and it's the first time I've ever been confident to wear a huge split. I like it. And I'm so here for it. I'm Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when it comes to my short length. Either I'll go like 10-inch long shorts down to my knees or one-inch shorts. And I really am not going to put me. Yeah. But the meat. You're the short me. You're the Amelia Boone. Yeah. But I think the problem for me is simply I didn't have them. So John Deish changed in my life and I can't wait for it. So use the code swap there. Okay. So first, do you want to talk about this article that just came out on energy constraints? Yeah. Let's do it. I love this article. Yeah. So this is incredibly fascinating piece of science that I think is really important for everyone to understand in the context of some of the food doping and fueling conversations we've had. So this, the title is energy constraints and compensation insights from endurance athletes. And this comes from Herman Ponser and he's been leading the field in terms of evolutionary anthropology. He's at Duke University. Yeah. And he's done a lot of work looking at low energy availability and how you can also think about nutrition, energy availability from an evolutionary anthropology perspective. Yeah. And to me, it's so cool. I had this like weird, weird fascination with evolutionary anthropology in college. And now my two like fields are coming together and it's great. Yeah. And what's really interesting about this day, it's not published until November 2023. So this science is coming to you from the future. From the future. What do you think we're going to know in November 2023? I don't know. How much is AI going to progress? I think we're going to know that Jim Wamsley won the UTMV. Oh shoot. You're throwing your predictions early. I know. I've gotten it in there early, but I really wanted people that tuned out like the end of the podcast before we got there to know that this is the year for Jim. Even though I've no idea what he's doing in training. He's not on strawberry now. Well, in my November 2023, Zach Miller wins. Oh, what? Yeah. Interesting. I know. I'm throwing a curveball into the universe. Total curveball. Okay. So we're just going to talk about this really briefly because it's an interesting topic. And it all relies on the constrained model of total energy expenditure. So what this constrained model indicates is that increased physical activity may not influence total energy expenditure, but instead induces compensatory energetic savings in other processes. You guys can probably relate to this in the context of low energy availability. We've talked about this in endurance athletes where the problem with low energy availability is that when your body doesn't have enough substrate, you'll compensate in other processes to the point that your body turns down the fire on your metabolic rate and all of your life processes, and you adapt less. And where all this really came from is initial Hermann Ponsner studies that were on hunter-gatherers, the has to tribe, and it found that they didn't have substantially higher total energy expenditure than sedentary populations when adjusting for body size. Which would be surprising because like the hunter-gatherers are moving a lot more during the day. And they use that to develop this theory. But the question is does it apply to endurance athletes? And this extension of the theory indicates not as much as some people might have initially thought. And I think that's really fascinating because it's like the body's ability to compensate and adapt is what makes us really cool humans. And it also is what powers athletic performance. But you think of it in the context of not feeling the body enough in just how challenging it is when you start turning down key bodily systems that you need to like, you know, to have high metabolic rates or to perform or to do all these different things. And for me, I think that's really challenging. But the key part I thought of the article was that when you apply this theory to athletes, what they find is that higher activity levels don't necessarily have an additive model in terms of total energy expenditure. So if you, I think so many athletes, and sometimes I feel like even myself, when you think about increasing energy expenditures like activity, you think about that burning progressively more energy as in like a linear fashion. Yeah. But that's actually not the case is that it does tend to blunt as you get up to the higher levels of increased energy expenditure. Yeah, like the cowries in cowries out model or the, you know, based metabolic rate plus cowries burned model is not really the way our bodies work. And I think the point that's really relevant here and the reason that this study is fascinating is because once you start applying it to endurance athletes, you see that yes, maybe it's not a pure additive model, but there is some addition that comes from your training levels to a substantial amount. But you can understand this evolutionarily because what endurance athletes are doing is a massive step beyond anything we've had to do on a consistent basis through evolution. I mean, think about hunter hunting gathering. It's a lot of activity, but not like this. No, nothing like this. Yeah, you're not, you're, you're never doing the Tour de France or UTMB and hunter gathering activity. Or 100 miles a week or even 50 miles a week, it's just a totally different context there. And so what it ends up creating is this context where athletes need to understand that there's a lot more art in how they think about the model of energy expenditure than sometimes we're comfortable with. And for us and for this study, I think what it points out is that yes, that you need to fuel a lot more when you're training. But exactly how much is kind of difficult to understand because as you start to model this out for individuals, it's not just one plus one equals two. It's one plus one equals something less than just a little bit under two. But if you fuel more, you get closer to that two number. And the closer you get to two number, the less compensatory mechanisms the body is undergoing. And the less compensation the body is undergoing, the more you adapt, the healthier you are, the less you're undergoing low energy availability processes. And I think for me it drives some of the point that like really rigid approaches to feeling like I need X number of calories per day in a really specific way day after day after day. I think is really challenging because the body has so much metabolic flexibility and is constantly changing and adapting that I feel like sometimes those really, really rigid approaches often leave athletes like either struggling in many different directions in the long term. And I think it also applies the other direction with like rest days. So a lot of athletes might be hesitant to take a rest day because they're almost concerned that they're the amount of calories they burn, quote, are going to go down. In reality, on a rest day, if an athlete eats a lot, usually that's the time for their metabolic rate to really rebound fully. And you want that rebound? Yeah. And their calories burned actually go up. And so athletes that take the rest days find that their overall like metabolic processes are healthier. And so I mean, I think sometimes the more art you allow to get into the fueling process, the better it is for your mental and physical health because it all comes down to the physical health, you know, parts here. So the big point of the article, and here's a quote, energetic compensation that occurs in the face of high activity expenditure may be primarily driven by low energy availability, i.e. the amount of energy available for all biological processes after the demands of exercise have been met and not by activity expenditure per se. So in other words, what is your limiter? It is the fact that you might not be eating enough during high levels of high activity rather than the activity itself. And if your food is what ends up limiting you, that's the easiest place to get adaptations in training. And I think it's why we're starting to see the food doping conversations be so big, because when athletes do feel enough, their body just lights that fucking fire and is able to optimize within these energy constraint models. And what I really appreciate about this paper is they said exactly that, and they said this explicitly, that they believe that it's the lack of energy appropriate energy intake as opposed to energy expenditure that winds up contributing to these compensatory responses that you don't want in terms of the body turning down base metabolic rate and all these different processes. And so I love that point. I mean, I guess it's a little bit challenging though, because I don't know if they're talking to athletes that are, I imagine if you train like 200 miles per week, there is a point in which like it is the overall energy expenditure that's causing it, because it's a balance, but I think for so many athletes, it's the fact of like not getting enough energy intake, that's really the process that's driving the equation. Yeah, I guess everything here works both ways, because you also take this type of thing and be like, oh well, someone that might be having a different view, does this mean we don't need to fuel as much, because there's energy constraint at the top end, and it's not just like, oh if I burn 3000 calories, I need to eat 3000 more calories, it's a little bit more complicated than that. And our point to that is actually no, because the farther you're able to push the metabolic rate up as an athlete, and it's more just that you have leeway around there that gives, can make this process, I think, more fun, because you don't have to be measuring things, you don't have to be counting things, like one of the things that breaks my heart the most in fueling right now is in the professional cycling peloton. I saw, I didn't talk to you about this, but why not use so, who's a top young rider for Team UAE, which is a side note, the fact that there's a Team UAE. It's like a sport washing discussion. Actually, we might fall up on that later in the podcast, yeah. On sport washing generally, but what he said is that he only has four days a year where he's not counting every calorie he eats. That's tragic, I can't imagine. It's tragic, but also it seems like it totally misunderstands this, this type of science, and I think the point being, look, one I use so is very young, and he's also the reason that he can do that as a cyclist, is because when we talk about the compensation of energetics for cycling, what ends up happening is that they just reach all of their bone density. They get bird bones, essentially, because they are not consuming enough fuel, because they're kind of operating in past understandings of metabolic rate. These cyclists, if they ever tried to run, would probably break within days or weeks, because if they got a Texas scan, their numbers would be so freaking low. What I find fascinating is how we think about the balance of science and art. As someone is navigating the process of coming back to sort of eating or eating disorders, because I think for me, grasping onto the science early on can be really helpful. The body needs this amount of energy. This is the formula, this is the process we're going to follow. It helps to have numbers at first, because I feel like the brain can lock onto that. Athletes especially love in these situations, often left control. They can work through this process. But then I feel like part of the beauty of the recovery process is shifting more towards feeling as an art, and being flexible with feeling and understanding that feeling changes, the bodies need changes, and it's not an equation. I think the more that athletes can have that duality between science and art with feeling, it's super helpful. It's also hard because the idea of feeling the work you're doing can be very complicated. It can be a scientific principle, but it's an art and a science. It can be a very complicated message to send, because sometimes we'll get pushed back on our discussions of feeling. When someone will say, I did this, and my doctor said my cholesterol is really high now, or something like that, and they'll follow up with some things. That's different than our message. Our message is that we want you to eat enough always, but what enough means depends on your history, your genetics, and some of these artistic parts of feeling that really can only be decided by specialists working with you or through your own personal experiences. And the enough is always shifting. I love that, yes, yes. Yeah, but just remember, the big takeaway here is to eat enough always, because as soon as your body starts compensating, you're starting to reduce what you can accomplish. This isn't just about athletics, this is about things like bone health, but most of all, it's about performance. And as we talk about, you know, athletes accomplishing these insane fucking things, it's because they're keeping that fire burning hot. I love that. Throw it all in the fire, including some talk about. Yes, lots of crunch wrap supreme. So actually, control the amount of crunch wrap supreme. I do love myself some talk about, but that's more of like a, let's say a once a week thing. Not an everyday thing. I could get down for once a week talk about, we're not even there yet. Yeah, yeah. Okay, do you want to talk about the level 100? Let's do it. Oh, my gosh. So much inspiration from the level 100. We have like so many good running things going on right now. The level 100 world championships on the track, which maybe we'll cover next week. And you TV. It's like all the goodness. It's so good. And level 100 is one of the most iconic races in the sport and across any sport really. It was one of the first races that has been out there. It's a particularly hard course, but in a very unique way. So almost the entire race is above 10,000 feet elevation. Anyone who's ever been up there knows it's hard to just operate up there. Let alone perform at a high level. And there's hope pass in the middle of the race, which is this gnarly climb. What is hope pass elevation gets up to 13 right? Vert around there. Yeah, something. So you're getting up high. And the only way they can even stock the hope pass eight station is with llamas. And I feel like that says something about the race. It also says something about the race direction that they go so far as to recruit llamas to help bring potato soup up to hope pass. I think it's very cool. I love this quote. The llamas are the engine that makes everything go. It says the race races volunteer coordinator. They are integral for the entire race. Well, can you imagine if you're prone to hallucinating and all of a sudden you come up hope pass and there's just some llamas hanging out? Yeah, it must be an interesting mind. It's a good question. Do the llamas stay up there? Or do they just supply the AC? So they're up there during the race? Okay, I got very curious about the llamas. So I went down the Google rabbit hole and there's so many pictures of llamas just like in the background of the runner's photo bombing. Yeah, I love that. I'm all about the no drama llamas. So these are like the no puke llamas. Yeah, well they have to carry. They make this like complicated potato soup. The and tons of water and fuel and the llamas are hauling all up there. Yeah, so as to zoom out with this course generally, the first 38 miles or so are a lot of road running, a lot of trail running on dirt roads. So with some elevation, but the main difficulty is the fact that it's a really high altitude. And altitude is interesting because I don't think every single altitude day plays similarly. So there's things like altitude density and heat. And I feel like sometimes at high altitude, some days just play much harder than others. Yeah, and this year was a very hot year. It got up to 80 degrees. 80 degrees at these elevations is like being on the surface of the fucking sun. So after they get to twin lakes that around 38 or so, they go up and down, up and over hope pass and then back up and over hope pass. So this is a climb that is like many, many thousands of feet and then you go down it, then you come back up it and then you go down it. So you can imagine what happens when you get to see every other racer, which is really interesting to see the race unfold while you're in the race. But to your quads get fucking mangled because you're going down these big mountains, not just up them. Were you about to say that your quads got mansplained? You're like, you're like, you're like, man, yeah. Yeah. They man spread it. The course, actually the course Matt kind of man spreads at that point with like elevation profile, the big V out there. It's pretty rough. Actually, Leadville would be a dream course for you. I mean, your hemoglobin in the matter could are so high. Yeah. I feel like it's the type of running that you, it's a relatively fast course, aside from the fact that it's at such high altitude, would you do it? I think I would. I think that would be really fun. Maybe if I don't do Western states next year, I can do Leadville. Ooh, I'm excited. Just teasing it out there. Going to get groovy with the llamas up there. There's even more benefit. The fact that there's cuddly animals at the top of the mountain. You're going to give a woohoo to the llamas. Actually, the out and back and hope pass, you would inspire a lot of people. That would be great fun for me. Yeah. But then you can imagine where the difficulty comes. So after hope pass, you have those same 38 miles, a lot of uphill to Leadville, a lot of it in the dark after you've been in heat. It can just be a brutal day that really slows down in the second half. And so that's the context for this legendary iconic race. And the main reason, and the main thing we wanted to highlight, was Jackie Freaking Manhard, who won this race in an ultimate lifelong dream. It was so exciting. And you've coached Jackie now for several years. Jackie lives in Boulder. And so we get to see her all the time. I actually was in jury duty with Jackie. We spent a good number of hours just thinking about the perils of Jerry and Jerry duty together. And she's a great person. I couldn't be happier. Did you have any takeaways after you got to hang with her in jury duty? Well, I know takeaways about Jerry duty, but big takeaways about Jackie that she was incredible. Yes. I've had that same experience. So I'll see her often on the trails running. And when I see her, we just do our usual smile laugh thing. And after a while, she just started dabbing. We're head down to her foot. Like this little dance. Every single time I see her, just to try to make me laugh, which is so much about her personality. She's a mom of two. She picked up running again in her 30s after some adversity when she was younger. And to me, the most significant thing going back through some of her initial emails was in the very first email she said about long-term goals. She said her pie in the stride sky dream goal was to maybe one day try for running 100 miles. I have goosebumps right now. When she won, I messaged her. And I was like, Jackie, that performance inspired so many people. Because I feel like Jackie has, and people don't get to see the behind the scenes work that she's done. It's been like day in and day out. And she's had a ton of adversity too. And the process that has had to come to like a slightly different journey in terms of training my own approach. And we'll get into that into a second. But I feel like the ability to dream, to like go for it and to dream this big. And she went out super fast at the race too. And so many elements of this. I'm like, Jackie, you're going to inspire people. So make sure, sign up for a Patreon if you can't or at least go to our Patreon to see the video of her finishing, which I'm going to post today. You can see all of this emotion welled up from so many years, probably decades long before I was in the picture, that just come out in this primal screen after she processes that she just crossed the finish line in one by nearly two hours. In this huge breakthrough, like I saw a few race previews that didn't even include her in it. And it points out what is possible when you give yourself the chance. And so what we want to talk about on the podcast that I think is really relevant is her training. Because it is different than you might have heard. So often we'll get messages sometimes even from other coaches that are like the only way to train for a hundred miles is to do wild training volume to like bear your body. We talked about this in the UTMB training context a few weeks ago. And Jackie did anything but that partially constrained by some of her history. So in just the last few years, she's had a couple of stress fractures in her femur. And we learned that with large amounts of mileage, these risks mounted up. Have you seen any of that associated with vert? Interestingly, I think femur or femural next stress fractures often a lot of vert can be a contributor to that. Have you modified vert at all? Well, now we just modified mileage in the way we distribute it. And not trying to stack vert every single day. Because yes, it both came after really high vert little blocks. And you know, the problem with those stress fractures were not necessarily the setbacks. Because one of those happened this year, which you can imagine. It's kind of amazing that she's come back this year. Really? Yeah. Yeah, early this March or so. But the thing is, it kind of reinforces these ideas about self-doubt and fragility and all of these things that everyone faces when they're going through injury. It's like, am I cut out for this? Am I honestly enough in this process? Like, am I set to be an athlete? And so we had to go back to the drawing board and figure out how can we do these types of events that lift your soul up while still staying healthy? And that created a training style that I think basically anybody can do. And yes, you might not get the results of Jackie, but it shows what is possible in this sport without destroying your body. How did you structure that in terms of like, walk me through what a typical training week would look like for her in terms of miles per week. And then how you're layering and cross-training to help offset some of that mechanical load. So it's super simple. Honestly, I think for those that have seen traditional swap weeks, it looks a lot like that where usually it was five days a week running. So one full rest day, three days of running with a workout on the middle day, sometimes doubles of uphill cross-training or biking, one bike day after those three days and then two days on trails. In total, it added up generally to 40 to 55 miles of running per week plus a bike that was usually around 30 miles. Lots of hill strides, controlled speed workouts, sometimes overload weekends where we would do something like 20 miles one day, 16 miles the other day. So some of those back to backs, but really it rested on the recovery processes, emphasizing the recovery element of training over the stimulus part of training, the stress part of training. Because Jackie lives a busy life, she's a mom of two, this isn't just someone that is sitting around all day. Her life has enough background stress in it that her stress bucket was plenty full with this training approach. How did you structure her speed workouts in specific, were you doing them mostly on hills, kind of offload some of that mechanical stress? Yeah, so you nailed it, lots of hill workouts. And that's a good lesson, I think, for everybody that has some sort of injury histories, transition a lot of your workouts to up hills. Because there's no impact, you get a lot of all the aerobic benefits, all of the muscular benefits. You might not get quite all of the biomechanical like neuromuscular parts of running really fast, but you don't need that for altres. Yeah, especially when you're talented like Jackie. So, you know, she did one hill workout a week, long runs that sometimes had harder tempos, uphill. And then the rest of it was just, you know, getting week to week, trying to stay healthy, and then really responding to any sort of stress or setback. So, within the taper, she probably rested half of the days in the last 14 days. Just because it was like, she had a little bit of a niggle in her adductor at one point, she had a little bit of an ankle sprain. And it pointed out to me, these tapers can be really chill too. I think sometimes we focus so much on stress in training that we forget that like, the stress buckets fill at different levels for different people. And once it's full, you've got plenty of stimulus. Like, if you're a parent or if you're working a busy job or if you're just the type of person that deals with a lot of stress, you can adapt to the very top level your physiology is capable of at lower training volumes. And I think for me, what I'm so impressed with is knowing all of this. And I don't think Jackie has necessarily had. I would define this as a major breakout race. Oh, for sure. You get the race history and like, we talked before the race actually. And you were asking about who's racing it's up. And I talked about Jackie. And like, I think she can win. And even me, as I said that, I was like, wait, why do I think that? And I went back and I was like, she can win. I know it, but why? Yeah. You know, it wasn't necessarily something you'd see in her previous results. Or possibly even like in her progression or in this mileage. How is a coach and how is an athlete? Does she navigate that and then goes out so fast and races so hard? And I think sometimes like, you just have to take the freaking leap and go out and race hard and find what you're capable of. But was that the plan? I mean, it was the plan. So we talked the day before and actually got to talk to her a whole crew because they're in the car waiting for I think probably an Airbnb or something to open up. And I remember being like, you know, it's time to shoot the shot. And she's like, yeah, it is. And she's just this beacon of enthusiasm and joy and life that she gives to everyone. In fact, so many messages from people in the course saying like, wow, she just had so much joy for everyone else out there, classic story. And she, you know, she asked though in that conversation, she's like, you know, I know everybody else is training a lot more than I am. Like, or do you think like this is a bad thing? And I was just like, Jackie, you can be confident. Yeah. She's done the work. And that was all I think she needed to hear to validate the fact that shoot her shoot. And Jackie is a shooter. And she just went out there and drained one from the three point line. I mean, she went out and raced. She raced within the like top two early on and then from there and never looked back. And this was what's were so fast. They were so fast. Actually, even you, you're a little overwhelmed. Yes. What? This is so fast. This is so fast. What is happening? Okay. So a few different lessons here for everyone to take away. The first is that training volume in general is overrated, particularly for developed athletes. Jackie is obviously insanely talented. But, you know, the idea that an athlete can excel off of, I was looking at her Strava. She'd average 33 miles per week in the last four weeks before this race before that is probably in the 40s or low 50s. You don't need to stack up huge numbers as long as the stimulus is right for your body. And you're doing things like health strides, quality work, cross training, things like that, understanding your stress bucket, not comparing yourself to other people's buckets. Because as you do that, you're starting to just like work off of totally mismatched histories and backgrounds. I love the point of not comparing buckets. Yeah. Don't put that bucket on Instagram. Yeah, embrace your own bucket. Yeah, right. The bucket's perfect. Yeah, let your bucket shine. Yeah, your bucket. Well, I think, okay. Other key takeaway I think is the idea of just going out a little bit faster than you typically would in seeing what happens. I think this is like a key thing that's playing out in Roltrus, but I think specifically for women. I think, I mean, I don't know if it's, I'm actually, here's a theory. Yeah. So women often are better at pacing. We've seen that time after time and studies and studies and studies. But I also wonder if that psychological mechanism and perhaps some of it is physiological too, that makes women better at even pacing, is also holding us back too. Interesting. So I think, I think go for it and see what happens. It's kind of like the sneeze example that you're talking about. Yeah, exactly. You're a little dainty sneeze. Whereas the every single man I've ever met does a sneeze that will like rock the rafters. Yes. Exactly. Like let out that big rowing sneeze. Go for the pacing. Like open your, be it, man spread your legs. Okay. The motion Megan just made as she said, open your legs. She is like clearly open. I don't know what you were opening, but it wasn't necessarily like everything, my soul. It was definitely something in the middle section of your body. That is my soul. That is your soul. Perfect. Wonderful. But yes, I totally agree. And that's one thing that I'm thinking about with UGNB, that's really difficult, is cupped up. Telling athletes how you go out. And what we started to see, I think it races, whether it's Western states, Redville, I think we're going to see it again at UGNB ahead, is that athletes on the women's side that go out faster end up finishing relatively high up in the field. Yep. So I think it's partially what you said, perhaps. But my big theory for why this is is related to fatigue resistance. So athletes that have really high fatigue resistance or durability as some of the research calls it, in general, what we've seen in our data is that they don't fade as much even when they go out too fast. That there's a certain amount of ability to buffer that fade that is able to sustain faster starts. So my theory for that would be that a lot of women generally have better fatigue resistance and the data we've gathered. And I think in studies too, there was that one study that measured how athletes recover from five Ks that we talked about a few weeks ago, where women measured much better than men. So I think women can sometimes be rewarded for going out faster without as big of a fade, even if they do fade some. Whereas men, if they have lower fatigue resistance, people like me might see a little bit more of running into a wall effect. So I think big lesson is, especially for our female listeners, put yourself out there, go out a little faster, see what happens at the edge, and then you can learn in a just for your next one. Exactly. And I feel like that learning and adjusting. But if it doesn't work out, it also doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't the right decision for you. Or that you can't sustain it in the future, just ultra sometimes are cruel and have a lot of variables in them. And so I think be willing to take that risk again, even if it doesn't work the first time. Maybe if it doesn't work the third or the fifth time, start thinking about it. But keep shooting. Keep shooting. Follow me once. Shame on you. Follow me twice. Shame on you. Follow me three times. Shame on you. Trump. Shame on Obama. Number five. I'm not changing. Shame every time. We're thinking we're going all down the list because I'm not going to get to myself until I get to shame on 1000. I'm going to go out too fast every single time. And final big lesson I think from Jackie is the mindset power. Like, you know, at no point in the process, did she cut herself down? Like, you know, she understood that what she was doing was her risk and that she was going to go out there and take a shot. And she understood that it wouldn't go great in some of the simulations, right? Like if we ran this race a hundred times, she would not win a hundred times with this mindset. Neither would Courtney and Walter. Honestly. Actually, Courtney and Walter. Yeah. You made me pause for a second there. Yes. I agree. I do agree with that. But I've learned in the past that I'm not allowed to ever say anything about Courtney that isn't she is going to dominate all worlds. Yeah. I actually, I get various, I start to sweat a lot if we start talking about statistics and Courtney and Walter. I'm like, it doesn't, it doesn't even make sense. Yeah. For all mortals, you know, the simulation model and the range of outcomes varies a lot. And you know, with Jackie, she brought into it an idea that like she was going to just show up be kind, loving, hyped up person and express that in the race. She used the race as a means of self expression. And in this race, that self expression led to popping the biggest bottle of champagne all over everyone in the crowd after she finished and then again, at the award ceremony. So what I love about the champagne is there's all these pictures of the champagne. And then if you zoom in closer, she's like, pouring it and glugging it down. And then as you zoom in, she's totally missing her mouth. And I love it. I feel so seen because if I had a sip of champagne after finishing a hundred, I would be dead. Like, flat on the ground and I love that she was just pouring it all over her body and miming drinking it. And that's like, go Jackie. I love it. So it's pre-cooling water. Oh, yeah. Durant cooling, ice, post-cooling, champagne. I love, I saw where you're going. I was like, this is so great. Well, actually, Jonas Vinnigo did the same thing. Yeah. At the Torre de France, he was just pouring it out on the side of the road, but he missed a pre-cooling opportunity. Yeah. Or post-cooling. He was during the event. He was, yeah, it was during cooling. Yeah, during the event, you were allowed to dump any sort of alcoholic beverage on yourself. Or if you're Camille Haring, you can have it during, I've heard she does that. So for men, JP Giblin won, we don't know him that well personally, we don't coach him or anything. Actually, we did meet him in a party. Yes. I got very excited to meet JP. I did. And he was a great human. He's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. I saw him on Magnolia Road during the long run last winter. And he had a big beard because he was like winter and he's Colorado guy. And he was so kind and so happy to see me. And I was like, oh my god, this makes me so happy. I'm seeing a celebrity. And it was very cool. The one takeaway I have that's really interesting is there was a video of him at Mile 87, where I showed to you. Can you describe what his running form looked like at Mile 87? Ooh, it was like, the pear pattern is like, the fastest, the fastest, the fastest shuffle without actually engaging his quads. Like a water dancer. Yeah. Oh, like a water dancer on Forex Speed. Yes. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Amphetamine water dancer is what we saw. And I thought it was really interesting because clearly he's adapted his form within the context of some of the long events for when his quads start to shut down. And the takeaway I have for myself and, for athletes is that you have to imagine that once you go into the pancake that these events, your muscle, like distribution and abilities will decrease or change a lot. And so developing in ultra form, what we mean when we say that I think essentially is a form that doesn't over index quad engagement. So think about that when you're running. How can I run without overusing my quads? Because the hips, and glutes, and things like that, they'll always be able to support your stride to a certain extent as long as you don't cramping on the side of the trail like I do sometimes. But the quads will get tired especially after races with hope passing them. And I feel like corny to water is actually a textbook example of this. Like she's a very quiet, pitter-patter of a water dancer form. And it's great. But do you suggest that athletes practice this? Because like this form is naturally going to be a little bit different than you would use in like speed workouts and some of these things. Do you suggest athletes practice ultra shuffle on long runs? Well, I don't, I mean, what we saw with his 210 cadence or whatever it was, I don't think it's something to practice. No, no. Nor an ultra shuffle in the purest sense of the word, like the type of thing you can only do at mouse 60. But I do think one thing to think about is how to engage your glutes as much as possible, which is essentially what we're saying when we're saying deemphasize your quad engagement. Yes, yes. And so a place where I always actually cherish is after I get delayed onset soreness in my quads. So after you run long downhills and then two days later you get so sore. After you're starting to come out of that and you have a little bit of ability to support your weight, it's a great time to think about, all right, I can't really use my quads right now. Can I still go fast? And the answer that I found with myself is often those are my most efficient runs as related to heart rate to pace ratio. And I think part of the reason is it reinforces the fact that I shouldn't just power myself with my quads. Those muscles fatigue way more rapidly. And so as you're thinking about forum, think about slight forward lean, quick cadence, as you land, not landing with a bent knee, landing with slightly more straight leg, but not fully straight. Those types of cues can really get athletes to start working on their glutes. And then the forward lean becomes especially important on uphills, that's how to really get your glutes going. I really feel seen when you use that example of your best forum being when you have doms because you're actually really good at body recognition or responding to forum cues. I mean, I'm atrocious and I need my muscles to be pummeled to actually engage another muscle. It's the only way they can be able to engage my glutes is if my body is so trucked I can't use anything. Yes, you can't really use forum cues. No, I don't understand what's wrong with my brain. I have never, even as a field hockey player, I was a very coachable athlete, but everyone wants them out, people get really frustrated with me because sometimes I just couldn't turn it on. I couldn't turn on my brain to engage a part of my body in this very specific way. Yeah, I love it. Whenever we talk about running forum, part of me is just like, oh, I don't know if Megan's ever going to internalize any of this unless we do something like that. No, I internalize it and I believe so hard, but it doesn't fire anywhere. You know how we've talked to you about like, like higher cadence, let's say, or like, you know, shortening your strides slightly, maybe what we need to do is just get like an exercise band and put it around your legs. It's just required to keep it short. I need physical strength constraints, but here's the thing is like once I lock into a movement pattern, I can do it forever. But it just, it takes my brain an extra second. I don't know what it is. Yeah. I mean, I do feel like, I mean, I'm pretty, I think I'm naturally a pretty good athlete, but I have. You're actually one of the best athletes on the planet and you were, I mean, you were one of the top recruits in the country and field hockey top athletes in the world. I want to make sure that that's clear. Yeah, but it took, like, it's interesting. Yeah. I don't, I think I've forced my way there and I think I had, there's a reason I was like on the Olympic track and I was, I've knew like within junior, probably, no, actually I knew within my sophomore year of college, I was like, that's not happening. Yeah, I'm going to do Olympics and field hockey. And I think I knew for a particular reason. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. You want to be coachable. Yes. But something in your brain makes you extremely. I believe so hard, but there's no connection sometimes to my brain and my muscles. Yeah. So that's the final takeaway from Leadville is as much as you believe you're not going to always have Jackie Mannhard finishes, that's like, I mean, for me as a field hockey player, I was like, I believe so hard in myself. Yeah. I see the Olympics and I am not going there. And then you know, it was actually really validating to know that. And give yourself the chance, though. Like, exactly. Yes. You know, you gave yourself the chance you rise. It wasn't for you. Yeah. Then I went to med school. Yeah. You went to med school. And then eventually you met me. Yes. And then eventually, I want to talk about why I'm on engagement ring that I never used. But to finish that story, what I actually did end up using was, I guess, three years after we met, a ring pop, which was pretty cool. So I proposed to you with carbs, which I'm very proud of. I'm so proud of that. It was delicious. Everyone should propose with carbs. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I mean, like, you can make pasta circles. In fact, like, macaroni and cheese, like, just make it a circle. That's a great thing to propose with. You don't need to use sugar. You can use any type of carb. Well, mac and cheese is probably topical on your brain because I just fed Lewitt for breakfast. Yeah. I think we should have more breakfast pasta meals, and I need to, like, deeply ingrain it in Leo's genetics. Yeah. Yes. But yeah, the Gladville was such a cool, um, raster reflect on a couple other interesting stories before we move on to your TMB preview. Alexi Papas, Olympian on the track, author of the book Bravee, which is one of the best books ever written for running. And she's a book coming out for teens. Oh, really? Yeah. We should try to get Lexi on the podcast. Yeah. We'll see. I'll text her. I'll text her for an hour before Leadville. You should have recruited her. Yeah. You should have been like, girl, if you finished. I don't, I think I think she's a free spirit. Yeah. I don't know if, uh, you, yeah, I think that I would only constrain the spirit that needs to run free in the universe. Alexi's a great. She's done so many good things for female athletes, but she stepped into this race basically last second and had an amazing finish. So congrats, uh, you know, Lexi Papas. She was sitting in fifth for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Impressive. My advice to shoot your shot sometimes works and sometimes makes it a little harder. You did try to go out a little faster, right? Oh, for sure. Well, she's incredible. She's an Olympian. Yes. Yeah. And also it's going to be hard at the end no matter what you do. Exactly. You might as well thank some time. Yeah. I mean, seriously, like in Altra's another point about pacing here, I think sometimes people go out too slowly at every Altra because they think that going out slower will make it easier. Yes. And the point is below aerobic threshold. So if you're already burning primarily fat, um, in your lipid metabolism, going way way, way, way, way below it doesn't necessarily make it easier because you're still going to be under the level of mechanical, mechanical load just for longer. So what I always tell athletes is like, as long as you're going easy, there's no benefit to going super easy, you just end up spending more hours on the course pounding your legs. You're able to, as long as you're able to replace the calories with appropriate fueling, which happens a little bit below aerobic threshold, you'll be good to go. And I think this applies not only if you're going out and like trying to win a race or podium race or get top 10. I think it's especially applies if you're chasing cut offs. Yeah. I think go out a little bit faster than you would expect, bank in some time for yourself. And I think that can be super helpful. Actually, there was a video from Leadville of someone sprinting to catch a cut off and everyone sharing them on. And it was like one of the most uplifting videos and so much magic happens at golden hour. But I think if you're chasing those cut offs, also take, take risks a little bit and see what happens. Yeah. And it's worth celebrating making any of the cut offs like anywhere on the way. So this was at twin lakes at mile 37 or whatever. And the athlete did make it with the best stride I've ever seen. It was so cool. I wish we had that athlete's name. We need to fall up and put it in the show notes. I think it was page something. Yes. So goal page. If you listen page, we absolutely love you. We're so proud of you. That was like the ultimate swap stride. That was like a 430 minute per mile stride to catch that. Can I say something that you did? What? You saw her name and you put it into her email to be like, how she emailed us. Yeah. If you paid to email us, I was going to be like, can we coach you? Because that was the most fun. It was so cool. And so it's dwinded. Yeah. And that's exactly what we want to see in the world. So that was really fun. And then I guess the final little thing here was an adaptive athlete named Jeff Glassbrenner was out there below the knee amputee from the age of eight, which is wild. He's also in it. He's like, he does a lot of extreme sports. He's done Everest. He was a, he's a like all star basketball player. It's so cool. Yeah. And just was so like inspirational to see him out there running, not because he's a below the knee amputee. But because clearly it's just an example of adversity that everyone carries, right? Yeah. So some people carry it in a way that everyone can see. Most people are carrying it in a way that no one can see. And understanding that through him, like I'm imagining, you know, the woman out there who had trauma and her youth of some type emotionally or the, the man out there that, you know, is just going through a divorce or whatever. And is making the best of, you know, this one life we have. And so Jeff, if you listen to, like, we're just so proud of you and so excited for where your future is going. You're incredible. I'm not, not because of, you know, the constraints you were given, but because of how much you have taken up space and owned, you know, this process of your athletic journey. Dude, that was beautiful. I'm not even going to tag that. Oh, I was, I was listening and I was, that was very captivating to me. Also, science. The science of that seems really interesting to me. I want to learn a little bit more about prosthetics and altering. Yeah. Well, actually, I was really interested in physical medicine and rehab. It's like a field and medicine and it's wild to, like, all the amounts of care that goes into taking care of a, of a prosthetic device and it's, it's really interesting. Yeah. And so if you're out there and you're dealing with something, which is basically everyone on the planet, being human, yeah, physical or emotional or, you know, related to your history or your future or whatever, let's think about Jeff and just remember that, like, we can go for it. We can go for it any time and it can be, like, such a life-defining thing, no matter how it ends. You don't have to be Everest or Leadville. No, yeah. It can be a 5K. Like, and that is... Or cool too. Yes. It's fucking depressed. It can be just getting up and going through a day, like one foot in front of the other in it when it feels like that's impossible. Which is ultimately how you get to Leadville, but that can be your Leadville too. Yeah. Like, yeah, exactly. Boom. Bricks in the wall. Hey, hey. High five. Okay. On to UTNB preview. Our next podcast will be from Shemini. Do you think so? We're getting in there, like, late the night before. Maybe we should pre-record. No. Okay, we're coming to you from Shemini next week. Can you have the energy in our loins, Megan? As you opened your soul just a few minutes ago, we need the energy to come out of there and just emanate into the world. I love that. Well, we have no childcare in Shemini, so we only doing it while Leo naps. What's what we're doing right now? On an interresh. Well, he's going to... His naps schedule is going to be all over the place. I don't care, man. He's going to be on the podcast then. I like your manifesting and dreaming. Let's do it. He's going to be telling everyone that they are powerful dumb trucks. Okay. So tons of big story lines there. I think the biggest one is that UGMB has kind of become the world series, the Super Bowl. I like that I'm using US-based sports example, let's say the World Cup. Yeah, I like that. That's perfect. Of all to running right now. So the races are stacked at every single distance. So UGMB, the 100 mile, or CCC, the 100k, and OCC, the 50k. All are the most competitive races in the world. Maybe OCC is competitive with like, Sears and all, and the short distance, but everything else, by far more competitive than anything else in the planet. It's truly wild. If you're racing at the competitive level, it can be kind of overwhelming. How do you, for my athletes, I'm like, just don't get so bogged down into it. Also, I feel like so many of the startless, I feel like I feel like 25% of people on the startless generally wind up not showing up to the race. Yeah. I think it all comes down to running as an individual sport and you should focus on yourself. Well, you're still as a root for competition too. Yeah. Like, you should root for people to be there. And that's like the new thing I've been telling athletes is stand on that starting line, excited to get better by the people around you. Yeah. And you don't even control that. That's true. It's all quite controllable. And so understanding that these other athletes being there is a chance to excel with people, not against people. Yeah. And that's what part of what makes it so special. It wouldn't be UTMB if there was three competitive athletes on the starting line. It's the magic of this race and the magic of the event is that everyone's there. Yeah. And so it's something to embrace. And so for UTMB, women's race. Can we do it? Let's do a preview. Should we do like an athlete by athlete? I don't think we can do that. We can't do all the athletes. I think let's preview like some of the top athletes. And then let's save CCC for next week, because that sounds good. We'll also get into a little bit of like the broader scope of sports and how that relates to UTMB. So first, Courtney's doing UTMB. I'm so excited. Oh my god. I bet on Courtney. Yeah. Well, I do always. But also, I think that some athletes will be coming out swinging in this one, so I'm excited to see. I know. I don't want to give anything away about it. If you're going to come swinging at Courtney to author, you'd best not miss. Yeah. So maybe the way to say it is that it kind of gets again, what I was saying earlier about going with people. They're bunting. They're not swinging. They're bunting. Yeah. Yeah. Drag bunting down the line. So Courtney's doing it. Ruth Croft is doing it, who won Western states. She's got some serious wheels on her. Actually, I love. She just posted an Instagram. She did 27 kilometer race. And she's like, I'm running hard now, so I can hike. Do a full hike race later. That's so true. The Esther Silag, who was just third at Western states is doing it. You just started coaching her. This is really exciting. I'm so pumped. She's delightful. Absolutely delightful. I don't know if... Also a crusher of a human. I don't know if people realize how unstoppable she is and how she's just scratching the surface of her potential. So watch out for Esther. No more pressure on her. Leah, if you could, she's doing it. I'm so excited for Leah. Leah. The yingling. Leah yingling. She's Leah's had an incredible two years at Western states. I think UT&B's, of course, that suits her really well. Yeah. She's tough and adaptable and versatile and great hiker, so I'm really excited about this. I think Esther and Courtney all coming back from Western states. Courtney's coming back from Western states and Hard Rock. It's a little bit of a different story. But I feel like coming back from Western states this year, we've talked about this on other podcasts, is actually easier. Western states was not hot this year. We're seeing our athletes rebound so much faster this year after Western states. It's just kind of... It's playing like another 100 mile race. So true. And then you have a wild list. You have Blanding. One Lynn, her and Drell. I missed up that name a little bit. Do you know how it pronounced it? Blanding layer on a Dell, I think. Oh my God. I don't know. I at least rolled it a little bit. We just say, we always just say Blanding. She's just on a single name basis. She is the Shakira of this podcast. And we do talk about Blanding a lot in this household because she's a two-time troll world champion. Yeah. And this is our 100 mile debut. So not an easy course for a 100 mile debut, but Blanding, she's kind of like Courtney, you don't work against Blanding. Yeah. And then Martina. She's tough as nails. Martina Valimosey. Yeah. She's first 100 mile for her as well, but she also did TDS, which I feel like that counts a lot of her. Yeah. And while you can go down the list, and I think there's like 70 people that are, you know, ranked very, very highly in the international ranking system that they have. It's so well, but I think Martina is going to be my, I think she's going to be my dark horse to win. Oh, interesting. She's incredible on technical terrain. She was just fourth at the troll world championships in June, and she's got a really impressive resume. Yeah. You know, the hard part about U-TNB especially is that it is really a crapshoot. It's a total crapshoot. Yeah. And that gets back to maybe some of the preview elements of this more generally is that it's such a difficult race. It starts at 6 p.m. the mountains are so severe. It's not like Western states where in general, you can lay out predictions and be close to it. Outside of maybe a few people on the podium, it's always a surprise how the rest of it shakes out. Because at the end of this race, there's just humongous carnage across the board. In fact, there was a study done at U-TNB that found what predicted how athletes did was their downhill running ability in the second half of the race. And the people that performed best were able to maintain some of their downhill running ability. And what it points out is that this is the one place where your upills are basically going to be slow no matter what by the end. Well, there's this equalizing factor of everyone's hiking. Yeah. Some people are great at hiking and that helps, but the downhills are really the game changer. Yeah. And so you don't know exactly how different people's bodies are going to respond. You can just go on past history and I don't know vibes. Yeah. I'm definitely not going to make predictions for U-TNB other than to say, Esther is a beast. And everyone should take notice. Total beast. I agree with you on that. But I think what makes U-TNB so hard is that it is a crapshoot. And I think sometimes when you're over there and embedded in the culture of shemini, it doesn't feel like a crapshoot. And you have to dedicate, like, in order to do well at shemini, most athletes now are over there for a month or two training on the course, getting familiar with the train, and you invest so much in a crapshoot, what happens if it doesn't go well? I mean, that's the nature of sports. It's life. And I think that's why the internal journey must be at the forefront of all of this, because sports is all about adversity. If you do any sport, whether it's running or pickleball or baseball or whatever, you're signing yourself up for numerous failures that you wouldn't have otherwise. That's the whole thing about sports. Otherwise, you don't fail if you don't sign up. And so the nature for all these athletes, I think, needs to be how do they respond to that? And that gets to the headliner of the men's previews, Jim Wamsley. So he's come to UTMB many times with his eyes set on winning this race. And he hasn't won yet. And in some eyes, that could be a failure. I don't think it is. I think that's just... Oh, definitely not a failure. Yeah. And he's done well there. Also, I love that there's so many... I don't know the number, total number of athletes going into UTMB, how many athletes race UTMB? Like thousands. Thousands. So many. Yeah. Well, I love that if you're not number one out of thousands, that it's, like, some people consider that a failure. It's like, do you realize? And he's, he's had amazing races there before. Yeah. And also, I just think like, I don't know, a lot of people win in our depressed. Is that a win? Or is that, you know, what is that count as in our big scheme or whatever? So, you know, with Jim, like, he's not on Strava right now, which is really interesting. It's really sad to me. I liked when Jim was on Strava. I'll see who's training ever in France. And where he was, there were so many like, roach things that would pop up, now it's like, maybe, maybe he thought of us. It's true. Definitely not. I think every time he saw Roach, ROCH on something in France, he was just like, uh, David and Megan, I'm never going to be on their podcast. I'm never going to say yes to their invites. Um, but also, you know, like, I don't want, you know, to, I'm trying to figure out how to land this joke, plane joke, this joke of a plane, something like that. So here I am. So he just imagined me in a plane right now, not knowing how to fly. Like, you know, I, I'm just not huge on looking at pornography. And so Jim not being on Strava makes it a little easier since that's some Strava porn. Oh, it's some Strava porn right there. And the plane, or that's a little rickety. Actually, I saw an NPR. There's a stat that actually planes get wildly close to colliding with each other more often than we know. And as you were going about that, I'm like, my plane's going to collide with your plane as I, like, interfere with this joke. So Jim Strava porn is no longer at the top of my search bar. I don't need to do safe search all the time. But I'm really curious to see what happens because since we're kind of in the dark about what Jim's doing, is that a superpower for him? Does it mean that especially with Killian absent due to the sacral stress fracture, is Jim going to be able to approach it differently, or is it going to be unfold differently? I mean, I don't know if there's, I mean, I think a lot of those narratives that we put on to these things are not really relevant in the big scheme of how the race actually unfolds. It's just after the fact we, you know, use post-tock justifications for it. But I'm curious to see. Yeah. What's happening to our goats? Killian out. Actually, you just called it a sacrum. Yeah. I was a sacrum. I was looking at sports. Sometimes they'll say he's out with a knee. He's out with a hamstring. And I'm like, I really like that. Something is, you know, on our podcast, I'm just out with a brain. Yeah. It's not appropriate. I very much feel that. I totally get that. Actually, yeah. Being out with a brain is a very real thing. Yeah. Yeah. We should normalize that more. But no, he is out with a sacrum. And I, as a bone trust injury researcher, I was like, what does this mean? Yeah. And so Killian is not going to be there. It's going to be really interesting. But Tom Evans will coming off of a Western states wind. We know Tom Evans is the ultimate food monster. He's able to eat 120 to 130 grams of carbs per hour. He's revolutionizing the field of food doping. Yeah. And I think he's pushing it forward for every other male athlete. Because athletes are seeing him be really open about what he does. And then they're doing it. So it's interesting because I was glimmenting about this a little bit last week to you. I was like, okay, we're talking about all this food doping now of like eating a lot during races and really helping you. Are we messing up some of the advantage we've had over the years because we've been preaching this for so long. I'm like, is it getting to the point? And I saw an athlete that our athletes compete with talking about the swap podcast and it was like, fuck. Thank you. This is good. They know how much food he eats. Yeah. Or just to eat more. I think they should. And it makes me worried that like, are we leveling the playing field? I know. I worry about that everyone's not like going talk about strides and stuff. Yeah. But you have to believe to listen. And the cool thing is there are some coaches out there that hate us so much. Which is a good thing actually. Yeah. Every time I see that, I'm like, thank you. The more you hate us, the better. Yes. That's good. But, yeah. But I'm so excited for Tom Evans though. Yeah. I mean, third, last year coming off after Western States, who do you think Tom Evans versus Jim putting you on the spot? Oh, Jim. I'm always, I'm team Jim, Jim, all the way forever through the rest of my life. That porn will never, that sustains me. Just the memories of it. Do we know what his injury was? It's been, he didn't say anything like, knee, brain, secret or anything like that. I don't know. Actually, I heard an angle at one point. Maybe I'm pulling that out of that. Yeah. He has such great training in his history that almost no matter what he's done in this build, I'm going to be betting on him. Yeah. I think much like our discussion of Jackie, you know, he's bringing in a lot of talent. He's bringing in a lot of training history. You combine all those things and he set up perfectly. Well, actually, I'm going to go against that and say, Zach Miller. So we had someone write in as a hot take that Zach Miller was going to be the first American to win you. Okay. Do we need to credit that? That is a listener. That is a listener hot take. No, no, no, no. You're adopting their hot take. That's unfair. So far as to spread the mission. Okay. You're woman spreading onto their hot take. Yeah, exactly. You're opening up over their hot take. I'm bringing Zach Miller out inside and out into the universe. Remember when we talked about starfish that just like put their stomach over top of mullisks? Yes. That's what you're doing to their hot take and then you're opening their hot take. I should know. So I'm doing a Zach Miller. Just kidding. He's a great guy. I love Zach. He's also amazing at fueling during races. And around races. Yeah. That dude, he eats so much. And it's very impressive. It actually totally aligns with what we've talked about when we were on the world team with him truly. It opened my eyes because this was right as we started coaching Zach would house. And I think a lot of people have seen him do this house a quantity of food that was like shocking at the time. And now I'm like, oh, this makes sense because the training that Zach is able to do rests on the ability to fuel his body like that. And so I love that pick also from the fueling your body point of view. So I like the Zach Miller pick. My other pick is Matthew Blanchard. Okay. I was six this year at Western State, second last year at UTMV. He pushed Killian. He pushed Killian. And I feel like he's got that UTMV knowledge. He's got the swag of pushing Killian. I think he's both French and he's like French Canadian, I believe. Oh, those are so good. That's a good combo. The Canadian is like such a strong attribute to have. And then the French is so strong at UTMV because like the French people crush it there. It's pretty intriguing. I do like that pick too. And do you want to hear my dark horse? Yes. Paukipel. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But he had knee surgery. People aren't necessarily picking him. So yeah, I feel like it's kind of unfair to call anyone a dark horse. We believe in people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm always going for Scotty Hawker. He's there. He's podiumed before also in 2019. He's a beast. His training is all incredible. Everything's dialed. I'm obviously biased, but watch out for him. And final American bias, Tim Tulson. Okay. Yeah. Last year he had COVID. He struggled a little bit at UTMV before. But he has two podiums there. Two podiums exactly. And I think he's going to put it together and come back and rally and believe. And I'm excited. I love it. Okay. So let's do a little zoom out on UTMV. Thinking about the race more generally. We'll talk about CCC a little bit next year or next week, perhaps. But it's really interesting from a business perspective. How the UTMV brand has kind of like, you know, I was just talking about the starfish. It's extended its stomach and just walloped up the whole sport. Yes. But it's actually not even UTMV. You have to say dossier by UTMV now. Yeah. You have to be a sponsor. Interesting. I mean, that's interesting. But then like, you know, thinking about what that means more generally that, you know, corporations are now investing in this thing because it has grown so much that the reach is so high that it actually does accomplish something for a bigger brand, which is interesting to think about in running. So my question for you is as UTMV gobbles up all these races around the world, they have essentially their series has made it so that, you know, the all of the races that are by UTMV are prominent, get full startless, and maybe some other races, are they struggling or are they not? We don't really know. Do you think it's a good thing or a bad thing for the sport? I think honestly, it's a good thing. I mean, I think there are some inherent policies of UTMV that I like still struggle with. But I think like rising tide races all boats. And I think the excitement surrounding UTMV is bringing a lot into short running. And the more traumas there are, the more inclusion there is, the more that we're like, just getting people out and enjoying the trails the better. And I think UTMV does accomplish that. And I think there's inherent challenges with it too. But I think my overall take on it is that it's a plus. How about you? I totally agree. And I love that take. I mean, for the same reasons that our whole goal in trail running should be, I think, to raise the denominator. Yes. The number of people that are getting out there in the world, not just because it's a great sport for everyone, but because that will do things like support inclusion, as long as we're, you know, leading the way with this is a space for everyone. And it stays at the forefront. And UTMV's actually been quite good with some of their inclusion policies and things like that. They have room to grow, but they added a pregnancy deferral policy. They have a good policy as I understand it with how they're developing, you know, transgender inclusion rules and non-binary athlete rules and things like that. And as it becomes visible, like visibility is the key to, you know, athletes doing it. Like availability bias is something that we're all facing and understanding that this is out there is good. And then those people will take it back to their community. So I also really like it. I do think that there are some concerns with like what it does to the grassroots. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And I think preserving, and I think there's ways that you can, I mean, I think it's impossible to truly have both, but I think there's ways that you can preserve the integrity of this massive growth and draw running and keeping the grassroots vibes too. Yeah. And I think you can have, I mean, I think you can, I mean, I don't think you can fully truly 100% have both, but I think you can get like 96% of the way there. Yeah. Because in the process, there will be winners and losers. Yeah. So like, obviously, UTNB is a big winner. Things that align themselves with UTNB, probably big winners. There will be some losers in terms of like what events fall by the wayside a little bit. But you know, as long as, what do you think they will? Like, I think the growth and draw running is only going to support, like even if runners only, like if every runner that got into the sport from UTNB went and did one third of their races that were not UTB-supported races, that's still supporting those races. Yeah. And maybe the idea is that there's always turn in any world, any economic system, any business that, you know, restaurants come, restaurants go. I was going to say, I also don't think it's going to be like this forever. Yeah. And interesting. So with UTNB, yeah. I do. Yeah. I think that at this point from a business, pure business perspective, let's talk about it economically. They've swallowed up so much of the money in the sport that I don't see how it's going away. So let's contrast it with Iron Man, let's say. So also, same, same group. But Iron Man, like the triathlons, the problem with that is just that overall appeal has a cap of like how many people are actually going to ever be interested. Oh, it's expensive. You got to train for three sports. Yes. Yeah. There's many limitations of triathlons. Yes. And running outside on trails does not have those limitations. Yes. Doing UTNB does. But it's running outside on trails is the ultimate human thing. Like as you do it, the reason people listen to our podcast is they feel that in themselves, even if they're going out for a half mile hike on trails, like they feel that. So I don't think we have the same caps. And as you do that, so you have a money sink, like a gravitational force for the money. And the money coming in doesn't really have a stop. Like, I mean, I think we could argue what that growth rate looks like, whether it's exponential or linear, or it starts to level off slightly. But that money sink is going to keep bringing everything around it. It's going to be a little bit of a plot hole for that. And that's where my only concerns lie is that, like, does it like drown out the ability of other things to compete with it? Is it a monopoly? Yeah. And exactly. Yes. And once you have a monopoly for this. Do you think it's a monopoly? No. And I don't think it is either. Yeah. And I don't think it ever will be. Yeah. But who knows? That's an open question. Yes. And I think that's where place where like the people pushing UTNB is a good thing, in any sense, because when you have monopolies, it's not that necessarily you need to break them up. So that the monopoly can't, like, due to lack of competition, just extend out its stomach and swallow everything and make it worse. Well, I think we're also, I think you're kind of talking about, you're bringing in multiple different things. So I think recently there's been some pushback against the idea that UT, Dacia is now a headlining UTNB sponsorship, which is a little bit of sports washing. So like, in the history of sports. So what is Dacia, first of all? Dacia is a car company. I do not know that. I do not know that. Yeah, apparently we don't know our European cars. I think it was a Romanian car company that was bought by someone and they make pretty cheap cars. And actually, they have an electric vehicle coming out in 2024, but like 90% of their line is gas guzzling cars. Yeah. And so, I mean, right now they're getting pushback on this from, you know, a number of different prominent athletes in the sport, including Killian, including Damien Hall, who we absolutely love. And I'm really fascinated by this because I think on one hand, it's like, okay, corporate sponsorship is a good thing in the sport. On the other hand, climate change is much more important than sports. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think it's great to have people pushing, you know, UTNB in a direction of like environmental consciousness, even as like, you know, part of me, like I haven't signed on to the position personally. Yeah. Yeah. Part of partially for selfish reasons where I'm like, you know, I don't know if I can do that. So would you sign the petition? I mean, it depends. I would need to read like the fine print as like, can you attend UTNB if you sign up petition? Like, can you race at UTNB if you sign up petition? But I think like my initial thought process when I heard this was like, I didn't necessarily totally get it because I, there's so many examples out there of like the Audi Power 4 race. It's a very similar example or like Toyota sponsoring like skiing snowboard races and things along those lines. But the more that I started reading into it, I was like, oh, this stuff actually does matter. And it's funny because my initial gut reaction was like, oh, I don't necessarily understand. Like some of these companies have like electric vehicles, like the companies are going to do their own business. But I did the more that I read about like high carbon sports washing and the idea that like, I think I became more in tune with it and more in tune with the idea that we need people that are pushing the front of environmental advocacy. And that's really important. And I think I would put my money behind where my mouth is on that. Yeah. I mean, it's tough. I think every time that climate activism runs into the realities of capitalistic society, we end up having to make uncomfortable trade-offs. Yeah. And I say this as an environmental lawyer and environmental specialist that has thought a lot and been, you know, part of some of these, the tentacles of capitalism hence the tentacles and not just capitalism of economics of growth of industrialized society, which is not just a capitalistic thing, that's everything, and touch every element of our lives in ways big and small. And so sometimes I feel like a car company is somewhere between big and small. It's like a medium-sized way it touches our lives. Something like live golf where Saudi Arabia is like a much bigger way. But then there's tons of small ways where, you know, our environmental decisions and the things we're putting our money behind might not necessarily be like the categorical imperative we want for the entire future of the world. And the hard part becomes where do you draw the line between living your life and enjoying the time you have on Earth versus like, you know, making these decisions of sacrifices and trade-offs. And that I do think is a personal decision because my big point is there is a place with environmental advocacy for an individual, like for a personal choice, someone out there listening, where it starts to touch on the amount of meaning someone can get from their life without hating themselves. Right? And I never want someone to hate themselves. And like that's where I love the advocacy and I think it's important because it defines where we're going to compromise. But I don't necessarily think that everyone needs to feel pressure to like live a life that is so pure that it leads them to not necessarily love who they are because it's impossible to be totally pure. Well, I think for me it gets down to openness. Yeah. Open without being perfectly pure. And I think that's like, I think for me like my initial got reaction was like, oh, this is strange. But the more I dive into it, I'm like, oh, this is important. But I also don't necessarily think that that would be the one I take as a human and I think that's okay too. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And I think we'll learn more in the future. Yeah. Yeah. Would you sign the petition? I mean, again, I like your answer. I need to read the fine prints. Yeah. That's perfect. Yes. Yeah. You know, I, it becomes difficult, right? Because there are people out there doing the dirty work. And it's important. And I love this piece. Yes. Yeah. I did that for a while and I stopped. And I feel guilty about that all the time. But at the same time, like I'm much happier now because that life that I was leading was difficult in ways that, you know, weren't necessarily lighting my soul up. And hopefully I can cause a bigger change in the world now. That's where like things like this, I admire them so much. And like it's important and it sucks sometimes as a person to be like, am I just letting other people take the difficulties so that I can live a comfortable life? Well, okay. I have a question for you. Yeah. And I feel like I'm asking a lot of questions this podcast. Sorry about that. But how do you balance? So like, I believe in this cause, like I, and I, I think both of us believe very deeply in environmental causes. But how do you support those without necessary, like how do you, how do you navigate that? How do you draw that line of supporting those without necessarily having to like be a purist in some sense? Does that even make sense? No, it totally makes sense. How does personal choice interact with like the broader scope of the dire straits facing human beings? Yes. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's where I have decided in my life personally that I cannot, I want to do the best I can, but I don't want to worry that every decision I make is causing the university, the plan is to get fucked. Yes. Because if I do that, I do not like myself. Yes. And like, that is not a way to go through life. And I've, I mean, I've heard that that's a huge problem is like climate depression and things like that. Yeah. And anxiety. And this goes for anything, really, you think about politics, like a lot of people now are thinking about the 2024 election and every time they do, they start panicking. And it's like, okay, that's not a healthy way to live life. Even if it's worthwhile and valid, right? And so the way I try to always frame these things is stay present in my senses and what's around me. Make the decisions I can advocate for what I can in this context and hopefully support people that are doing the work. And so, you know, if that means signing petition, I, you know, need to learn a little bit more about it. But I don't know, I, you know, I guess I contain like conflicting feelings on balancing my own personal selfish games of happiness, which are like, ultimately, you know, what I want to do in the world versus like a planet that's livable. And that's where the cognitive dissonance of being a modern human can be such a minehawk. I was just about to say that though is I wonder how many fields, if you truly dive into it, that that type of like deep, deep conflict is just part of being human. Oh, yeah. I mean, I can't think of anything where the, you're totally pure, right? Exactly. And like the question is just how strict do you want to be? And how much is it like truly genuine to how you feel and how much is it like, you know, something that is its own version of greenwashing, right? And so or greenwashing or sport washing, like goes both directions, right? That there's all of this signaling going on. And society is starting is trying to find a balance between whatever, like the pressures are in it, like economic sense usually. And that's why it's something like the position. So great is that hopefully by defining that, you know, that end, the place that we can meet will be one of like, that is optimal for both environment and happiness of people and. And that's beautifully said. And that's why I think we really need to uplift people that are doing the hard, freaking advocacy work. Yeah. Because we need someone to define that end. And that's hard. It's hard to do. It's so hard. Yeah. I mean, you're just going to get a shit ton of heat and also deal with this crap we've been talking about that you're unsure of everything you're dealing with the whole time. And sometimes you don't feel, you know, so great about the own compromises you're making. That's so hard. So so hard. You know what's not hard? Hot takes. So you want to do some hot takes? Let's do it. I'm so pumped. Awesome. Um, here's the first one. I secretly love it when I start a walkers. It means I'm prancing like a show pony, not clumping like a workhorse. Disclaimer. I do say excuse me. And I know it says more about their attention levels than my running form. I totally co-sign on this. I had a day where I was like particularly started like more people than usual. Because no, I was like, you are great. Like have a great day as I was running by and maybe people were just listening to headphones, but I was pumped. I'm really a big fan of startling because I think it's a great form cue. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Run light on your feet. Or like breathe. Breathe. Like sometimes I feel like it's my heavy breathing that turns me and I'm like, and people are like, oh, there's a horse coming behind us. I think that breathing's good. You breathe however you want to breathe, but with your feet, just soft, pitter powder. Like that's where it's at. And I think I'm really good at that. When you talk about with your form, I'm surprised you ever startled anyone. I feel like perhaps they have a heart of hearing and inner ear disturbance or something. They might have some issue. They should probably go see a doctor's what I would say. Okay, number two. This is actually my hot take I put in here. It's not a true rest day if you take a fuck ton of steps. Yes, I agree with you. I've seen people say, oh, it's my rest day and then they'll like report their step total which isn't something many athletes do, but sometimes they do. I don't think 35,000 steps. Like what are you doing in your rest day? That's not the rest day. It's like, what the fuck are you doing? That's like the first part of UTMB. Yeah. I was like, no, it's not a rest day. I mean, great. And rest days don't need to be totally sedentary or whatever. Yes. And some people with their job like can't, and if that's the case, actually, you should probably have another rest day in your schedule. Yeah, or at least redistribute your stress. Exactly. Like Jackie being a good example. Like the reason that she's not doing crazy high volume is because her life has a certain amount of this built in. But as you take rest days, remember, it's not just on the couch all day, be active. But make sure you're not like just doing compulsive movement, like I've seen people with treadmill desks do like 20 miles of walking in a day, and I'm like, perhaps do a lying down desk. Okay. We don't need any more of these walking desks. Okay. I was just going to say my hot take. Treadmill desks are the fucking worst. Yeah. Also, you can't focus on those things. The co-working space that I was going to had a treadmill desk, and I just decided to try it one day out of curiosity. I got 20 minutes and did literally nothing productive. Okay. It was so hard to send emails. It was so hard to communicate. It was really hard to even like look at and scroll social media. I couldn't focus. I couldn't focus for standing desks too. David hot take. Standing desks are dumb. We're athletes. Every single person listening to this isn't athlete. You don't need to use standing desks. What the hell? Like, I promise. There's no one at the Olympics right now using a standing desk unless there's someone that's like working on the support staff because you need to train. You don't need to be standing all day. That's not nothing when it comes to stress. I agree. Find the biggest, comfiest chair around and plant your ass in there. As we're doing this, I'm like, people are really going to disagree. Remember hot takes are not made to be something we think about. Yes, agree. It is something that comes quickly. Okay. Next one. Megan's 40 miles Z1 gravel rides are fake news. There's no way she's flying around boulder at those speeds while just, quote, appreciating the sunflower. Either that or she's actually an incredible badass biker. Oh, thank you. Well, do you love me some sunflowers? I read this one. Sunflowers are popping right now. Because you are an incredible fucking biker and I want to say that this hot take is wrong. That's true news. Megan, you're so fucking talented. It's amazing to see you on the bike. Oh, thank you. That means a lot. Well, I don't know. I'm a little afraid. I would let you a bike race. I'm afraid I'm going to die. Yeah. Die from crashing or different. I'm crashing. I mean, yeah. I guess I could do uphill races. But uphill races are just an invitation to the pain cave that like you have to be really what we're going to coastline on. Yeah. Pain alone is not a valid reason to do athletics. Yeah. Every uphill race. I'm hot take. Uphill races are not fun. I agree. Actually. I'm not fun at all. Only do them if you are very willingly know what you're getting into. I say that. But then at Western states, we did the little like family and friends uphill race and I fucking loved it. Oh, really? Yeah. That's interesting. Well, I mean, it was a chill race. It wasn't really a race. Maybe I'm just reestablishing my connection to running uphill. If that happened, the U.S. mountain champs would you have loved it so much? It's a fair point. Yes. The answer is no. I would not have. I would have repressed that memory and totally forgotten they ever did it because I remember 2014 when we did uphill mountain champs, both made team USA and told myself I would never do it again as I was lying down on the finish line hating my life. Okay. Hot take. This is actually for me. Sorry. We've got all these great listener hot takes and we're just spouting our own. I was running up a hill the other day on trail and a mountain bike returns to me and goes, you're so incredible. I can't believe you're running this. And they were biking it. And I said, mountain biking this shit is so much harder. I like that. Yeah. Is cool. Do you think they were hitting on you? No. I was a woman. Okay. Do you think they were hitting on you? Maybe. Great. So I asked this listener if I could share. So I'm going to read it, which makes a little sense because I think it's a little bit personal. I've been wanting to type this up for a long time now. My fiance has said that I shouldn't share this with you guys. This is bordering on stalker behavior. I just told him that he doesn't know how you guys operate. I ran my first 50 mile race back in June. As you have talked about, I have noticed that my best athletic performances happen when I can maintain a healthy level of joy. I decided that a good way to do this would be to have plenty of swap podcasts to listen to during my race. I forced myself to stop listening to the listening to the main podcast six weeks before it started. I allowed myself to listen to Patreon because I couldn't go cold. That's what I was saying. But if you want to listen every single week, 30 minute bonus podcast, answer in questions patreon.com slash swap SWAP, we also do so we're all over writing is nowadays, training tips, videos, things like that. David did a solo episode this week because I was sick and I was very impressed. It's pretty bad. No, I bet you it's great. Okay. Well, it's a collector's edition. So if you sign up now, listen to last week's bonus episode and you'll get me going. Okay. Back to the letter. I rewarded myself during my race by getting to binge eight hours of new podcast material. The other four hours were spent listening to the tarzans. If listening to eight hours straight of the SWAP podcast elevates me to stalker status, then so be it. My last race was more than four years ago and my inner thoughts were so negative. It scared me away from attempting another race until now. This time I felt as though I was my own on my own team and my positivity got me through some really tough sections of the course. I'm getting married in three weeks and I have you guys to thank for not going into a tailspin of under eating to look a certain way in my wedding dress. I've actually been able to enjoy the process of wedding planning without having anxiety about my appearance. Another thing I wouldn't have been able to do before the podcast. I second another listener that I wish you guys did pre-marital counsel. Your outlook on life in each other is so refreshing and comforting. Thank you for the impact you've had on my life and the running community. You are awesome. Oh my gosh. Congratulations. That's so many things. The race. This is so incredible. Thank you for me. And it's like, if you're out there and anything is scaring you like that, it doesn't have to be a race. It can be anything where you're putting yourself out there. Go do it. Whatever it is. Don't be ready. You don't need to prepare that much. Go try it. Get yourself out there. Get over the hump. The more you can go just do that stuff, make yourself vulnerable, the more you're going to learn and the more you learn, the more you live. It's the whole point. Even if it doesn't work out the first time, do it again. Yeah. And it's the process of putting yourself out there and eventually- And if it doesn't work the eighth time, you blame Obama? Yeah. And if it doesn't work a thousand times, you just keep doing it. That's the main thing I've learned. And then also the wedding, hell yeah, congratulations. I don't know if we could give advice that we are, you know, anniversary episode. Maybe we have a little more advice we can give today. Well, we should go out and celebrate with them at Taco Bell. That'd be a great. That's our advice. I think my biggest thing, actually, like relationship advice gets back to Taco Bell, like be willing to pivot and embrace the simple things. And like I feel like life doesn't have to be these like grand things with a partner. It's like the random dinners, the random Taco Bells, the random anniversaries that were supposed to be one thing and then became amazing in a different direction. Yeah. I mean, I love that. And just don't get like, remember that your partner needs to be like the person that you have the most fun with in life, like keep the play at the forefront. Yes, I agree. Yeah. Often when- And silliness, yeah. When people have kids for example, like that falls away by necessity and I'm like, actually that needs to be more of an excuse to be silly and joky with each other too. So like, keep it playful. Remember, all play, not just work. But with, you know, the body image stuff, it's like, yeah, you are fucking beautiful, no matter what. That like being human, just fully embracing who you are and what you bring to the world, that is beauty. And so, you know, we were talking about Jeff, the, you know, double amputee earlier. And like, that is pure beauty, but also booty. Okay. You know, whatever you're bringing is beauty. And fully embracing that is like the coolest thing you can do for yourself and for those around you. And your burps are beauty and booty, all in one, it's amazing. I love it when you open your soul, emanate into the world, but you're the coolest. Open my soul from one particular direction or all directions. I mean, I like every direction, both sides, flip them over, get that pancake on both sides. But yeah, no, you're the perfect person in every single way and I'm so happy to get to go through this life with you. I'm so happy for so many more talkabels. So many more talkabels. We love you all. Woohoo. Ah. Corneed a crunch with Doritos. I wish just about to say, cron drops of rain.