Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running | Lex Fridman Podcast #205

the following is a conversation with. zach bidder ultra marathon runner. and coach who held multiple world. records in the 100 mile run. and other ultra endurance events he is. currently. training for a run across america which. for now. is planned for september this year like. many of the things. zack has done in the past this is a big. fascinating challenge. quick mention of our sponsors ladder. belcampo. noom and betterhelp check them out in. the description.

to support this podcast as a side note. let me say that zach. has been advising and coaching me on my. own running journey. i want to mention that zach sent me some. running shoes from ultra. which i think is a company that sponsors. him when i put those shoes on. i feel like zack is watching me and i. get that extra motivation to make him. proud. and by that i mean i want to put a lot. of miles on those shoes. running is something that has always. been difficult for me but i love it. because it is difficult the hardest part.

is i'm left alone. with my thoughts for one or two hours. some thoughts are dark like thinking. about mortality. my own and that of others some are. self-critical like. personal weaknesses or dreams not. realized. some are simply human feelings of. loneliness. personal and existential and yet. there are the moments during a run when. all that fades. and i'm left empty of negative thoughts. and full of appreciation.

for the beauty of experience of nature. life. the whole thing this is why i return to. running. not to get in shape but to face myself. and to run through it. that's why i'm inspired by people like. zac and. by david goggins and others like them. who seek to find the limits of their. body. and mind this is the lex friedman. podcast and here is my conversation. with zach bitter where does your mind go. when you're running.

an ultra marathon are there a lot of. positive thoughts. negative thoughts demons inspirational. things. maybe no thoughts at all yeah that's the. really interesting part of the sport i. think because you can. essentially what it is when we're. looking at like the hundred mile. distance or anything that's like all day. long. is you're gonna have the full range of. the full spectrum of emotions. of mental processes both kind of. positive negative and in between so it. almost feels like. you've lived multiple multiple lives or.

a full life maybe. as it was way to say it in that one time. period so it's like a it's almost like a. simulation of what you may experience in. a long period of time in a very. condensed period of time. and i think that's just a weird mental. process to reflect upon and that's what. kind of draws people. back to it but i mean it's a battle too. because. if you're looking at it from a. performance standpoint versus an. experience. you obviously want to minimize the. negative mindset stuff you want to try. to keep those emotions and those. thought processes at a low and i think.

when you can keep yourself from letting. those thoughts creep in. they you end up having better races and. it's it can spiral in either direction. like. i notice like there's there's kind of. like this scenario that occurs where. in the beginning like a negative thing. creeps in your mind it's like super easy. just to slap it down. say like get out of here uh you know. i've did the training i'm fit. i'm feeling fresh still you know. everything's going well at this point in. time. you get a little further along in the. race and you're starting to feel a bit. of the fatigue.

i mean a little bit of self-doubt creeps. in you start asking yourself well you. know maybe i should done one more long. run or. did i did i not quite taper long enough. and those things can kind of spiral into. a negative way and if. if you let it keep going it keeps going. all the way to. like why am i here why am i doing this. this is stupid all the way to like. there's another one of these two weeks. from now i'm gonna drop out of this one. and sign up for that one instead and. then you just find yourself in the exact. same situation. so you kind of have to go through the.

process i think. it's why i think the there's kind of a i. won't say it's a rule of thumb. necessarily but something i think is. fairly valuable is if you do a hundred. miler the first time. make sure you get it done even if it. means like. you know death marching is what they'll. call it in the alternate community the. end of the race. just to say like you got that full. experience you experienced the highs the. lows the full thing the starting. the crossing the finish line that. release of emotion when you're done and. all that stuff.

uh so that when you go back to do it. again you have like a template to build. off of then you know. or you just have some data to pull from. about how your mind's gonna work as well. as your body so. that you can start practicing well what. do i have to do to kind of keep my mind. from spiraling in a negative direction. or how do i. catch some positive momentum and kind of. keep sending it that way. and things like that and that that just. i think you just. add to that over a career of running. them or a series of running them and. it would it's it sharpens it's kind of. like any sport with that where.

you know you always have this balance. between the youthfulness that you may. have earlier in your career versus the. the wise intelligence that you have. maybe near the end of your career. so in terms of wisdom is there. mechanisms by which. you kind of observe the negative. thoughts and let them go. so you have people like the david. goggins. who kind of they he seems to almost like. separate his mind. into there's the weak. david that he hates and then there's a.

strong. strong one i mean there's like a very. contentious relationship there. so he basically says like i refuse to be. that person and he's almost like angry. at that person. it's almost like sometimes literally. yelling at that person the weak version. of themselves. and then there's another more sort of. sam heresy approach. which is like just observe the thought. and let it go. maybe knowing that this too shall pass. like no matter what it this moment will.

not last forever and kind of sort of. accepting the natural flow of things and. taking one. step at a time and allowing whatever the. negativity whatever the pain you're. experiencing. just to pass even if it means a death. march. which one is more effective for you. which one like would you say generally. speaking to the population is more. effective. yeah that's a really good question it it. it's probably unique to the individual i. wouldn't argue that. you know david is finding success with. his approach.

some may argue it's an extreme version. uh you know sam has obviously thought. about these things and. and uh really probably you know i see. those guys as kind of. two ends of the spectrum and just the. way that they kind of come across. in general where like david's like. really at you kind of high energy. and sam's kind of this calming soft. presence. and he's just gonna slowly methodically. lay it all out there. and i think there's value on in both of. those i think. most people are probably gonna get a. benefit from.

pulling some from each i mean there's. times where. where i need a kick in the ass and then. it's like have the strong zack tell the. weak zac to get moving. but there's also times where you know. it's just like you know. a subtle voice entering my head about. you know i don't know if i feel quite. right now should i. maybe pull back on the pace and i think. that. little subtle voice is best approached. with a subtle positive voice where it's. more like. okay well let's think this through here. for a second you're 40 miles into 100.

mile race. you spent four months preparing for it. uh. you know from the workouts you did that. you're ready for this there really isn't. any real reason for you to slow down. or to fall off your goal your pace or. you know. reassess what you're doing let's just. give this another mile or two. and then we can reassess if we need to. in in order to kind of figure out if i'm. doing the right things or not. and i think like in that situation um. you definitely probably want to lean. more towards the sam harris approach.

with that because there's really no. reason to. it's almost like the same thing you see. with like just. training and even nutrition to a degree. where like some folks they just want to. be like. kind of like drilled they want to be. like yelled at and said like get going. get doing this and that helps and that. motivates and that helps them stay. accountable. other people need some softer love with. it where it's like. you know this isn't necessarily your. thought your your fault you were put in. this environment that kind of created an. atmosphere of. lethargy and maybe poor nutritional.

choices and things like that and. and like so but it's it's correctable so. we need to. we need to step away from that and we. need to kind of start heading in the. direction that we know is going to bear. fruit down the road. and that person may respond better to. that so. i think both those guys have great value. with their approaches they're just. probably polar ends of that of the. spectrum and. i think most people are probably going. to benefit like anything right you get. the polarizing ones and those are going. to work right for the polarizing people. but then most people are going to fit. somewhere in the middle so.

they're probably going to be able to. kind of pull from both of those if. they're able to sit down and kind of. like. assess which one's going to work better. in which situation so the. quitting thing you mentioned the like. the final stage which actually i get to. much quicker than you seem to which is. like why am i doing this. i get there with basically anything i do. it's like this is uh this is probably. the stupidest thing i've ever done is. the feeling i get often. and then immediately you have these. excuses they're like. there's all these other better things.

you should be doing. or uh or the other alternative that like. you said. i'm not prepared enough for this moment. i'll be much more prepared in two weeks. for the next event so like why let's try. this again. let's start over let's start over in two. weeks how do you deal with that quit. like uh so. maybe do you still go through that. process. and by way of advice for people that are. more sort of. amateurish like me uh how to deal with.

that quitting boys. i think a lot of times when the quitting. voice kind of comes in. it what it does is it kind of just it. comes in. with the added disadvantage i guess. in this situation of being kind of a. narrow scoped view where you're looking. at like. uh what it's doing to you in the moment. or how you're feeling in the moment. versus how are you feeling about the. whole process. so one thing that i started doing in. 2019.

and i think i don't think it's. necessarily. uh i think i think i think this was a. big reason why i had one of my best. racing seasons in 2019 that i had. to that date uh it was part of it was i. started i think. putting a little more emphasis on the. big picture versus. putting emphasis on like this is one. opportunity or one day. of work uh and this is one. one emotional kind of flare-up but how. does that actually relate to my general. broader picture so when i decide to do a.

race. or an event or something like that it's. often four or six months out. ahead of time you're planning to like. kind of do a series of workouts and a. flow of things where you're going. through the process of getting fit. getting ready preparing for the. specifics of the day and all that stuff. and then you get to the race itself for. the event itself and. it's very easy to look at that and think. that's in isolation like i'm going to. run 12 hours today or i'm going to run. 100 miles today or whatever it ends up. being. and it's a lot easier to quit when.

you think to yourself i'm 40 miles into. 100 mile race. you know that's just a 40 mile run which. sounds kind of silly. to most people but in perspective when. we're talking about the ultra marathon. running community. you know it's a lot easier just to say. like well you know i'll scrap this 40. miles and try again. it's a lot harder to say i'm gonna scrap. the entire last four months the entire. reason why i was doing it the countless. hours i spent in there. so i think i just try to reposition it.

of like i'm in a bad place right now. maybe in my head or i'm not i'm hitting. a low point here. but i'm 99 of the way towards the goal i. set out four months ago when i add in. all the work i did leading up to that. so i think it's important to ask. yourself why. because i mean there are times when. you're doing something and you ask. yourself why you don't have a good. reason. and then maybe it is advantageous to. step back and. and really reflect on that and decide is. this something i actually want to invest. time and energy into because.

you know someone like yourself who is. very much. into a variety of different things it. can be easy probably to. overextend and get i mean i'm a very. curious person so there's like. 100 things i would love to do if i. wasn't doing what i'm doing yeah and i. know how to enjoy all of them. so at a certain point though you have to. say okay which one is gonna. be the most meaningful for me and if the. answer keeps coming back to saying i. guess this is still the most meaningful. to me out of that hundred things that i. could otherwise be doing. then then i know that i'm in the in it.

for the right reason then i just need to. identify some other things like well. why did this one take the top spot out. of the hundred things that i could have. picked from. and keeping like a list of those in your. head so that when you get to that point. where you start. saying why am i doing this why am i here. you just have those kind of ready loaded. in your head to say. well i already took inventory on that. before i started this and i knew this. voice is going to come at some point. whether it's early. middle or late and and then you just. remind yourself kind of what you're. thinking when you had a little more of a. level head.

well there's something about the thing. you mentioned when you mention the death. march it seems. extremely valuable to just never. quitting like in the moment if you. decide to do something. like never quitting even if it you do go. through the process and realize that. it's not. uh it's not the wisest thing to be doing. within the full context of your life. like once you decide to do it it seems. like never quitting. prevents you from sort of having that.

escape. clause from other things in your life so. i've i've quit on a few things in my. life and. i think i still i deeply regret that. because it opened that door. it's almost like a muscle i don't know. so i. i think i'm i don't maybe everyone is. but i think i'm kind of a quitter. you know what i mean like um like i'm. really good at coming up with reasons to. quit. my mind is really good at that and i.

it feels like i have to come up with uh. like really work hard to make sure. that there's no quit that never allow. myself to quit no matter how stupid the. thing i'm doing is. i don't know if any of that makes sense. but it just. maybe to rephrase this whole thing do. you think. is good to live life by the ethos of. never quit yeah that's a really. interesting thing and i think it. actually resonates with a lot of ultra.

marathon runners because there seems to. be. a trend when you have someone who's been. in the sport for a long time where. there's a point where they start the. sport right and they're like. super excited about everything. everything's new uh. it's very easy not to quit because. you're like oh this is the first time. i've ever run a 50 case the first time. i've ever run a 50 miles the first time. ever in 100k it's the first time i've. ever. 100 miles and so on and so forth and. when you're doing that for the first. time i think there's a heightened. uh motivation to not quit because you.

don't want your first attempt to be a. failure. and then you get a little further along. and you start reflecting on the. landscape and all the opportunities that. are out there and you find yourself. quitting on an event. and there does seem to be a trend where. once you do that once now all of a. sudden. like you you described perfectly that. quit. pops up in your head maybe a little. sooner the next time yeah or maybe a. little bit before and i've certainly had. these experiences in my career as well. and.

what happens i think if you stick with. it. um again i think it is important to. assess whether you really want to be. doing what you're doing. but if you start recognizing that about. yourself in a certain activity where. it's like. i think i might be pulling the plug. early on some of this stuff uh. i think you just need to kind of get. into a position where you just. at that point you need to make a. decision do i want to keep doing this if. the answer is yes. you hold yourself accountable to not. quitting and eventually what will happen. is you'll find yourself in a position. where. i'll use ultra marathons for example.

where you're just clicking on all. cylinders for that day. and you still get those scenarios where. doubt creeps in your mind. you have these low points but for. whatever reason when those low points. come. you're able to push through them better. than you would have in the past and then. you push through maybe two or three more. than you did. after you had quit the time before then. it's accountability time. right because then you have to look back. at that and say. well why did this time was i able to be. mentally more strong. and kind of push through those those.

those extra opportunities to quit when i. wasn't before. and it can be easy to look back and say. and live kind of like. retroactively in the sense where you're. like regretting well why did i drop out. of those races why did i do this. wrong there and and that i just think. that's where you have to kind of catch. yourself and say no those opera. those things happen to me in order to. put me in a position where i decided. well this time i'm not gonna quit. no matter what minus my leg falling off. uh. like i'm not gonna quit and then you put.

yourself in position to have that day. where you push through more times than. you ever have before and you just. redefine what you're capable of. and then once i think you do that you. start looking at those earlier lessons. as. as lessons you know were they failures. on paper at the time. probably but can you pull things from. them to learn as to like well where is. your actual threshold where is the limit. actually for you. and then kind of start redefining that. stuff um. so i think like the never quit mentality. can be good.

in certain situations but i don't think. it's necessarily like a. like a holistic thing where you need to. be in something where it's. never quit always do more because then. you end up in a situation where you find. this like margin of diminishing returns. especially when it comes to training and. workouts and things like that where. there are times where often there are. times where you want to. actually quit a little bit before you. would have to because the stress that. was required to elicit a growth response. has already occurred and. just to do more is just gonna require. more recovery time to get back and do it. again. yeah this is the tricky trade-off living.

by the. never quit mentality you're not going to. achieve optimal performance. in your head you might. [Laughter]. it seems like when you look at the full. arc of human history. the people who do great things. are more leaning tones than never quit. like. uh i feel like at any one moment you're. more. in danger of quitting than you are of. being suboptimal. so like in terms of advice it just feels.

like. never quitting is always the right. advice. unless you deeply know the person maybe. this is like wrestling mentality. i've seen too many and because i'm. annoyed with the current culture. telling me to relax and and have a. work-life balance and all those kinds of. things. uh we should all have a deep deep truth. to them. but the reality is like there's not. enough people. that walk up to me and like slap me and.

say get your together. like don't quit work harder i think we. need to hear that more. i and like i remember that um. from the wrestling rooms like that. when you're pushed that way when you're. forced to the very limit and you don't. quit. that makes better humans i think people. need to get that. in their life i think they need to have. situations where. that becomes kind of the reality for. them so they can see that avenue.

experience that avenue um where i think. it's maybe. to the extreme is if it becomes like. your entire. life philosophy where like every little. thing you do is never quit. but life is short zach like why. i mean this is the problem i have this. is probably the programming thing too. is over optimization is dangerous. uh it's like every once in a while i. mean you're. you do this kind of stuff you're not for. example with a hundred mile run you're.

i mean you could just be doing that for. the rest of your life and do like the. most. optimal 100 mile run ever but you keep. taking on like new challenges. and there's a lot more chaos than that. and there. it feels like the muscle of never quit. will be much more important than the. optimality of your training. yeah so there's probably a couple sides. to me. with that kind of a thing where for one. i think. when we talk about the why so like i. think the why. can kind of shift a bit and it probably.

will if you do something long enough. or evolve maybe is a better way to call. to put it and for me. like one of my big drives and one of my. big passions within. ultra running is to first of all find an. event that i. really really love to train for and. participate in so for me i feel like. i've kind of identified that to a degree. and that's kind of runnable 100 milers. so. once i found that it became more of a. driver for me to see. like well how fast can i run 100 miles.

in a very controlled environment so. let's eliminate. weather let's eliminate you know. elevation. let's eliminate like having to wait. extra long to get crew or support. and that sort of thing and that's how. you find yourself on a 400 meter track. running 100 miles. but for me like the important part of. that is that. i can control the environment enough. where if i come back year after year. i can re-test myself and have a decent. ability to kind of say i improved or i. regressed or i stayed stagnant and i. think that's a big driver for me.

um but one thing i've recognized within. that. is if you just keep doing that like if i. could probably pick. three flat runnable hundred milers a. year. and optimally prepare race recover and. repeat. without like burning myself out but one. thing i think i. learned also in 2019 was uh. that sometimes you kind of need to step. away from. some of these really really kind of. important. markers in your like your performance or.

in whatever you're trying to do and take. a step away from it and try. do something a little different uh in. order to kind of hit the reset button on. just like. what i would call just like your mental. energy to be able to continue to do it. at a high level. so almost like happiness exactly well. and here's the example like i mean i. love running in trails too. most people would consider me a flat. road track runner runnable. ultra runner um but i like to do trailer. runs too so in. at the end of 2018 i.

recognized that i had been kind of. pushing. the gas pedal on trying to run fast. hundred milers. for quite a while without really a break. in that where it was like okay i did one. now i'm gonna you know take a brief. offseason but then i'm gonna ultimately. build up in peak for another one i might. introduce some fun trail races in the. context. but they're gonna be b races they're. gonna be training races time on feet. type of stuff that are gonna kind of. mimic like a long run essentially. and uh but the main focus the always in. the back of my mind was like. getting on the track and seeing how much.

faster i can 100 miles and that just. kind of. that energy that it takes to continually. think by that that. i think the motivation to keep that. stoke high enough to really meet your. full potential. fades if you don't step away from it for. a little bit so i took. essentially half a year away from. runnable stuff and just decided i'm. gonna prepare for the san diego hundred. mile. which is like a much more elevation. uh technical trail type of an event. isn't that trail run or no. yeah it's a trail hundred miler uh.

actually just talking just outside of uh. uh san diego and yeah it goes through. it goes over part of the pacific crest. trail and stuff so it's very different. than running on a runnable surface so. to give you some context like i ran was. it i think just under 17 hours for that. race. whereas on a flat surface i can run 11. hours and 19 minutes so. just the environment alone added an. extra. you know five plus hours to the day so. um it's just a different experience.

different skill set and what it did is. it allowed me to kind of step away from. kind of focusing on like splits on a. track. uh running flat stuff like preparing for. things specifically for a flat. environment and start training for. something that's more. climbing into sending more technical. running skill sets and things like that. and the cool part about it was uh first. of all you know when you step away from. something and enter something a lot. different i mean it's still running. there's still a huge. advantage i had from the running i'd. done in the past that was going to put.

me in a good position to be successful. but there was a much higher uh. or a much bigger range of potential. improvement for me. so through the like you know four plus. months i spent preparing for that race. you know i noticed oh wow i'm getting. faster on this climb. or i'm getting better at descending this. technical trail it's one of the most fun. races i've run actually so it was kind. of a cool experience i ended up. taking the lead at like 93 miles so. you're racing racing like you were. trying to get first. so still a race yeah so what was the.

enjoyable aspect of it. i don't think i recognized it so much. while i was doing it actually it. surfaced afterwards. i mean the enjoyment of the race itself. is like when you find yourself in a. position where you're sitting in. basically second place all day long and. then you take the lead at 90. i think it was like 91 or 92 miles nice. it's like. yeah that's kind of a cool way to race. um yeah. but afterwards i recognized a few things. just about kind of pacing. and you know how to maybe pace the first. half of a hundred miler. versus the second half i also recognized.

shortly thereafter. uh once i finished recovered and decided. my next event was going to be a flat. runnable race. that wow i really was way more excited. to do the workouts. that i needed to do to get ready to run. a fast flat hundred miler. and i don't think that would have been. the case had i just tried to do another. flat fast hundred miler. earlier or during that year and end up. in a situation where like i. maybe had like normalized a sub-optimal. like uh outlook on like something that i.

just done so many times already. and i recognized that just every workout. i did i was like i did this workout a. year ago and it was not nearly this much. fun. or you know you then the interesting. thing about these track hundreds too is. like. you find yourself doing like your. peaking phase where you're running your. long runs which for me are usually like. you know around 30 miles or so and i'll. do them on back to back days and you. know. i try to replicate the environment i'm. going to race on so i'm find myself on a. 400 meter track. yeah and it's like when i started doing. that again i just felt like i was super.

motivated to go out there saturday and. sunday and do those back-to-back long. runs and see the progress. and then head out again the next we can. do it again so i had some of my. more enjoyable long runs which are going. to be the most specific to race day. environment that i had. in quite some time and i think that was. really beneficial and kind of putting me. in the right spot to be able to push. through barriers on race day. and put me in a position where quitting. was going to be much less of a. likelihood. given the enjoyment i had in the months. leading into the race itself yeah even. the thought of quitting. yeah yeah so you mentioned the track.

you've also ran 100 miles on the. treadmill and. the trail 100 mile broadly if we zoom. out. what does it take to run 100 miles. for for most of the world that seems. like a crazy distance to run. so maybe it's interesting to ask not. only is just setting the world record. but. purely running what does it take to run. that far yeah i mean i think people. probably overestimate what it takes. in terms of just getting it done i think.

this is consistent. in just running in general i think the. marathon was always a big one with that. where people thought like well. you have to do this training or you just. literally won't physically be able to. complete a marathon and then we got into. an era of kind of like running as. more of an enjoyment thing versus a. performance thing and then you'd have. people running. granted much slower i think if you look. at the boston marathon average finishing. times it. goes from like or maybe it wasn't the. boston marathon it might have just been. marathons in general went from like. three hours to five hours or something.

like that. so it's like people i think got past the. fact that. you can only do it if you're optimally. prepared to well i can do it and maybe. not meet my full potential if i'm gonna. like. not do much training which i wouldn't. necessarily advise but. uh i mean i've i've talked to people who. basically run 100 miles sometimes almost. off the couch and it's. like it's to me what that says is just. the human body is incredible. and what it can tolerate above and. beyond what it's been exposed to if it. has to or if it feels like it has to. so that's the basic sort of getting from.

point a. from the start to the finish it's the. human body and the human mind is capable. of doing it without much preparation. but then you start to increase the. the goal of performance and you try to. get actually a good. like the most out of your body that you. can. how does that start to change then yeah. going from fun to performance. yeah i think uh once you start putting. marks or goals on outside of just. finishing that's where it starts getting. interesting because now you can maybe go. in with multiple goals where like if one.

falls off. due to something that you didn't expect. then you have another one to target but. you can always build those up and try to. think like well i want to run faster. than last time or i want to. you know break a course record or an age. group record or something like that. and that that i think is just going to. be a little bit of a different mindset. because now you're looking at. every little thing from what do i need. to do to prepare as well as what do i. need to do to be efficient on the day. itself. so like transitioning aid stations and. things like that or. uh do i want a pacer or not or does this.

race allow. someone to like hand me a bottle at a. certain spot or do i have to be in. specific areas to get that type of stuff. and. and what it ends up doing is it ends up. bringing a lot more variables to the. table. and i think it's it's interesting. because there's always going to be more. variables. on the day than you are able to account. for. so at a certain degree you have to kind. of find yourself in a position where i'm. gonna make sure i take care of the big. ones. or the ones that are like obviously i.

need to be ready for like my fueling. strategy my hydration strategy my pacing. strategy. you know what workouts are going to put. me in a position to physiologically. have this process go as well as possible. how am i going to like. you know hold myself accountable in aid. station transition so i'm not like. having a ton of non-moving time uh. versus moving time and that's so cool. so there's these like big variables that. you're aware of and you're trying to. optimize over the space of variables. so you get to start to play with that. when you're looking for performance.

it's almost like moving from checkers to. chess right you have like. or maybe even like connect four or. something like that. where it goes from just kind of like. well one foot in front of the other and. when i get to the next stage station. i'll just eat whatever looks good drink. whatever. you know quenches my thirst and then. move on to the next one to like. well which one of these food products is. actually going to make me move a little. faster the next aid station. or you know which one of these pacing. strategies is going to get me to the. finish line. faster than the other one and that sort. of stuff so. uh it gets more complicated more.

interesting. and uh in my opinion anyway also there i. mean but there's a breaking point with. that too because. like i said there's an endless number of. variables you could account for. and as a distance gets longer that list. gets longer too so. you find yourself in this position where. where you have to at some point say okay. i've accounted for everything i can. reasonably account for. now i need to be in a mental space where. when something happens that i wasn't. able to account for. i'm able to respond to it with the right. decision and keep going and not dwell on. it.

because that's another thing i mean. you're running slow enough when you're. doing 100 miles where if you make a. mistake. you can sit there and just fixate on. that mistake and say why did i do that. that cost me 10 minutes blah blah blah. when in reality what you need to do is. that happened everyone else out here is. gonna have a situation like that at some. point. mine happened now uh i need to figure. out how i can move forward. at the fastest sustainable pace and not. think about what happened back there. and that's where i think it gets really. interesting what uh. would you say it takes to set a world. record.

in the hundred miler well first of all i. think you probably have to focus. on that specific event um i mean there's. the interesting about ultra running. where it maybe deviates a bit from just. other endurance sports. is there's such a wide range i mean we. talked about a little bit when i talk. with the san diego hundred versus. kind of flat runnable stuff so can you. maybe paint a picture of what are. there's a huge range of different kinds. of ultra marathon events. what are like the big ones in your mind. so marathon we know the distance from a.

marathon there's. 50k what are different kinds there's 100. mile. that in your mind like kind of these. islands were. where people gather often yep yeah so. there's a few that. really stand out i would say the three. biggest ultra marathons right now. even from a historic maybe not. necessarily a historical standpoint but. uh in modern day ultra running is going. to be the western states 100. that's the biggest most competitive 100. miler it's on the trail side of things. in the united states then there's ultra.

trail mount blanc which is probably the. most competitive 100 miler on the planet. right now. in previous years it's been debatable as. weather western states are ultra trauma. and blacks more competitive i think in. the most. recent few years you're just seeing a. lot more like of the bulk of. international talent on the trail side. of the sport heading over that way. and then you have the road running side. of things where. the comrades marathon which is. technically 56 miles but they call it. the comrades marathon. uh is gonna generally be the most. competitive. ultra marathon the the weird thing is.

the distance thing right because most. people. think of endurance sports they're. thinking about precise distances like. five kilometers 10 kilometers. and all that stuff and then then you get. into the ultra running world and it's. like sometimes it's the event so like. the western force itself is much more. important than the distance. right yeah so the western states 100 is. actually 100.2 miles. which isn't that big of a deviation when. you think about it especially when you. figure like tangents they're going to. probably account for more than 0.2 miles. on a 100 mile race. but the ultra trail mount blanc you know. that's. listed as a 100 miler but it's actually. i think like 100 and 405 miles.

so you know it's more there's different. cultures too so the united states is. definitely more. motivated i think to try to get as close. to the exact distance you're gonna hear. maybe a little more grumbling if someone. says i signed up for this hundred miler. and it turned out to be 103 miles. uh versus like over in europe they don't. really care too much about the distance. they're more interested in like a. specific route or a loop. is consistency important in terms of the. exact length of the. of the route so like you can compare. performances from previous years. or are they a little bit more flexible.

like they redefine the trail from year. to year. yeah i mean it's definitely hard to. compare i mean there's events that. um take for example i would say the best. ultra marathoner in the world today on. the men's side is jim walmsley uh the. reason i think jim wells is the best is. because he. is the most versatile and not only the. most versatile but he's. arguably the best at almost everything. up to 100 miles so. there's a race called the angelus crest. hunter miler they.

the the trail has drastically changed. from when they originally had that event. and it's a different time of year so. it's much warmer on that course. and jim's not the kind of guy who would. uh. sit back and say like i can't chase that. record but i think angela crest when he. looks at the segments and the pacing for. that one he's like. that one is maybe not even the same. event anymore so you have that. you have some that are a little more. controlled and a little more kind of. like. preserved i guess you would say but i. think it gets really rare on the trail. side. i mean comrades is going to be very. comparable from one year to the next.

because that's a road race. and that's where you get you maybe get. like the split in the sport from people. who really. want that kind of like i want to compare. myself to someone who ran this course in. 1970. versus like someone who just says. i want to be competitive today and. you know maybe the weather is going to. be 30 degrees different from one year to. the next on this course but if i beat. everyone on this day then i'm the. champion of that big name race like. ultra trail montblanc or western states. 100 and. my legacy will be cemented because i won. that big race and it doesn't matter when.

or how the course was or what the time. even was to some degree. when you were optimizing for trying to. set the world record. in 100 miler were you doing like. analysis. of maybe like what were the variables. you were looking at. is it more in the realm of the actual. race day. the track what it looks like versus like. the variables of the training leading up. to the. to the race i mean it evolved a bit like. i think the.

as i learned more about just like what. is required. to kind of really do that stuff so. there's some variables you can control. for. you know i try to control for as many as. i can the big one that kind of stands. out that you can't necessarily control. for. is it's pretty rare where you get an. event where they're just doing 100 miles. on a track it's usually. like a like an event of like a series of. different events where there might be. like. some people out there doing 50k some. people out there doing 24 or something. like the event i did that there's six. day folks out there they're trying to. see how far they can get in six days so.

you have like this. much wider range of pacing just due to. like the distance. so you know track protocol is always. like. you pass on the outside so if you're. running. one of the faster paces of the day um. which when you're going up to six days. you're gonna and you're doing 100 miles. you're probably going to be running. faster than most people out there. then you know you just end up running. more because you end up running in lane. two around the turns and sometimes lane. three around the turns. so it's down to those little details. that have a big impact yep so i had to.

build that into my pacing strategy i. also have to build into the pacing. strategy. like relative non-moving time uh. you know i did a race just recently i. was the us track and field hundred mile. road championships and i did not stop. once other than like i guess i. technically stopped like. in the aid station for like a few. seconds to like grab bottles and. get myself wet because it was like 94. degrees that day but. i didn't like stop at all during that. race from like. what i would say is like a long period. of time where we're getting up to like a.

minute. but that's pretty rare even on the track. like when i ran 11 hours and 19 minutes. uh i think i stopped three times for. maybe a total of like i believe. i have to look back for sure but i think. it was like three to four minutes or. something like that so you gotta you. gotta. figure that into your pacing strategy. especially if you're chasing a specific. time. because you know if i'm pacing for you. know at the time the world record was 11. 28 um so if i'm pacing for say. 11 27 30 or something like that and i. don't account for that. three minutes of stoppage then i might.

run the exact pace i had planned on but. then i'm a minute off of the world. record. so 11 28 we're talking about 11 hours. we're talking about 100 miles. can you mention what the world record. was what uh. what kind of world record you set can. you tell your own story here. of uh of what you were able to. accomplish that world record that i. broke actually just recently got rebroke. um by a guy um over in lithuania. uh alex sorkin um phenomenal race. i mean he's he's won the 24-hour world. championships he's won the spartathlon.

which is another big historic. ultramarathon it's 153 miles so it's. getting a little more lengthy than. some of the stuff that i've. traditionally done um he ran 11 14. i believe it was 56 or 57. um so his. pace was 645 per mile mine was 647 and a. half. in terms of just like the pacing. strategy it's it's just really cool. because. for me the motivation. with chasing the world record was it was. multi-faceted i think there was. as i kind of moved through because i.

mean it took me almost six years from. the day i decided i wanted to chase that. time. to the day i actually did it uh and. through that. five to six years i think i emerged from. just like my. number one goal was to try to break the. world record to my number one goal is. how fast can i run this thing and then. ultimately. um what needs to be done for a human to. break 11 hours and 100 miles because i. think that's gonna be. i think that's going to happen wow soon. i think it's going to happen. in the next few years would that be um.

sub 11 would be i think like i. think it's like 6 35 right about per. mile you're moving. quick but not so quick that like you're. you're you know void of being able to. think about everything as it's happening. so what's the pace in terms of if you. look. for each of the one-mile segments. for the 100 miles is it pretty steady. six like in order to break 11 hours. would it be pretty steady 635 does it go. up. and down do you speed up at the very end.

like what's what's the pacing if you. were to and maybe how much variability. is there in the pacing. for an optimal performance here yeah so. if you're talking about someone let's. say that there's someone well let's just. take me for example let's say that we. could just like. we had this infinite knowledge and we. knew for a fact. a perfect performance for me would. produce a 10 59 but i'm not going a. second faster. and i need to do everything right in. order to run a 1059. uh. i would definitely want to either have a.

slight negative or a slight positive. split. so when um and i think there's i think. there's uh. there's a range in there where like. being a little bit faster the first half. the second half isn't going to. necessarily. change your outcome or being a little. bit slower the first half. and a little bit faster the second half. isn't going to drastically change your. outcome. so that's what you're referring to the. split is you're looking at the first 50. miles in the second 15 miles. and you can break it down as as tiny as. you want like i think.

when you take out the outlier laps where. i stopped to use the bathroom which. would have been that like three to four. minute non-moving time that i talked. about before. my splits were really tight um i had a. couple that were. um it was weird because that that track. that i did that on was actually. 400 and some weird number like 400 and. like 38 meters or something like that so. i actually like ran like my numbers. based on that so they're. they're normally i'm dealing with 400. meters and then it's a little more like. clean as to like what my lap splits. are gonna range from one event to the. next so we're talking about running 100.

miles on a track. yeah and so that you can be really. scientific about. yes getting the the the the um. the pacing right and uh you're you're. running on the inside lane. or is there some kind of tricks to this. like are you. alternating directions. yeah they'll switch directions at most. events every four hours so. you'll do four hours one way and then. they usually put a cone out. and once it hits like like let's say it. hits four hours.

you finish the lap you're on and then. you do a loop around and then you start. the next. your next laptop would you say you take. the exact same number of steps. like when you're really in the groove. when you're taking the pacing. are we talking about that level of. precision or is it a little bit more. feel you mean like foot strike frequency. yeah like. frequency then over the distance to the. lap would you say it's so precise that. you're like you get in this groove where. it's like perfect. yeah gosh you're making me wish i would. have strapped more like a foot pod to. mine.

but like yeah so i think like my guess. is it's pretty precise like it's. is there a video of this sorry i keep. interrupting is there a video of this. because. i i've actually this is now three years. ago build a computer vision. algorithm that counts foot strikes oh. really yeah for fun. yeah i was trying to understand uh we'll. talk about that we have the same. definition of fun when. i've got my find myself on a track for. all day and you find yourself counting. foot strikes. i was trying to understand if if there's.

how much variability there's. in uh extreme like elite performers. within a particular race but also across. races it was just interesting to me. from a robotics perspective if like. how much variability there is in the. human body in in the way they use legs. to move quickly. i think my guess would be that at the. individual level it's going to be pretty. precise assuming the pacing. is consistent so you get so my pacing on. that day.

i ran two minutes faster the second 50. miles and i did the first 50 miles so my. splits were very even most of the day. i actually ran some of my fastest miles. at the end uh so there's going to be. probably a slight. variance from my fastest mile to my. slowest mile in. like your cadence or your foot strike. but probably not by a huge margin but. you might have a pretty big variance. from one person to the next. so you get someone whose gait is just a. little bit different so like for me. i supinate which means i kind of come. down on the outside of my foot. and i'm kind of more of a mid-forefoot.

striker so that's going to kind of. impact my cadence to a degree whereas. you might have someone who. is kind of more mid to rear of their. foot or heel striker and they might. pronate where their foot kind of rolls. in. so that person may have a little bit of. a different cadence as well so. you get someone and i think you see this. in elite marathoning too which is gonna. probably. just be a much larger data pool uh much. much more probably precise from just. like a number of opportunities to study. this. and i think even their ranges from one.

person the next can be. i wouldn't say drastic but you know to. the degree of like. 10 to maybe even 20 steps per minute or. something like that from one person to. the next. but most people the faster they go the. higher their cadence is going to be the. slower they go the lower their cadence. is going to be. but there's going to be probably a range. of optimal. lowness and i don't know what probably. optimal. highness too than that if you can just. linger in 11 hours. the person first of all would you like. to be a the person that breaks 11 hours.

and second of all the person that does. break 11 hours like what would. what would it take and third question is. is it even possible. and you're in yeah i mean i would def. i would be lying to you if i said i. didn't want to be the first person to. break 11 hours and 100 miles i think. that'll be. um would be a cool like barrier to be. the one to usher that in. but with that said i think i'm much more. motivated in. seeing it done from the sense that like. i think when when we're talking about.

records it's something that. is inevitable that it's gonna get broken. so i mean we were talking about. happiness before this right so. i've contemplated this in the past where. i was thinking to myself like. if my motivation is to break a world. record or any record for that matter. course record. and have that be my defining reason. or my defining motivator i probably need. to do. an assessment of what i'm kind of where. my mind is at and where my.

focus is at uh and just. reflect on how i'm behaving in life. because. it's gonna get broken right i mean i. could run. 10 50 tomorrow and in. 10 years chances are that's no longer. gonna be my the world record anymore. someone's gonna run faster than that. so if you're living to hold on to a. record versus. living to try to move the sport forward. which any time you break a world record. you're moving the sport forward then.

then you have to look at that as like. that was my contribution. and whether i contribute again or not is. kind of besides the point. what you want is that your performance. your contribution brings. new people into the sport who are. excited motivated. and they can make their contribution and. then we can ultimately see well how fast. can someone run a controlled environment. hundred miler. and that's what i really want to see uh. because i think i've gotten so much. enjoyment from the sport i mean i've. gotten so much enjoyment from the sport. i've been able to turn it into a career.

and i think there's there's other people. who can do the same thing. and it's not necessarily going to come. at the expense of my career. but it's going to bring more attention. to the sport it's going to bring more. interest in the sport it's going to open. this board up to people who maybe. otherwise would have never thought about. it seen it. considered it and to me i think that's. like a much more rewarding goal. than saying i want to break this record. and i want to hold it for. decades or i want to die with this. record so i never have to see someone. go faster than me well that's the.

progress of human civilization we stand. on the shoulders of giants and we keep. creating cool stuff well and it's. it's the other thing is just like if. you're honest with yourself too it's uh. i mean we're seeing this right now in. the running world where. you know new innovations come in new. technologies come in new nutritional. approaches come in. and then we see like the new crop of. folks have advantages that the old crop. didn't have. and it can be easy to look back on that. and say like hey well. um you know if i would have had that. product or if i would have done that i. would have run this but then you're. getting into that negative. you know thought process again which i.

generally try to stay out of it. i think the caveman if if i had fire i. would have done right better with this. look at look at these idiots up there. with their cars if i had a car back then. i would have been. yeah ruled the world um let me just zoom. out. just briefly and and ask you about. kind of beauty and love. what's the most beautiful thing about. running to you why do you love it. i think uh there's kind of a couple. directions to look at it through. or lens is looking through there's like.

the in the moment right there's always. going to be that run where. uh you're clicking along and things just. feel great you get some endorphins. and you get the you know the the quote. unquote runners high and that sort of. stuff and that's like just like this. great feeling that you can kind of tap. into on the like real like. like in the moment type of level uh you. know you've. my wife and i talk about this because. she's a competitive ultra honor as well. and. um you will you'll we'll have a day. where you know we'll take a forced day. off or something like that and it's.

necessary right it's gonna. allow the enjoyment to continue but. you get into this like routine of i wake. up in the morning i do this run and that. kind of gets my day started that gets my. my energies up i get that runner's high. afterwards you remove that from the. equation for a rest day. and you just sort of like uh man i don't. feel like i never got started today like. you know it's just this weird thing it's. almost i think it's it's funny because. non-runners don't always like. necessarily recognize it because for. them it's the complete opposite they're. like if i can get away from.

not having to run today that's going to. be a good day versus. yeah but it's one of those things that i. think gets more addictive the more you. do it so. that's purely from the running. perspective there's this joy of. uh of the runner's high of the post. after the run you feel like you can take. on the world that kind of thing. yes and i think that's one of the. drivers from just a quality of life. standpoint. uh just uh you know and in the moment. immediate gratification. uh standpoint but then there's like i. think the bigger picture stuff for the. longer term stuff. and for me that enjoyment is like.

just the process like of uh okay i'm. starting at this. fitness level and i'm going to do these. workouts and by doing these workouts i'm. going to see incremental progress from. them. and then that's another kind of like. kind of short-term gratification that's. maybe a little longer than the. day-to-day but. um still like shorter than like a career. or a. or a build up for a particular race. where you're saying you're seeing. yourself like okay maybe i'm focusing on. short intervals right now. and on week one i covered this much.

distance in three minutes but by week. four i'm covering this much distance and. you can just see that progress. it's almost like uh in elementary school. when you get the gold star for reading a. book it's like did that gold star really. mean anything. i don't know but it felt great when they. gave it to me yeah. there's something about just finding. improvement and people love to see. improvement i think so. that's where uh i think you can also get. some value and it would be saying like i. started here and i got there. um and then i think there's also just. like uh.

what i would call this maybe more the. cherry on top which is like where you. express your work which is the race. itself where that's going to be kind of. the thing that kind of like. uh shows up on the end result and. where it kind of identifies whether you. did things right or wrong yeah so. there's a sense which. in which training is a kind of uh. preparation. towards race day and race day being. the thing where you get to be the artist. you get to create this. this piece of art and they might suck it. might be beautiful.

i mean i i i see in the grappling world. i see competition in the same way when i. feel the best about it. which is like it sounds pretentious to. say but like. i'm trying to be the best version of. myself in this particular. day of competition and to do something. that i'll be proud of in in. an artist way not in a kind of some kind. of numerical way but. like as a holistic sense like. do something cool like in grappling that.

means for me. that means like not stalling like taking. big risks. and trying to dominate another person in. the context of grappling. and and do it like push myself to limit. both cardio wise and technique wise and. just. play play beautifully i mean you see. this in kind of chess. there's systematic chess players and. there's people that. allow themselves to have those moments. of genius where they take the big risk. that eventually pays off or doesn't and.

that to me is art. that i mean there's art within running. there's art within chess. there's art within grappling and you get. a chance like all the training. is more like science and then it feels. like the competition day's art. yeah i think that that that's a really. cool cool way to look at and i think. it's. when you really open up the perspective. of that too it's like. even uh obviously you know having a. great day like winning the tournament or. you know getting further than you were. expected to or beating someone who. you've never beaten before or something. like that.

or in the running perspective like. achieving that goal time. uh that sort of stuff obviously those. are kind of like the ones you. you if when you're honest yourself you. really want and you're gonna probably. get the most satisfaction out of but. even when they don't go wrong like maybe. like with your grappling tournament. uh analogy the you know maybe the guy. you're. grappling against does a move on you and. you're like i was not prepared for that. move. so now the enjoyment becomes okay. back to the drawing board and now i need. to find out what do i do when that. happens to me next time. and that's where the i think the y comes.

in again same thing with running like. maybe i make a mistake and. you know like eat something i didn't. really want to eat or. or thought was gonna work but didn't. work and it costs me more time than i. gained by having it or something like. that and then i go back to the drawing. board and say okay well. i can't do that that didn't work or if. i'm gonna do that i need to be more. prepared to be able to do it and. i love that part of the sport um. just the rearranging of things and. adjusting and tinkering. there's some sense in which the mistakes.

and like the flaws give us meaning. because like if if everything if you. weren't able to find. mistakes and something you've done it. feels like. the life would be void of meaning it's a. lost opportunity too. like if i mean like when i look at. even my hundred mile race of 1119. i can find spots in there where i was. like uh you know what i could clean that. up a little bit maybe if i do this. differently. and i mean that's gonna get me you know.

a little bit faster. if i sat back and said hey well things. went great that day. cool let's see if we can replicate it. then you know i probably run 11 19 again. so can we talk about training a little. bit yeah what does your uh. training look like year-round. day-to-day hour to hour like optimal. maybe uh maybe you want to pick a race. in the context of what you want to. discuss that. but and also people should follow you on. instagram you have a lot of kind of. interesting um like little.

glances into your training process into. your training thinking which is quite. fascinating but if you look at an. optimal. training process what does that look. like yeah so i think uh. the if we're looking at it from like a. philosophical level or like an approach. level. i think there's some things that carry. over from regardless of the distance. so i think working on your weaknesses. and things that are least specific to. what you're going to do on race day.

but are still going to be important. things in terms of improving your. ability. to perform on race day or maximizing. your potential. uh with the things that are specific you. do first. i say that but the there's a caveat with. endurance sport i think. maybe even more specifically with things. like our ultra marathons or 100 milers. where. you want a really strong aerobic. foundation or like a base. before you really start i think. structuring things. towards a specific one so for me i think.

like a target for me is oftentimes like. uh you know getting really fit at. like what my pace would be at like my. aerobic threshold or what a lot of. people may call like a maximum aerobic. function. um i mean the running world is kind of. weird where we have like these. terminologies where there's sometimes. multiple words that essentially mean the. same thing but one is from like a. just an actual physiological reaction. and one is just like a feeling and stuff. like that so you mentioned time on feet. versus time in optimal physiological.

state like how important is it just to. get like running done. versus like running in a particular pace. that would depend on the event i would. say to a degree and and there's contra. conflicting ideas about like kind of how. to structure it i think a lot of times. like. uh you do want to like time on feet in. most cases is just going to be like i'm. running easy whatever. feels easy that day and that can be. different from one day to the next like. i might feel great. and you know that produces a much faster.

pace than if i you know feel really. miserable or something like that. um so that's why i think a lot of times. running will they'll do they're called. perceived. perceived effort or perceived exertion. and they're. you're looking at kind of understanding. the. response your body has to a certain. effort. level and you're supposed to target a. certain effort level in order to like. get a certain response so to maybe. simplify that a little bit or make it a. little clearer like. i think i focus on essentially like. short intervals.

i focus on longer intervals or tempo. runs. i focus on um like race pace intensity. which is a lot of times what i'll build. my long run around um. but also like those are kind of like the. small pieces to the puzzle. those are the options you're working. with yeah but i'm gonna always try to. work with those options on top of a. massive aerobic base which is going to. probably be like 80. of the work so how do you build that. massive aerobic base what are we talking. about just distance. distance and essentially so i like to.

call it micro stressing because you're. going to always start at a different. spot depending on your fitness level's. at and depending on where you're at as. an individual. i'm gonna be targeting my aerobic. threshold i'm gonna get right up to it. but not necessarily cross over it um. it's it you know it's. it's been popularized with maximum. aerobic function as kind of a training. philosophy. that philosophy in itself i think maybe. is a little more like holistic where. they're saying do this basically all the. time. and by doing so you're gonna like you're. gonna raise. your aerobic potential by so much that.

you know you can kind of like. race yourself into shape at that point. and this would be maybe more specific. for like shorter distance. or endurance runs where you're not going. to race yourself in the shape of 100. milers. but for 5ks you might you might do like. a huge base building phase. where you're going up to that maximum. aerobic function. or that aerobic threshold and you're. watching your pace come down. at that so the rule there is basically. like if you're seeing. improvement that's the sign you're. looking for or which would just be your.

pace dropping at that heart rate or at. that intensity. and uh if you're seeing that continually. go down you're heading in the right. direction if you start seeing it go the. opposite way. you're you're probably overreaching or. you're trying to do too much of it so. that's kind of dictates how much the. dose i guess you'd say when we talk. about max aerobic function we're talking. about. heart rate as the ultimate as the really. important metric here so. maintaining a particular heart rate. during the run uh. is that the measure that like how do you. know you're in the right yeah yeah and. then that's where it gets a little.

tricky because like unless you go into a. lab. and get your aerobic threshold tested. it's really hard to have like an exact. number on it. um you know dr phil maffetone with the. maximum function process. he'll say 180 minus your age is going to. give you your yeah that's the math 180. formula that i thought was. fascinating for it's like in the same. way e equals. e equals m c squared it's fascinating. that there could be a formula that. captures like optimal running. yeah so that for people who don't know. that's 180 minus your age. if you train at that heart rate if you. run at that heart rate you're going to.

progress a lot. and here's the advantage of that i think. like with any of these things you want. to look at it through. where are the advantages here and i need. to account for those and then where are. the potential disadvantages. and then decide for me as an individual. do these advantages outweigh the. disadvantages. and what's the alternative approach and. is that going to produce more advantages. or less. so with with maximum work function uh. here's some advantages like. it is low enough intensity where you can. train pretty consistently at a fairly.

high volume. with a very low injury risk with uh. very low like things that are gonna. maybe lower your quality of life like. muscle damage and things like that. um it's a more efficient way in the. sense that you're gonna be like. prioritizing like fat metabolization. which um i mean if you're looking at. like jeff folick and. or dr jeff folik and dr dominic. d'agostino some of their research and. things like that like. they're going to show that you know. that's going to be a little cleaner way. to go about things from just a recovery. standpoint. a breakdown standpoint so they could be.

like a what they call like a fat adapted. athlete so you can. go to your fat stores for energy if. you're. applying this map what is it called by. the way math 180. is that is that a good is it what are. your thoughts about in general. for yourself and for the broader. population i think the maf 180 formula. is. about as good of a formula as you're. going to find in terms of capturing. as many people as you can get away with. capturing with a kind of a universal. thing.

like any of these things i mean it's. more likely kind of on a bell curve. where. like the bulk of that 180 minus three is. probably going to be a pretty good at. least starting point to kind of figure. out where that is. there's some other things you can like. maybe use to kind of check it. that i like to do if i'm let's say i. just i did 180 minus my age i went out. and i started running and it was like. i'm running along and i'm just like my. my breathing is labored. i'm you know i'm struggling to get a. sentence out without gasping for breath. well that's my body telling me i'm.

probably not actually at my true. like math number or my true like. underneath my true aerobic threshold. like. aerobic threshold and maximum function. you should be able to do that for hours. and you should be able to breathe pretty. efficiently. and talk yep carry a conversation other. people will say like. you another way to kind of gauge it if. you can breathe in your nose and out. your mouth. that's not necessarily the best way to. do on a from a performance standpoint. but it can be a good. kind of governor that will allow you to. like if you can. if you can no longer breathe in your. nose and out your mouth you're probably. going too fast actually technically be.

at your math pace or under your math. pace yeah i had a. actually when i was in in better shape. i had trouble getting to that math. number. i found myself like either i would be. doing way too much. work like it's too hard to do it was too. hard to get to that number i was running. a much. lower heart rate like 10 to 20 what do. you call that beats. lower and that's i was still for myself. happy with the pace it was good pace and. yeah and i was felt good i was smiling.

and enjoying life. and yeah uh i did and with the moment i. take myself to that. uh level of like the math 180 level. that's like definitely like a real. workout yeah and it felt like i can't do. that for five. 10 15 miles like i i started feeling it. like this is a one or two mile thing. now but i think his answer to that uh. i feel me don't answer is maybe. you're supposed to like uh what. maybe do some more sprints or something.

like that or build up your. maybe like i'm too weak yeah musculature. wise. to like uh yeah like that that's a sign. that you need to work on some stuff you. can't just keep enjoying life. there's there's two ways to look at that. i think and i think you're you're you're. right on i think that. what the advice from that from that kind. of a. process would say is either you you're. doing too much of it. so it's getting too hard for where your. skeletal muscle system is currently at. for that particular activity so like i. mean it can be different too like if. you're cycling versus running you know.

that's a little bit of different. mechanic where it can be different where. you could take a super fit. cyclist and then put them on you know. the amount of volume they're gonna be. able to tolerate. relative to what you're gonna do when. you remove like impact forces and things. like that. is gonna be lower if they haven't been. practicing that activity so for you like. you know you're prioritizing like uh. uh wrestling and mixed martial are not. mixed martial arts but jiu jitsu type. stuff so. uh you know running is maybe kind of. that. that uh that secondary activity versus.

the primary activity. but yeah so what they would say is. probably like maybe instead of doing. that. at let's say you were doing that for. like 30 miles a week or something like. that and it was getting too hard to. continue. they'd say you know come back to 20 get. used to 20 get comfortable with 20. then let's get you up to 25 and 30 and. kind of just like inch you along. one of the intuitions i had about the. ways i was failing at running. is the form was probably not great like. the the way to get.

to those 30 40 miles is to get the form. right. maybe i was doing too big of steps not. so like. playing with a different gate playing. with a different kind of um. the form kind of you have your form the. economy the efficiency yeah. so that was the intuition like i was. doing something wrong but i suppose. that's the benefit of these kind of. formulas it challenges you to think like. how can i improve this kind of stuff. well and it also it simplifies it so. much. that you're forced to right you're. forced to optimize within that. real strict parameter versus am i doing.

my short intervals right. but my long run is wrong or am i doing. my like long intervals right but my. short intervals and. you just it kind of complicates things. when you start throwing a lot of stuff. there. and for most people especially when. they're first getting started you know. you're. you can't over complicate it or you're. just gonna like you're gonna do like a. bunch of half. right half wrong things and then not. really know where your progress or your. deficits are necessarily at. so i do think this is an amazing. approach. especially for people who are just.

getting into it and building that that. foundation. um where where i think maybe you want to. deviate from that a little bit. especially when you start to get into. these events that are operating. well outside that intensity so you take. something like um you know let's say. it's a race that takes you. in the neighborhood of around like 12. minutes or something like that. then you're gonna be running. significantly faster than your your. maximum function pace. so most of the research is going to say. at some point in time you need to get. around to practicing the pace at which.

you're going to perform at. and really fine-tuning the mechanics the. efficiencies. how it feels how to judge it how to pace. it at the pace. you're going to try to compete at so. there's obviously like a large range of. targets there when we talk about the. endurance world in general where. you know you have these shorter events. like five kilometers and you also have. 100 mile races which are gonna. typically be quite a bit below your. maximum road function and especially on. these trailer races i need to admit. something so i. don't measure the runs at all in terms. of uh time.

uh because i get competitive with myself. so i. kind of decided that running for me is. going to be this thing where i just go. by feel. is it possible to be that kind of runner. and. you know still have running as part of. your life and be a good performer in. running. i actually think that's that's where you. want to get to. the problem is most people have a hard. time getting to that because they'll go. out. and they'll run with a friend and match. their pace or they'll go out and they'll. say well i want to run this pace so. they'll target that pace.

or target a specific heart rate which is. you know not necessarily how they maybe. feel good doing it right so i think like. once you. i mean obviously i think when you put a. race on the calendar. if your goal is performance it's a. little harder to just say like well i'm. going to run whatever it feels good. today. because eventually you have to get. around to doing what's specific but from. just a fitness standpoint health. standpoint enjoyment standpoint. um i think it's totally fine to go out. and say i'm gonna run what feels good. today and you know maybe someday you. will feel like at the end of the run i'm. gonna do a couple sprints just to get.

some. you know that because it does that one's. a hard one to kind of jump start but. once you do it and you realize how kind. of good it feels maybe to throw in a few. accelerations at the end of a run and. then. you you say oh wow that feels pretty. good to do that i feel a little more. accomplished. that's right that's a forcing function. but i i like to finish runs with sprints. anyway. okay because you're already there. without right you don't need to the. timing. i'm afraid of the time of becoming a. drug. but the flip side of that it's a useful. tool to get you to learn the right form. the right. feel like what it feels like to have to.

be in good shape. and then you can throw out the time well. i think too with with feel. running and what i mean by that is. that's kind of back to that perceived. effort thing where like you do enough of. it and you start being able to recognize. like i can go out and if you said okay. run. you know 60 minutes at your aerobic. threshold. i could go i could know where that is on. my heart rate. and i could go there and just say like. okay i know what that feels like and go. and run that feel. and i'm going to hit that spot like i. bet you if we looked at my heart right. dad after it'd be right in there and i.

wouldn't have to look in some of that's. just experience. someone's just understanding like when. like. noticing the physiological responses. when you cross over versus step a little. bit to below it. uh you can get yourself daydreaming and. forget i'll do this sometimes too where. i'll be tar because i'm kind of like you. two or when i'm getting really fit. uh especially with my foundation like i. gotta you know i'm moving pretty quick. at my aerobic threshold so. like if i start daydreaming too much i. can notice oh i'm drifting back a little. bit i look down on my heart right now oh. yeah i'm 10 beats under. you know so you do it does take a little.

bit of i think just uh awareness. um but it's also not necessarily. something where. you have to be so exact that you're. hitting you know an exact heart rate. all the time there's usually a range and. there's even like some fluctuations. where like if you've been healthy for a. year or two. without any injuries and you've been fit. that you can probably add five beats to. your. maximum rolex function if you're using. that as kind of your your target from. the 180 minus your age formula. so let's try this lay this out for. yourself but for others. you you offer ready-made plans for.

people. you know depending on their i think the. key the thing there is the distance. maybe you can elaborate but. what does that plan look like usually. what are the key. options as you already kind of mentioned. and how does your week look like. how do a lot of people's week look like. in terms of splits are we talking about. um you know in terms of rest days in. terms of. how often do you do speed work versus.

longer distance you mentioned long runs. like is there something you could say. that's generally applicable. about the the structure of these plants. the ready-made plans i definitely follow. like a philosophy um and it's gonna be. like kind of like a lockstep in that. um so for those like there's just always. gonna be a sacrifice when you do like a. ready-made plan because there's. you're removing the individual contacts. there so for folks who are like really. want to get into the weeds. i usually do like a personalized. coaching plan with them where we sit. down we actually look at their strengths. their weaknesses.

and really kind of go in from that. perspective. and fine-tune it and it also like it. avoids a situation. where oh my ready-made plan says i'm. supposed to do. this run today but i don't feel great. today so what do i do and then some. people are fine with that because. they're. they're they're aware enough of like the. process that they can. adjust it themselves other folks just. need a little more support so. um that's kind of the difference there. but in terms of the structure of it. it kind of goes with an approach where. we're saying you build this.

foundation you're going to spend you. know usually anywhere between 8 to 12. weeks just building up. your your aerobic foundation you're. going to be doing a lot of stuff that. are kind of. at i call them base runs but they're. basically your maximum aerobic function. or you're up to your aerobic threshold. type stuff. and they're really going to get really. fit with that and once they kind of have. that foundation laid then it's time to. get into the specifics of whatever. distance they're doing. so if it where it'll differ we'll be. like if they're doing. right now on those plans i think i've. got 5k half marathon marathon 50k.

80 to 100k and then 100 miles so if they. pick a 5k. plan the order of operations is going to. be different than if they picked the 100. mile plan. you're going to see some of the same. workouts show up in that plan it's just. going to be different. areas of it so once they're really fit. at that you know that foundational level. then you know if they're doing say a. hundred mile plan they might start doing. some short intervals which i would. on my plans i usually range between 30. seconds up to four minutes it's kind of. that short interval range. can you describe what you mean by short.

intervals it's like a sprint. and a rest yeah yeah so i'll use. basically like i'll use like a basically. a 12-minute time trial. and that's going to kind of like dictate. for them what the intensity and the pace. is going to be for some of those. when they're under a minute they'll push. past that a little bit. um but usually when we're up to like. above a minute and certainly up to four. minutes. like whatever pace or intensity that. they get for that kind of 12-minute time. trial where they're just seeing how far. they can go in 12 minutes. is gonna be um kind of like about where.

they're gonna target for those intervals. so then those intervals are gonna be. structured. let's say they're doing two minute. intervals they're gonna do two minutes. at that. intensity that they could do for 12. minutes at a time trial then they're. gonna do a two-minute. real easy job or maybe even walk just to. kind of bounce back and they're gonna. repeat it how do you figure out. uh how far you can go in 12 minutes is. that just a trial and error you build up. to it there's formulas what. yeah there's some newer formulas that. are probably a little less uh. um brutal uh where you kind of.

uh i haven't really dove into these that. that in depth yet i know like um. that you can kind of replicate it by. doing like a short a very short interval. and then a slightly longer one um. and then like another one where like at. the end when that last one will kind of. indicate what it is. uh and so you're doing less of it to get. the same answer to the question. but sometimes i think when it's someone. who's new. i'd rather them just do a 12-minute time. trial because. it's easy for them to execute in the.

sense that it's pretty clear you do a. warm-up you do some strides maybe some. dynamic stretches then you just run. as hard as you can for 12 minutes as. evenly paced as you can manage. and i mean if the if it's going to. produce the data i'm looking for. uh no matter what happens it'll produce. the data. yeah i mean you can you can screw it up. i guess you can go way too fast then you. have this scenario where like oh it. looks like you're. you know your first two minutes were. drastically faster than your last two. and then it's like we. maybe screwed that one up but um but i. mean really like you don't even need to.

do the time trial technically. um a lot of times you can go off of feel. like what we described with um. the threshold stuff and and you know. it's a high enough intensity where where. like you can start to kind of like your. body is going to kind of limit you to a. degree where. if i just said we didn't do the time. trial and just started doing the. intervals. we could figure out that you know if. they're doing them right or not. if we see a scenario where oh it looks. like these first two intervals were.

significantly slower than the last two. chances are we're still not quite dialed. in in terms of what the intensity is. that you should be targeting for those. and as you do a few you just get to know. the pacing of it a little better and. then you start seeing more even splits. so like you know their first two minute. intervals pretty close within a couple. seconds of their second or. you know i guess we'd be looking at. distance if we're doing time so like you. went. approximately the same distance on that. last one as you did the first one. and then we're just looking for. improvement over time so you know we. might spend. four six weeks kind of focusing on. improving that.

we're going to still include kind of. foundational running volume where you're. gonna be running like an easy pace an. enjoyable pace kind of in the interim. and then there's gonna be some rest days. and that's gonna be where the levels. come in. my like level one plans are gonna be. like four day a week training plans. level two are gonna be five day level. three are gonna be six day with one day. off. um and you can obviously operate outside. of those those those are just the ones. that i put up for the ready made when. i'm coaching people kind of personalize. we just we look at like what their. history is with running their schedule. all sorts of stuff because.

oftentimes people get hung up on like. well what are the elites doing what are. the professionals doing what are the. olympians doing it's like well. it's like what the olympians are doing. is they're waking up and they're living. and breathing. everything around this one race that. they're gonna do in four years or. so it's like we need to step away from. that if you're working you know 10 hours. a day and you've got kids and all this. other stuff too. so um there's a lot of variables that. make it more interesting to coach. someone who's actually like. not an elite athlete or someone who's a. professional athlete i should say. the but but yeah so they're gonna do.

that stuff those those shorter intervals. um for probably about like four to six. weeks if they're doing. if they're doing a longer race like 100. miles if they were doing say a 5k. we'd start bringing those workouts in. near the end of their plan because. that's gonna be specific to their race. pace. that's gonna be the intensity that maybe. they're doing for you know like a 3k or. 5k or something like that so it's going. to be more relative to what they're. going to use. so it follows that philosophy the plans. follow that philosophy of weaknesses. and least specific stuff early and then. we start phasing.

closer to most specific stuff. and strengths as you get kind of near to. the end of the plan and and then. the distance of or the time that you're. going to spend out doing whatever event. it is going to dictate how those kind of. get ordered in there. i wonder if i could ask you for some. sort of advice. maybe almost uh maybe look at me as a. case study. of a particular runner and then. see how we can plan stuff out so. which contacts to give okay so i have. been first let me say how much.

we're currently in austin i want to say. how much i love austin for many reasons. uh first and foremost people are super. kind. and just like there's so much love. that i've experienced immediately when i. came to the city versus. many of the other cities i've been in. it's uh. it's not quite as welcoming and full of. kindness immediately. i i mean i really love love it here in. austin. and because i've been going through a. bunch of stressful stuff i just kind of. gave myself. a chance to say okay i'm gonna stick to.

a diet of carnivore or keto. but i'm going to eat as much as i want. because uh primarily because this. barbecue. was part of the love i was getting here. and i was like either i resist or just. give in and i decided to give in and. actually use this as an opportunity to. relax and have fun. for the past three four months plus. whiskey and so on. and then the training kind of i also let. go of the training a little bit. just to relax to really focus on the.

work focus on the love i've been getting. all those kinds of things. but now i just kind of want to set a. goal for myself. to get back into both competing and. grappling. but also doing a um hanging out with. david goggins. and uh doing a conversation with him but. almost this is my own personal kind of. race that i'm looking forward to and. in terms of distance that means running. with david. uh something like a marathon plus plus. it's like it's unclear what plus so my.

goal would be. to continue eating carnivore which is a. whole other topic. i'd love to talk to you about i feel. great psychologically. sort of in terms of mental performance. in my work when i eat carnivore. and physically i love it i've never felt. any kind of need for carbs. to uh to improve performance in my. running or anything else. combine that with fasting intermittent. fasting or eating once a day. i just that's when i feel the best.

what else i also feel best and this is. something you can push back on. i feel best when i just run every day. like no breaks ever. and usually the same way. every day so like i know this is. suboptimal it'd be interesting to hear. your opinion of just how suboptimal that. is. uh so i think that actually lays out. like where my mind is i'm happy eating. carnivore once a day. i like running every day the goal is to.

run a marathon in. two months ish two months plus. and then about three months to do a. bunch of competitions and grappling. okay with those parameters i think like. you actually probably would be a great. candidate for a maximum heroic function. training strategy. like you want that consistency where i'm. going to do the same thing each day. uh you don't want to beat yourself up so. much any one day that you can't get out. and do it the next one that's the sweet. spot with maximum rolex function is. the the the trademark there is that you.

you can keep going and keep doing it. again and again and again because. as long as you're not you know going out. one day and trying to do twice as much. as what you're ready for. for that one specific the key for you is. gonna be picking the right starting. point. and then building from there on what. that day kind of entails in terms of. how much running you do so um. where you could maybe get creative would. be if you decided that. it's a hard fast rule that you run an. hour. every day seven days a week but we find.

out that to run. your maximum robot function means you. probably are better off sticking to 30. minutes. then what you would maybe do is you. would run underneath. your maximum aerobic function for the. first 15 minutes in the last 15 minutes. maybe throw some of those strides in. there if you want to do that at the very. end. and then that middle 30 minutes is going. to be maximum rolex function target. and then maybe after you know four weeks. you start noticing you know what. this 30 minutes isn't wearing me out. near as much as it used to um.

i feel like i could easily push past. that well let's up that to 40 minutes so. that's 60. you're always staying within. that 60 minute parameter that keeps. your schedule consistent your routine. consistent i'm wearing a heart rate. monitor to sort of. as i run to monitor it sure absolutely. you could do that you could go. perceived effort um i like to use them. in tandem in the sense that like early. on i'll. maybe look at my heart rate a little. more often especially for shorter. length there is heart rate can get messy. the longer you go so. i i end up kind of maybe stepping away.

from heart rate a little more. than some will at a certain point. because i'm ultimately i'm going to be. usually training or working with someone. to run like you know a race that's. really long and they have cardiac drift. dehydration. heat and things that are gonna make the. heart rate super messy. yeah but you're probably your ability to. measure perceived effort is. exceptionally good. mine is actually really weak okay heart. rate then i need to do this still the. work of connecting heart rate to the. perceived effort. yep and that's exactly what i would use. heart rate for then and you'll get to a. point. probably by like in the first couple.

months where. you you can still lean on heart rate if. you want but it'll be kind of one of. those things where you. you keep looking at you're like oh wow i. can guess it you play a game with. yourself too you can say well how close. can i guess. yeah you'll get it so like for me what. i'll do is i'll go i'll do the run and. then i'll look at the heart rate. afterwards and be like oh cool i was. right there yeah or i remember. feeling like i was speeding up a little. bit there and there are shows right. there on the heart rate. i also love sort of something we haven't. talked about i love push-ups and. pull-ups so like body weight.

workouts again it's mostly mental i just. enjoy the mental challenge of it i also. like. it makes me feel like if all i'm doing. is running it makes me feel i'm. not like uh one-dimensional. yeah one-dimensional i mean there's some. aspect to running. that's not to be like hippy about it but. like you know you're it's you're with. nature you're running. in it's like we're born to do this thing. in that same way i feel like when i'm. doing push-ups and pull-ups. i feel like i was born to do that kind. of stuff like it's like this.

body weight exercises have that way. about them. it's it doesn't have that dumbbell feel. or doing bench press or squats. squats with weight when you're just. doing squats. uh body weight when doing push-ups and. pull-ups body weight. and just basic ab stuff core stuff body. weight. i don't know i just love the way i feel. doing that so it's usually. i forgot to mention that part i combine. that with the running afterwards. doing some basic body weight stuff yeah. and i think like you're gonna get. from if we're not looking at it from.

like specifically like. training at a pace in order to get both. the. skeletal muscle adaptations as well as. the cardiovascular benefits. you're probably tapping into some of the. higher intensity stuff with that body. weight stuff this. and unless you're doing i guess no rest. it's okay so is it you're getting pretty. high heart rate from that yeah yeah very. hard. okay higher than running yep so you're. tracking that box there from just like a. lifestyle. uh enjoyment fitness overall fitness. standpoint.

uh i think you want to keep your running. more aerobic then because you're getting. that. and you're probably getting it from like. your grappling workouts too i would. guess so. there's just not as big of a need for. you from an. big picture standpoint to be doubling. down on that stuff. with your runs as well and it sounds. like you prefer not to. that's right so i mean um. what about the distance of marathon. versus 100 miles is that big difference. what's a good goal to work towards is it.

marathon and the rest of it. just takes care of itself like yeah so. you want to do a marathon and then. ultimately do a hundred mile after that. is that what you're saying i have no no. i have no idea what the guy uh oh. he's gonna tell you spot on what you're. doing so you have to be ready for. anything. for anything right my own personal goal. is to feel. somewhat challenged but comfortable. running a marathon. the longest i've ever run is 22 miles. but i you know there's been many. stretches in my life where i would.

regularly run. like the long run would be close to 20. miles so i. you know and then i was comfortably. running 10 miles. four months ago it was like forever ago. uh. until i injured myself a little bit by. running in the snow and stubbing my toe. to where it was like you don't realize. how much you appreciate your toes. until you step big toes where all that. power comes off yeah. and so it's it it was surprising how. long it took to heal. uh and how essential it was and how.

unpleasant running how much hey hated. running with it. and then i kept like coming trying to. get back out there to run to think i. think it's okay. and no it's not okay you really need to. let it fully heal. at least that was my experience i. couldn't like just suck it up it was. making it worse every time. it's one of those injuries that could. really feel even though it's so small. [Laughter]. it's essential so is there any. difference between the goal of marathon. or 100 miles would you say should i be. prepping for 100 miles if that's at all.

a possibility. the big difference is going to be like. you're dropping intensity significantly. by going up to 100 miles versus the. marathon so. the maximum roving function i think is. actually going to feed into that maybe a. little bit better it's probably a little. closer. um depending on where i mean all it all. varies a bit because like people people. focus on specific distances and they'll. get. very efficient and very adapted to that. so. like the it kind of like it's what makes. running kind of messy where like you'll. get.

for for example like the average person. can hit their like lactate threshold for. probably about like 60 minutes or. something like that whereas you get. these elite marathoners who've been. basically spending their entire life. preparing for a marathon race they can. push. almost up to their lactate threshold and. after lactate threshold for. almost like two hours so it gets a. little messy when you start. um looking at it from that lens but you. don't really have to worry about that. too much because you're not really. focusing on. being the best possible 100 miler or the. best possible marathoner you could be.

you want. enough overall fitness that you can just. do either one of them. without absolute misery because you did. the couch to 100 miles. exactly so i think like for 100 miles. the biggest difference. i think given your contacts is just like. the more physical things you are doing. the better prepared you're going to be. for the 100 mile so it's almost. given your context i wouldn't say. irrelevant you want to be doing running. but you're going to be doing that once. you put it in your program it sounds. like it's going to be pretty. locked in um you're going to want to.

also. like it if you view it this way it's. probably going to be more mentally. beneficial too where. hey today i did my run i did my. bodyweight exercises i did some. grappling practice. you know i spent three hours working out. today yeah if you think of it like that. then. you know you're you're moving your body. you're doing things that are. active for a good chunk of the day. especially. relative to most people so that's gonna. actually be very helpful for you. uh the the problem or the the battle to.

get over is gonna just be like. the you know you're gonna break down. physically running a hundred miles. and you're gonna break down physically. running a marathon too so. like the you might just have to push. through a little more discomfort. like from a physical standpoint compared. to be if you decided. i'm gonna do everything i can in these. next like. 24 weeks to be able to run a full. hundred. a hundred miler would you say it's. physical or is it mental discomfort like. uh i mean isn't everything physically.

uncomfortable like. what uh do you train for if you're. training for. the chaos of uh so it's not necessarily. 100 miles it's the chaos of the. unexpected which might include 100 miles. but it might also include a thousand. push-ups. yeah in my case so like you need a big. jack-of-all-trades it's what you need to. be yeah but also like building up the. confidence. or maybe not i don't know how do you. survive um. a thousand push-ups it's a combination. of confidence that. you have to know that you can do that.

kind of thing not necessarily the actual. number but like. doing crazy stuff and the. the second is probably okay the the base. strength. and endurance and also just the. practicing that process of not quitting. i feel like that's one of the things i. really need to do in the running space. is like doing slightly unpleasant things. where i'm practicing that like bringing. my mind back. and saying nope uh i'm gonna keep doing. it and.

part of the running every day has that. benefit because some days you really. don't want to. don't feel like running and doing that. then you're practicing that muscle of um. of doing it anyway um i don't know if. there's something you can say in terms. of advice how to practice. the like doing something unpleasant. every day. yeah frequently yeah what i would do. with that. is i would try to make the unpleasant. thing. be different from one day to the next if. you can so. the fear i would have with making.

running unpleasant every time. would be it becomes like a negative. feedback loop. in your physiologically potentially as. well as mentally where. if the entire running process is. miserable. you're gonna be miserable when you step. on that starting line whether it's a. marathon or a hundred miles so. you've trained yourself then running. equals miserable well and here's the. thing like i mean if you look at just. like. here's where the literature says on. paper are like the. you know dozen workouts you should do in.

a training plan. and this is how you should structure. them right down to the minute and you. just say. like i'm gonna give everyone this. schedule and they're gonna do this every. time rinse and repeat. my biggest concern with that approach is. you. are potentially putting them in a. position where the training is so boring. and so monotonous. that like if they hit a roadblock. mentally. they're gonna fall apart very quick. because they've already exhausted. themselves mentally just trying to do. the same old interval every time. doing the same old you know workout and.

it doesn't. have to be like one specific plan in its. entirety could just be like. like the the mix of things within it so. like rather than like. if i just said well we're gonna do three. minute intervals through this entire. short interval process or two-minute. intervals or. four-minute intervals or 60-second. intervals you know by that. sixth week they might be so sick of that. they're not actually maximizing their. potential within that because there's no. flavor there. and and then they're also actually. getting less out of themselves than they. would if we just.

got a little more creative and said okay. let's mix this up and let's do. uh you know four one minute intervals. then take a like a little bit of a break. and then we'll do three minute intervals. or at least changing it up from week to. week so that they have something. different showing up even though we're. addressing the same kind of. physiological adaptation. uh so like i think what you want to do. is you want to introduce the misery you. want to be able to test yourself to the. degree where like when you can recognize. these points if i don't want to be here. but i can do it push through it but. recognize that.

like there's not necessarily going to be. one event that you want to lean on to. get that from because you won't want to. make that one event. so miserable that you don't want to do. it when it comes time for the challenge. so. if you can possibly say like okay on. tuesdays. the push-up workout i'm going to go 10. push-ups more than i want to i'm going. to get to that point where i'm like. there's no more and then i'm going to do. 10 more. and you're going to make that one. miserable and then maybe on. uh you know thursdays you decide to do. like some of those sprints or something.

at the end where. you do a few of them and you're like. okay this is where i'd be comfortable to. stop like well i'm gonna do two more of. them because i know i don't want to do. two more of them. but mix that up so you're not so at. least you're getting enjoyment from some. of it. and not just getting complete disgust. from the entire process yeah. there's actually quite a lot of ways. that i can introduce misery into the. push-ups and the running get creative. including um you know even just like. stuff outside of the running like taking. uh freezing cold showers those kinds of. things just introducing. random kind of chaos into the into the.

system. um or having conversations with people. as an introvert it's terrifying. more podcasts so. i'm now starting uh the training and. zac you've been kind enough to also kind. of be willing to help me out. throughout this process so i look. forward to where that goes it's kind of. uh fascinating um on the diet side. you're. one of one of the many things that uh. make you fascinating is you've played.

with diet as well and you're. um somewhat famous i would say for doing. low carb or playing with low carb or. meat based diets. can you describe the potential like how. you're thinking about that has evolved. and the potential beneficial role of. a carnivore diet or a keto diet or a. meat-based diet in. training as an ultra marathon runner. yeah and i think like where a lot of. times things get. confusing for people here is the context. of it too where it's like they want an. answer as to what do i eat for endurance.

sport it's like well endurance sport is. quite wide ranging as we've talked about. many many times here. so there's going to be differences i. think in just like what you want to. maybe necessarily prioritize. uh both for the event you're doing and. the intensity that's required for it the. training that's required for that event. and then also the individual component. too where i think this one. often gets overlooked where we tend to. say like well. we've got all these olympic medalists at. the marathon in below distance who. are you know eating a moderate to high.

carbohydrate diet so. everyone needs to do that if they want. to reach their potential in. you know say the 3k to the marathon and. you know in a perfect world maybe that. would be true but. there's a lot of other variables that. often get forgotten then. that could positively or negatively. impact that decision choice so. i think dr jeff volk has done a great. job of kind of highlighting this in the. sense. that you know when he works with people. he works with people in the health. sphere as well as the performance sphere. and you know he's one of the main guys.

at virta health who's uh. they've got like a 60 a success rate. with working with folks with. type 2 diabetes to reverse their type 2. diabetes. and i mean that's an astounding when you. when you think of just any nutritional. protocol at success rate they're all. incredibly low. they're very very low and the big. difference with his. is the coaching aspect of it like they. give support so these people like have. someone to turn to when they make a. mistake or if they're thinking about. doing something differently or they. don't know what to do rather than just.

kind of throwing throwing it all up in. the air and quitting they. they have a resource there and that's. probably a big reason why that's the. success rate that they have with that is. they put those support mechanisms in. place. that picture needs to be carried in to. the performance world or the running. world too where. you know we may have just been. identifying. that uh you olympic distance athletes. that can tolerate a very large portion. of their diet come from carbohydrate. is gonna just it's gonna filter those.

ones towards the olympics. filter those towards interesting yeah. and that doesn't mean that like. uh if we would have taken say the gold. medals in the 5k and put them on a low. carb diet they'd run faster they. probably wouldn't. because we may have already selected. that that person's thriving on. carbohydrate. what i would be interested in is like. you have let's say we have someone with. equal talent. but got weeded out along the way. potentially because. for whatever reason they just weren't. able to tolerate like the both the. training and the nutrition requirements.

that they're being told to do so the. coach is kind there's a culture where. the coaches would really push a carb. heavy diet. and that that would in itself would do. the filtering process. of people that are not. it would filter out the people that are. not able to tolerate carbs. as part of their training i mean i might. be an example of this actually where. you know you take someone where uh they. for whatever reason the carbs aren't. working for them like it's unsustainable. for them to continue that path or if. they do they might have a shortened. career so they might be able to eke out. a few really good years but then you.

know they're not going to be the person. they're like wow that person's. 38 and they're still competing at the. olympics type of a person yeah. and you know you you put them on a low. carb diet. uh if you can control everything else. like their entire lifestyle is based. around training and racing. then uh you know they may still. have better potential by introducing. carbohydrates. at a higher level but if that's not. gonna. if that's not gonna be sustainable for. them as a person. then you know what's the point kind of.

at that unless they want to be like a. kind of a spark in the pan so to speak i. just feel good. eating meat performance wise well i. think there's that group too. and they may just not be the olympians. yeah and so we're not talking. i guess this conversation has several. layers one is for the olympics. and one is for like. what is it active athletes. they're like amateurs whatever whatever. category i put myself into like people. that exercise regularly.

and then um maybe people and then. there's people who like exercise. rarely so on all of those fronts. i mean do you think it's possible to. live a happy. uh active life eating meat only. or mostly meat yeah what have you. learned about this. yeah i think uh so for for some context. like i followed. what i would call a low carbohydrate. diet for the last 10 years. and just like kind of the training i. periodize it to a degree where there are.

parts of my training where i do bring. back a little more carbohydrate. and there's periods of my training. especially like the off season where i'm. like very low and i might be like. kind of in that ballpark of uh like you. know ketogenic strict ketogenic or no. carbohydrates for. for periods of time and what kind of. food are we talking about. what's what's a strict low carb diet. i've ranged everywhere from like mostly. plant-based low-carb keto. to like mostly animal-based i've very. rarely. gone much more than like two weeks. strict where it's like i'm. strict carnivore or strict plant-based.

or anything like that. like we're talking probably more like 95. percent at that at the peak. um in terms of any type of like like. longer lasting. uh from my personal experience of like. being like. either in like the animal food camp or. like the plant based camp kind of of a. process. um so i've tried all of them things that. stayed consistent over the 10 years is. kind of the macronutrient profile. that i've done throughout the course so. one didn't win over the other in terms. of meat based versus plant-based oh for. me meat based definitely.

was i mean i was i was my highest meat. consumption in 2019 and that was by far. my best racing season. yeah we keep coming back to that year. that was a good year for many reasons. philosophically and nutritionally. yeah only 2020 happened and now i. haven't had a really good chance to. improve we'll see hopefully i've got. some more. yeah some more in the tank that's. strange there's so most athletes that. compete at your level. have more carbs integrated into their. diets. so what have you learned about using. meat in high performance.

i think it's maybe less about the meat. and it's more about. like what are you what is it replacing. so. if we go if we step away from like me. specifically. and just like the people that because i. mean we're getting to the point i get. it's anecdotes but like. like that's what we have at the moment. because there's i mean there is actually. a study being done on. like i think i guess they call it hyper. carnivore where they're like. i think above 80 percent of their intake. from meat um. and they're looking at a few different.

things there but it's so weird and i. keep interrupting but it's so weird that. it sounds unhealthy. uh hyper carnivore yeah but it makes me. feel really good. so it's the individual thing right yeah. there's countless people now who like. and i'm not saying that they could not. have found another route myself included. like. in 2011 when i switched from moderate to. high carbohydrate low carbohydrate. and saw some very noticeable differences. in the way i. felt the way i performed in all this.

stuff. that doesn't mean that there wasn't. another path i just did not find that. path and. the the the fact that i found a path. that. was producing the results i was looking. for is really all that matters in my. mind you know like. i don't really care if there was a. parallel path that works just as well or. you know something like that because. ultimately we only have one shot at. everything we're doing so like. it'd be great if i could go back and try. four or five different things well the. annoying thing is. that the the body adjusts to whatever.

the heck you're doing so. you can't it's hard to do good science. even on yourself yeah i've referenced my. 2019 racing season a few times and it's. like it'd be silly for me to put all of. the emphasis on my nutrition plan for. that because it also comes with. two decades of endurance training so. it's possible and it's very likely that. a huge portion of that success was just. the culmination of a lot of work over. time from the training side of things. i just think like any time you hyper. focus on one. area or pick a couple variables and just. target those. you find yourself in a position where.

you are you're putting other things in. the most uncharitable light possible. so so then you have this situation where. like it's actually a combination of a. variety of different things so where are. the big movers. and you know for me nutritional shift. was pretty clear that that improved my. sleep in my recovery. and i mean people can say well there's. the placebo. effect which is a very real concern but. you know for me personally a 10-year. placebo effect would be a. quite lengthy placebo effect and.

i do think it's individual though i i. emphasize that a lot because i mean i've. worked with tons of people with this and. i do see a range. from person to person i've worked with. people who come to me. and they're like strict keto and we. raise up their carbohydrates a bit. and they're like okay i feel way better. doing it this way and i've worked with. people who they come to me moderate. carbohydrate but they're interested. enough. um they want to try a lower carb so we. you know we titrate them down and i've. had clients where. i'm like okay i'm gonna give them this. workout and they're gonna wish they.

brought back a little bit of. carbohydrate. and then they go and they nail the. workout and i'm just like baffled that. because because they're different from. me and every time you know when you have. your own personal experience. the first the kind of guttural response. is oh if i had done it would have gone. this way why did it go completely. opposite way for them. and you kind of have to just kind of. step out of your own perspective a bit. and say like okay well. they're different you know for whatever. reason they're getting. getting along like this i've had like. several moments in my life where you. kind of realized.

the body is weird and it's weirder than. the average advice like one of them is. how well i perform for my own standards. when i fast uh first of all. intellectually but that's more known and. and understandable but like physically. yeah the fact that i could train. like not eat 20 hours 24 hours and then. do a hard. like jiu jitsu session for like two. hours. like hard it's incredible to me like. this.

makes no sense because i used to eat. like many times a day. of course you have to eat like you don't. want to eat too close to the training. session what's my thinking. but you definitely need to load up on. carbs like three hours before. like in order to have enough energy the. fact that he could not eat. and have like incredible focus but also. athleticism like both. endurance and explosive i mean jiu-jitsu. is a special thing it's like more like. chess yeah it's not like power lifting. no not power lifting olympic lifting. where it's like true explosiveness but.

that's fascinating and it makes me. wonder like what other things. are there to to um to discover about. yourself. the the annoying thing about food is. it's delicious. and so it's hard to do good science on. yourself like to do. you know for two weeks or a month to do. like. strict no carbs and then maybe next. month you add. 20 grams or 40 grams of carbs and see. how you actually feel. right not like in that moment but over a. period of several weeks.

and then doing everything else like. right with based on. best available science like with the. electrolytes and then vitamins. but then also like remove all the humans. from your life that affect you. yep positively or negatively because you. might feel amazing because you're. hanging out with cool people and then. uh you know like removing basically all. the variables. it's kind of fascinating and you kind of. all of us land in a place. where we find something that worked for. us and then we maybe use some of the. placebo effect to help us out. to stick in that place and then uh.

i suppose that's the way to live life. because it's impossible to find the. optimal for. any of us but carnivore is an. interesting. new kind of caveat a new challenge to. the nutritional community. because more and more people seem to be. doing well under carnivore. yeah well the nutrition community is. probably we just got. done like dealing with the vegans and. now we got this opposite end of the. spectrum coming at us. but i think well i mean what this all. tells.

what this all tells me is like there is. uh for one. like in our food environment like. the failure rate of any one approach at. a population level is going to be. incredibly high. i mean it's why we have you know what is. it like 88. of the population has some sort of like. metabolic syndrome. and it's it's like you know it's because. there's an endless quantity of. everything. that you can get your hands on for. relatively cheap um. and i think that's that that presents a. problem if your mindset is going to be.

we need this set of parameters for. nutrition and. everyone needs to adhere to that or. you're wrong. and it's like we'll tell that to the. person who like went carnivore and. cleared up some like crazy skin ailment. or something like that. that's a weird one yeah like where the. carnivore seems to treat. like like depression uh-huh it's like. like mental stuff. it's fascinating there's all these. stories again it's anecdotes but it's. like. the mental one i think may. i'm stepping out a bit on a limb here.

but i want to say like. some of the research of dominic d. agostino and and jeff wallick was. looking at. the ketogenic diet which a carnivore. diet. is basically going to be a part of a. ketogenic i mean you could always go. like. way too high on the protein i guess but. most people that i see doing carnivore. they're cognizant. enough that at least if they're doing it. for therapeutic reasons. they're not going like you know 50. protein 50 they're more like. 70 30 80 20 something like that and.

and i think like you you do see some. some work with like the brain and so the. mental stuff i know. some of the i'm not sure if this was. part of the darpa funding that. that dr dominic d'agostino had. where they were looking at things like. mental stuff like post-traumatic stress. disorder and that sort of stuff with. with like a strict ketogenic diet so i. wonder if some of that like the. depression related stuff has to do with. that where now like their body is just. fueling their brain differently than. maybe they were in the past. but um that's just you know wild guesses.

on my part. um and i'm deviating from the. conversation but like no that's. brilliant. in terms of your own story on food can. you say something. we were i think we were kind of. referring to diet broadly. can you say something about how you like. to fuel. your like whether it's race or great. training sessions like maybe the day. before. let's go even that far during and maybe. a few hours after okay it'll be a little.

different. for racing than it will be for like a. big workout just because. the interesting thing about ultra. running is just like you never do the. race even. like most endurance races you're going. to cover the distance you're going to. replicate the race almost. up to it in training whereas with 100. miles. you can't you might replicate a third of. it so so. i'll do i'll walk you through kind of my. approach for like 100 mile race and i. can tell you maybe what i would do. differently on like a training day. uh but yeah so for um. where where the community is in.

agreement is that you do want to be. very good at burning fat for. ultramarathons i mean there's just like. the intensity is low. if you're if your ratios are skewed. very high towards carbohydrate. metabolism. then you're going to have to defend your. muscle glycogen. through tons of carbohydrate consumption. and. that's just going to be very hard to do. over the course of an entire day even at. low intensities. so it's a fuel tank thing i mean it's. like your your leanest endurance. athletes have way more fat than they do.

glycogen stores. when you're doing low intensity. performance you want to be burning high. levels of fat and sparing that muscle. glycogen. what i tend to do is i want to start the. race burning really high levels of fat. so. i'm gonna i'll maybe have some. carbohydrate the night before for dinner. but then i'm gonna lean into the. overnight fast breakfast the morning of. i'm gonna stay away from carbohydrates. for a hundred miler anyway. and i'm gonna have something like. something that's pretty. like a high energy low.

volume so like i'll do like an s fuels. uh life bar. they've got like what's in an s fuel. life bar are we talking about carbs or. we're talking about. proteins basically fat and protein yeah. fat protein bar. and they make sure that's awesome yeah. so it's it's not it's low carb. yeah they make s fuels makes a whole. product line that's like kind of. positioned for a low carb athlete so. they have some products on their lineup. that. offer some carbohydrate which is perfect. for me because i do introduce some. carbohydrate on racing and some of my.

bigger training sessions and things. but the majority of their products are. low carb. uh so like they have like you know how. you get like the powders that you put. into like your drinks that are like. high carbohydrate you know sports. products they make a version of that. that's uh. like fat based oh cool that you can mix. in with water yep. cool yeah so they've got like a creamer. version and then a fruity flavored. version so you can like replicate the. taste and the feel of drinking like a. like you know a sports drink science is. awesome i know it is. well and that's so much of it too. because people are always like well i.

don't know i just i. just like to have my gatorade or. whatever right yeah it's like well you. can have it now just uh it won't have. all that you can see you can bring that. kind of thing with you. yeah so i'm leaning on a lot of those. like kind of liquid calories like those. low. um volume high energy fat protein stuff. the morning of so that when i start the. race my body's gonna be encouraged to. start out burning high levels of fat. once i get going. probably 45 minutes in i'll start. introducing small amounts of. carbohydrate so at that point my. body's been revving pretty high fat.

metabolism. and by introducing some carbohydrate in. the context of the. you know let's say my hundred mile uh. personal record. you know i'm i'm running approximately. nine miles every hour so i'm. probably going through about a thousand. calories in an hour's time. uh i'm gonna start just like defending. muscle glycogen. by burning super high levels of fat at. the heart rate i would do for that i'm. probably burning somewhere between 80 90. fat you know 12 hours of that you can. chip away at your muscle glycogen.

uh to the point where you don't. necessarily want to go zero carb. so i'm basically just trying to defend. what i know i'm going to be burning from. the. carbohydrate side of that 80 to 90 fat. 10 to 20 carbohydrate by taking in like. usually you know i've gone as low as. about 15 grams of carbohydrate per hour. and as high as 40 grams. and the reality is somewhere in between. is probably the sweet spot but. 40 i can get away without any digestion. issues. so i'm not really concerned pushing up. to that during a race since i'm.

only concerned about performance on that. is it the car's that's the problem or is. it fiber. or just oh from going above 40 grams or. just because you mentioned digestion. issues. like one of the things for me it's like. one of the. cool things about fatty protein protein. or fat. is like my stomach just feels way better. yeah like for. so like carbs introduce like bloating. and just not feeling great. yeah and i think the funny thing is like. if you look at the position paper for. ultra marathon single day events and. it's. you know it's very limited in the sense.

that it's not anyone's fault it's just. we don't have a lot of great research on. 100 mile races it's really hard to study. what's going on when someone's running. 100 miles. but they'll say moderate carbohydrate. diet. is recommended but they'll also say that. it's like something like 60. of participants are gonna report some. sort of like digestion issue during the. event. so then it kind of becomes an issue of. do you want to flip that coin do you. want to flip that coin maybe the 40. right exactly so for me what i found is. like. i can push up to 40 grams without. getting any digestion issues.

um do i need 40 grams probably not at. least not based on kind of the numbers. that would be like that that i would see. on like if i went and actually got. like a metabolic heart test or something. like that but it's possible i mean if i. had a really good race that i would get. close to burning that per hour. um most folks that are following a. moderate high carbohydrate are going to. be recommended do like 50 to 70 grams. during a single day ultra marathon event. and. you'll see some you know some. recommendations of up to like 100 grams.

uh not so much for ultramarathons but. just in general from like a performance. standpoint which. i mean it's one of those things where. it's like application versus. like what you can do in a lab for one. hour is gonna be a lot different. especially when you're stretching out. distances well past that and you. there's there's i'm diverting a little. here but i mean there's like an approach. of like training your gut so you can. like. be able to tolerate that much. carbohydrate which you can do and you. may have to if you're gonna follow a. high carbohydrate diet. but again we go back to that.

practicality standpoint of. if you're a professional olympian who's. living and breathing performance. and you're burning two to three times. you're messing. resting metabolic rate on some days like. you. you may be able to actually consume 100. grams of carbohydrate per hour during. your training sessions and. and just you know barely stay on top of. your nutritional needs. most people who are running. ultramarathons aren't going to be you. know probably training much past 10. hours per week. and they're probably not gonna have the.

i'll call it their. a dietary budget to tolerate a hundred. grams of carbohydrate consumption during. their workouts and still be able to. stay healthy and uh you know so i think. that's kind of like a. a bit of a of a non a non-starter for. the majority of people. unless we want to talk about like a tiny. percentage of the one percent of. top performers so maybe you can talk. about the training like feeling yourself. during training as well. is there and also as part of that is it. possible to train.

mostly fasted because as a side comment. let me just say i like again not. you are not even like one tenth of your. level of performance but you know i. i try to push myself and i just feel. much better when i'm fasted so. water and maybe some salt for longer. runs for anything over like 10. 15 miles but not no food yeah i think i. mean i like to train on an empty stomach. uh i do most my my biggest training. session usually in the morning and. it usually will determine whether i eat.

something or not before that is like how. much do i need to eat that day in order. to stay on top of it to build training. again the next day. so i'll i'll i'll usually do something. similar to what i do before a race if i. need to kind of stay on top of calories. for the day so i'm not like. at noon with like no calorie intake and. like. 5 000 calories to try to consume before. i go to bed that night and get out and. do the same thing the next day uh. but yeah i think uh in if i were if i. were doing what you're doing. like if that were my lifestyle i think i. would do almost all my runs fasted.

i don't see why i would be eating a lot. before it because it's like. um i'm just introducing something that. could. especially if you're noticing like. here's what i'd say if i was doing that. and i was like wow this run sucks and. then i introduced something beforehand. and now my run was feeling great my. progress was getting better. that's when i would maybe consider. having something before but if you're. running both of those. those like self experiments you're. noticing yeah if i eat something before. i go on this workout. the workout's less enjoyable i'm not. noticing any any.

increased improvements on it again it's. a little messy like we said before it's. hard to really you can't go back and try. it a different way on that specific day. but i think i think most people if. they're just like if they go at it with. like. no bias in the sense that they're like. trying to make one work versus the other. you can get at least a good enough look. at it and if. absolute peak performance in one. activity one. very specific activity isn't your goal. then. it's like do you really care if one x. has a two percent performance increase.

that you won't even probably notice. because there's other variables that. will clearly overpower that two percent. one way or the other and there's some. benefit in terms of freedom. and letting go of like having to think. about some of these variables. i see sort of fasting is even if it's. like a hit on the performance. it's worth it to just not think about it. there's some really nice. aspect to just putting on shoes not. caring like what shorts you wear or like. what your outfit is like not being. optimal in every way just not caring and.

just enjoying the. purity of just running yeah no matter. what. just enjoying the natural aspect yeah. there's a side to me that sometimes just. like. craves a lifestyle where it's like i. have like such a small. house and only what i need and just like. a handful of food products that i know i. enjoy and work well for me and i don't. even have the distraction of the other. stuff. there's like a there's like a there's. almost like a weight that comes off your. shoulders when you can when you think. even just. thinking about it like it's so simple so.

the reason i i'm mostly a minimalist. like that the reason i have stuff is i. realize like. you probably have to fit into society. and if you want to have. other people in your life you should. probably get used to having stuff yeah. because because most people like stuff. right yeah well yeah there's that side. of it too and. there's there's a whole you don't want. to ostracize yourself too much and. i think anything you can kind of like. you can manipulate that a little bit. where there's things that are like. not specific to uh. you know that's gonna negatively impact.

the people around you or your. experiences with them. uh so there's a balance like everything. i guess yeah i mean that's why i drink. i think i mentioned you offline drink. vodka whiskey. sort of alcohol because i don't. feel good about it the day after. or sometimes multiple days after so i. know it's not good for me. so i do a lot of stuff that's good for. me everything we talked about exercise. and diet and all those kinds of things. but the alcohol almost symbolizes. embracing the chaos of life.

the the wild and the amazing things that. could happen. and i think that's really important. because if you optimize everything about. life. then you're going to miss most of the. fun stuff that happens in life. so it's not all about the optimization. it's some of it. like everyone has different things and. what they how they introduce that chaos. in a controlled way for me. alcohol is that because i'm okay. drinking not too much. so i can control that aspect even though. it's. unhealthy it introduces just the right.

amount of fun. that yeah i embrace it yeah and i mean. it is one of those. things where it's like i'm gonna benefit. now and pay later a little bit too where. like. and hey if you go and you you go out. with some friends and. and drink and you have memories that. last a lifetime from that experience and. you paid for it for a couple days. after then hey maybe that's a fair. trade-off from life experience and part. of the vodka thing is i need to honor my. ancestors. so it's like you have to you know you. can't.

yeah you can't turn your back on your. past. um let me ask about the 100 mile world. record on the treadmill. so for most people running a treadmill. is really boring. so that's kind of their experience of it. that's probably the first thing that. would say. that seems like really boring to run a. hundred miles on a treadmill. would you say it's boring like what were. some. places your mind went to make that. happen so this one is interesting to me. because.

i definitely recognized the boredom and. the the difference. the thing that the question i can't. quite answer i think with it is like. could i have. remedied that with better preparation. because the scenario that put me on a. treadmill for 100 miles was. you know it was march 2020 basically the. cascade of every race. on the planet got cancelled and i was in. a position where i was going to be doing. a runnable 100 miler. uh on a track in mid to late april so i.

had like the majority of my training. under my belt so i was like kind of. putting the finishing touches on that. and i was like oh great here we are like. you know what do i do with this fitness. do i just. scale back and hope the events come back. and fall and then peak again. or do i find something to use this. fitness for. and the treadmill was the closest thing. to what i had been training for in terms. of just like a mechanical like flat. running essentially. that i could that i could think of and. uh my thought was okay well i'll. just live stream myself on a treadmill.

and see what happens it ended up turning. into like a. quite a big event but so you don't. usually incorporate treadmill running. into your running. into your training i don't not. incorporate it i just don't incorporate. it in the way that would be necessarily. conducive to. uh you know dealing with the mental. aspects of being on a treadmill for 100. miles. was it that different than running on a. track it was. from the sense that here's the way i. describe it is when i'm on a track it's. a controlled environment. and everything can be very uniform but. there are tiny.

little micro adjustments in pace that. that i'm doing subconsciously that give. me the sense of control. right no i might run the exact same. split but there's like a. fraction of a second or you know a. fraction second faster than a fraction. of a second slower that equals the same. outcome. it gives you that sense of control. you're determining how fast you're going. on a treadmill you're responding to the. belt so. the advantage is you can set a pace and. know you're hitting it the disadvantage. is. you're being told what to do by that. machine and that gets very frustrating.

um i felt like i wanted to step off like. you get to like. certain points where you're just like. like even stepping off what i noticed. i learned this on the day of actually i. noticed there's something where it. didn't really matter how long i get off. like i'd get off to use the bathroom and. that was a little bit of a longer break. then i at some i had i had like a hiccup. during my event where we ran so much. power through one end of the house that. the screen on the treadmill was blacking. out yeah so. uh we ended up so i ended up jumping. back and forth on treadmills for quite a.

bit in the beginning. and i noticed even turning it off. stepping over and starting the other one. up. gave me like you know a handful of. seconds between was enough of a mental. break of just like that release of being. told what to do. yeah to reset so maybe if you were in. the future you would. figure out what exactly how much she's. needed to have them at the bank i never. actually thought about that. that i mean obviously for you but also. for people like me like amateur runners. that that's the source of frustration. with the treadmill that there's. sometimes. a small adjustments in pace that we do.

running. not on the treadmill on the ground that. feel like essential. yeah for that feeling just like you said. that experience of control. like uh feeling like you're in control. somehow that's really. i don't know that's somehow liberating. in the way that a treadmill can be just. the source of frustration. the funny the funny thing though about. the treadmill is i actually like to do. faster workouts on the treadmill like. long intervals or something like that. or tempo runs because for that for that.

type of stuff sometimes for those. i want to release the brain power. required to hit that pace and say you. take care of that yeah. and for that it's fun but those are over. quick so you don't really run into the. times. yeah that's fascinating for like precise. control. of pace you've uh you've also during. that stream got to interact one of the. greatest athletes of all time burke. pressure. what's your he's actually doing i don't. know if you're paying attention to this. but i guess he has a goal of running. 2000 miles this year. yeah i've got a chance to talk to joe.

rogan. uh yesterday about this which is uh. fascinating he i think he's a little bit. doubtful of. bert's ability to be the ultra performer. that he so naturally is. yeah um what's your thoughts about bert. as a runner what's your advice to him. and what was your interaction like on as. part of this treadmill challenge with. him. i love bert because he's such a nice. person i mean as a guy who's just. accelerated in popularity over the last. few years like.

he is like super kind so for folks who. are curious like. i've met bert a couple years earlier and. i just. randomly asked him like hey i'm doing. this live stream thing we're doing it. for fight for the forgotten we're trying. to raise some funds for them. would you want to come on the live. stream for a bit and i thought maybe. he'd. come on for like five or ten minutes and. i thought that would be amazing if he. did that he ended up coming on for like. over an hour he said he went past his. slot. sat in the next slot and just started. talking with some of the other guests. it's he's just uh bert is definitely. like i feel like he's as unchanged from.

like his popularity as one can get away. with. and it's just like his his lifestyle i. think is very. un unpredictable in the sense that like. if he wants to run like x time for a. specific race. that's going to pull away from his. lifestyle so much to focus on that. luckily for him he's actually a great. athlete like you it's it's under that. layer of uh. fat yeah so for people who are not. familiar burke crash is a comedian.

who takes off his shirt often has a uh. elegant layer of fat around him he's. also a party animal. so he's a weird balance of like healthy. and unhealthy. yeah so he drinks a lot during. i think there's some debate about that. but certainly after. his uh his performances but at the same. time he's into. kind of the running thing and he does. quite a bit of treadmill running i think. so and like i said has his challenge of.

running 2000 miles this year. so it's fascinating to have somebody who. so fully embraces. life and the full joys of life as. represented by the. huge amounts of drinking and partying. and just being a wild man. but also at the same time like being at. least. curious about this challenging yourself. in the physical realm. it's kind of fascinating it reminds me. of um. one of my favorite comedians like eddie. izzard who. has been doing those challenges. basically off the couch just running.

a marathon a day kind of thing it's. fascinating. to see the purity of those challenges. when like exercise hasn't necessarily. been. deeply great ingrained in your life and. you kind of just embrace the challenge. anyway. and take it on and that's another way of. looking at it because we've been talking. about running as a. a performance like optimization thing. where. training is such a huge part of this. process like grace day is just the. cherry on top.

but there's for some people where the. race is the cake. yeah it's like they just take it on as a. pure challenge as the. as the as the thing you haven't really. trained for is the thing you haven't. you don't understand the intricacies of. but you take it on anyway and that. that reveals something about the human. spirit as well yeah and there's. definitely like a switch that flips when. you. in your mind decide i'm gonna do this. where then all of a sudden it goes from. like. you stop thinking about oh that's not. possible it's like well i'm just gonna. do it and i think. bert highlights that perfectly in a lot.

of cases where like. he's he's maybe not even thinking it. through enough to get to the point where. it's like he gets the point where he. thinks this is not possible. where most people would look at it and. think huh i don't know if i can actually. physically. accomplish that task burt's just like oh. yeah i'm gonna do it. and my my thought with bert was the two. thousand mile thing is. where are we gonna find him at the end. of the year with like 36 hours to go on. a hundred miles and he's gonna say. that's right. that's right that's what's gonna happen. and it's going to be hilarious uh so. speaking of things that are insane.

and like taking on challenges that don't. seem. like you didn't you didn't think through. you're thinking about running across the. country in. in a challenge you call the. transcontinental run. can you describe this challenge and what. the heck you're thinking yeah. yeah so this is uh you know one thing. that is exciting about ultra marathons i. think in a lot of places especially. early in someone's ultra marathon. adventure if they decide to do that.

as a you know part of their life is you. have like these early years where you're. doing things for the first time. and it's like so cool and scary at the. same time to think. today i'm gonna run a hundred miles and. the first i've ever run before is 50. or something like that and you just know. you're gonna do something that you've. never done before you're gonna. experience things you would have never. been able to predict. uh and it's like this really interesting. unique. like human experience i think so for me. i spent most of my career at this point. like doing i got through that phase in a.

lot of the events i'm really interested. in. and then it was like now let's repeat it. and see if we can do it better and you. get into that mindset for a while which. is. also a fun mindset but there is that. kind of like uh. um desire to kind of have that human. experience again of like. you know not knowing what could happen. or is this doable type of a thing but. still doing it and figuring it out along. the way so i would describe the trans. continental. project as something like that it's not. anything unique to me or anything new. there's been a lot of people who've done. it before. but essentially it's a route there's. different routes there's one kind of.

main one that's done for like. the that is used as the record route. more or less that you go from. san francisco to new york and. essentially you live out of an rv. uh while you're running so you run as. much as you can during the day then you. go to bed at night and then you get up. and do it again. and you're you're handling all the. logistics and the. process of trying to make sure you can. get up the next day and do again what. you did the day before which is going to. be the biggest difference so. for me i've done all single day ultra. marathons where. you're going to wring yourself dry at.

knowing the next day or week or however. long you need you're going to be able to. just kind of like shut everything down. and let everything catch back up whereas. with this. like you know you're doing it again and. again again yeah and you know the record. is by a guy named pete costner who. averaged just over 72 miles a day. finished in 42 days six hours and 30. minutes and i mean just like 72 miles 73. miles and then like. next day again next day again just. knowing every day when you finish you. spend a whole day running and then okay. i'm gonna go to bed i'm gonna wake up in. the morning i'm gonna have to do this. again.

and then you know have that happen for. six weeks and that's if it goes very. well. so luck i assume is a big part of this. yeah for sure i mean there's just so. many variables that are uncontrollable. on this type of an experience just. because i mean you go over the sierras. maybe you hit a storm. you know you try to time it most people. do it in start in september so you. can get over the mountain passes without. a big storm coming through. uh but then also get to the east coast. before it's like the middle of winter. so like september early september start. is kind of ideal. but you can you know i mean pete was.

very fortunate from a weather standpoint. i think he made one big mistake we got a. little too aggressive in the beginning. had to take a full day off so he. actually averaged from a moving day. standpoint closer to 75 miles per day. um but yeah i mean there's going to be. things that i can't. prepare for won't know it's going to. happen and you know a lot of that will. get. a lot of the logistical stuff will get. leaned on with the crew so. that's i mean that's the hardest part. right now is just like getting all that. put together where it's like. okay i need to have the rv ready i need. to have all the stuff right we need to.

have. the places figured out where we're going. to stop and and the people that. can you know dedicate that much time to. an activity like that. you know there's a lot of moving parts. even before you start the adventure. itself. when are you so you're you're taking the. san francisco to new york right yeah. and when are you doing the run september. 1st is when uh you know barring anything. like catastrophic between now and then. it's really exciting but i mean it's. incredible so you. you'll probably have a bunch of people. just randomly running with you are. people going to be tracking where you're. located. yeah so i'll be documenting everything.

because i mean my hope is that i'm doing. it primarily to raise awareness for. fight for the forgotten justin ren's. charity. uh but with that said i think i am. capable of. uh if i have a good experience uh you. know. chasing the record or going after the. record or at least getting close to it. so oh so you're gonna try to beat. this record. yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna go out with the. i'm gonna structure. the process in a way that leaves that. door open is the way i would describe it. i'm going to try not to do anything. that would potentially put it in a.

situation where. that becomes the primary goal just. because i want to make sure that. the reason i decided in the first place. was for fight for the forgotten so i. want to make sure that i don't end up. two-thirds way across the country with a. broken leg and i'm like. hey guys uh i guess the donation. button's turned off. so focus on like don't sacrifice that. right. that goal but also there's a community. aspect to it. that i feel like are you going to. i mean so you're going to document and. post yeah.

but are you going to also is there a. safety perspective here it's like the. forest gump thing. you might have large numbers of crowds. that run along with you for a while. yeah worried about that kind of thing i. wouldn't say i'm worried about i mean i. think there's probably. there's remote enough spots along the. way where you'll get some alone time. more. more likely i don't necessarily mind if. people want to jump in there. there'll be some people that will. definitely want to do that and. and they can come in and but the reality. is like it's. probably not going to be a scenario.

where there's like you know 40 people. following me at all times. you say that now yeah you never know. just wait for this podcast. yeah and then if joe finds out you're. doing this then we're really in trouble. all right so um i mean what are the. things that you think will be the. hardest. for you and also like how do you train. for this kind of thing. um and what yeah what are the hardest. things you anticipate how do you train. for them. yeah so the way i'm looking at this is. it's much less about performance from.

the traditional sense. where i need to be able to be x fit. i think i need to be injury proof that's. what's going to be a. detriment if you think about it like if. i manage to average. nine minute mile pace for a day. that would be 80 miles in a 12 hour time. frame. so i'll easily have 12 hours of moving. time per day. um nine minute pace i think is slow. enough that it's not an unreasonable. clip. so like when you i mean obviously.

there's things that slow you down or. i'll probably take walking breaks you. know stopping breaks you got to. stay on top of nutrition that's the. other big thing too i'm probably eating. like anywhere between 10 to 15 000. calories a day which is. you know i could probably count on my. hand a couple of occasions where i've. eaten that much. in my life so now i got to do that for. six plus weeks in a row. and you don't want any have any stomach. problems my friends are trying to. minimize. the amount of stomach problems would you. estimate about 12 to 13 to 14 hours of. running every day. yeah that's probably like from from the. first step to the last step it'll.

probably be somewhere around. like say 14 hours 13 hours or something. like that would be. a pretty good estimate and then getting. rest and so and then minimizing. the risk of injury which could be as. small as like like literally uneven. surfaces. resulting to like stepping the wrong way. i mean that's going to be a lot of steps. yeah yeah uh-huh so the probability of. injury are you worried about that kind. of stuff. is it can you strengthen the ankles or. those kinds of things that prevent. yeah possibility of injury and that's. that's where i'm putting a lot of my. focus in.

is uh i think like just being running. fit is gonna be like generally speaking. is gonna be. important i'm gonna i think just from a. lifetime of running is gonna be a huge. advantage. uh a lot of these like kind of like. mechanical movements are gonna be very. established it's just gonna be about can. i tolerate that volume of it. there i think i'm doing more strength. work i think this is something where. it's like. you know maybe adding five pounds of. lower body muscle is going to be an. advantage versus a disadvantage when. you're looking at power weight ratio.

because i just don't really don't i. never need to be running a 648 mile for. this adventure. um and i so i'm looking at i'm doing a. lot more of that stuff focusing on that. the training is changing a fair bit. where. it's more polarizing versus kind of. being i mean i've always had some. polarization in my training but this is. even to an extreme where like i'm gonna. do some simulations where. uh you know i go out and do two or three. days where i target. the exact thing i will be doing on the. transcon you were on instagram posting.

about these simulated runs so you. legitimately like trying to perfectly. copy what would happen one two or three. day segment. on that right yeah just to kind of start. to weed out. where are the potential problems so. let's say i do a. two or three day simulation where i'm. averaging 70 miles a day. and i find out at the end of three days. there's a really weak spot here. um i need to address that or i need to. find a way to make that not a weak spot. i think that's the only way to really. get as close as you can to avoiding. injury. have you done that yet have you done a.

two-day sony amount like even that's. incredibly difficult i haven't yet i'm. going to build up to it because that's. the other thing too is like. i don't think you want to be so. aggressive with that where you get. injured. trying to figure out how not to get. injured uh so i'll all. what i'm going to start what i just. started last week is i've. uh it looks really weird on my training. schedule because like last week i ran. almost 150 miles but i took two days off. so it's like. usually for me to get 150 miles that's a. seven day training week. uh so that's the way i'm doing it like i. did i did a day where i did uh you know.

two like just over 20 milers separated. with by just a couple hours and within. that couple hours i did like a three. three mile walk the following morning i. woke up and ran i think it was like just. over 36 miles first thing in the morning. just to get an idea of just like kind of. like what is it like to be. i mean this was in phoenix too so it was. 100 degrees for the majority of that. to suffer then rest yeah suffer again. how that feels there's enough precedent. with this sort of an activity where. like everyone i've talked to so far has.

told me like there's gonna be like this. kind of like gradual decline in the. early stages where you're just like okay. it's getting worse it's getting worse. it's getting worse. and you hit a point where you're just. like it hits kind of rock bottom. and then like it starts to kind of. gradually improve. so you kind of have to let yourself get. it's weird i think i can maybe. eliminate i'm trying to find a way to. eliminate some of that by. doing the simulations whereas i from. what i've seen i haven't seen a lot of. people do the simulation route yet. i've seen people just do like a lot of.

training and then say like okay i'll. spend the first seven to ten days. adapting to this and then i'll get. comfortable. within this environment and be fine. whereas i'm gonna try to get to a point. where like. some of that is already kind of cleared. up before i start but not so much that. i'm like adding like an extra essential. week to the trip. worth of running what what what do you. think would be the hardest simulator run. leading up to like will you do three. days yeah i think i'll probably try to. do three days. somewhere between 70 and 80 miles each.

will be kind of like the goal. uh that'd be in august do you think how. close to yeah i would like it to be in. august like early august would be ideal. i think like maybe the first week in. august because that gives me kind of. three weeks to let things kind of settle. down from that but that's. crazy this is incredible it's it's. actually interesting because like if i. did let's say i did the simulation. now um the problem with that is like the. adaptations. from just like the breakdown and the. strengthening would likely be gone. unless i did it again. uh so i want to inch up to it so that. like.

and get close enough to the starting. date so that i'm still kind of like. you know holding on to that adaptation. when i start started. so then those first few days maybe. aren't quite as miserable and you said. uh if everything goes amazing and you're. challenging. the record it'll be like a 42 day run. yeah so that's what the record is almost. exactly six weeks. and that's at 72.5 miles per day so will. you be posting online and like. yeah instagram's gonna be a big one i. think i might do a few like youtube. stuff along the way too.

um yeah i'm still iron out exactly how. much i think at minimum i'll do. i'll do some instagram stuff i think. i'll go live on instagram a few times. during the day when i take like walking. breaks. uh partly just to kind of i think. keeping people in i mean it stays true. to the. the goal of raising awareness but it. also i find. when you bring people in there is an. added pressure to that. but there's also this sense that i've. learned from the treadmill experience. since we had like a pretty big. production for that. in the sense that i mean as much as you.

can turn on a camera in your own house. but like. the i remember thinking we had like 30. people lined up to come in and guest. speak during that. and there was points of that where i was. like you know you get that voice you. talk about the beginning where it's like. you know. maybe you could quit like do you really. need to run 100 miles on a treadmill is. this. really going to be valuable for you yeah. and then you think about oh you know. what there's uh. you know courtney dewalter one of the. best female ultra owners to ever. exist is taking an 30 minutes to an hour. out of her day. to come on in two hours to you know help.

me you know amplify this event and do i. really want to be sending emails out to. these people saying hey guys i know you. were gracious enough to. block out time of your day you know i. think there's a little bit of that to do. where you're like you're. you're jumping in with the community. that is following along and saying. here's how things are going. show them the best the worst and. everything between and then ultimately. have that hold you accountable a little. bit too it's like hard to get up in the. morning and not go back out. i don't know how you are but i had to uh. whenever i did any kind of physical.

stuff. like the 48 hour challenge or just any. kind of running. i hated turning on the camera i. hated it like because you have to like. smile and be friendly and stuff. oh i'm just gonna be super miserable if. i'm miserable. well that's it so like exactly in some. sense that's what people. you know we're going to get a happy zac. or an angry exactly it's like you're. making bets. and i'm sure there'll be some days maybe. not many maybe very few where you're.

truly happy with yourself. like for some weird ecstatic reason. maybe. if you get over the hump whatever that. you mentioned that this dip. i mean it's it's fascinating how many. how much suffering this actually entails. i wonder well and one thing i'm gonna. definitely. try to leverage to my advantage and one. of the reasons why i think. fight for the forgotten was the charity. that really triggered me to. decide to do this the transcontinental. route was something i. learned about early in my ultra running. career and i thought to myself i want to.

do that someday but it was one of those. kind of. far off distance things that it never. really like actualized in your mind. until you put a date down or. you know mention it on the joe rogan. experience or something like that. but then then it's like people want to. know when is this happening and uh. um you know what i try to think about is. you know the reason justin identified. the pygmy tribe. was because they were super forgotten. where you know. we think about just like some of these. third world countries where. it's a scenario of like some people it's.

easy for us. here in the us to think to ourselves. well why don't they just industrialize. why don't they just like you know. start to innovate a bit why are they so. primitive what's wrong with them. in reality like when you take uh when. you scale things down to the degree. where. you need the entire day because of the. situation you're in. just to take care of your basic needs of. water and food. you never get the opportunity to even. build a real. like establishment or you know build on.

that. like you need you need the free time or. you need a portion of your population. to have the free time available to. innovate and the pygmy tribe just hadn't. had that historically in fact they. weren't even considered humans by like. the local government for quite some time. and. you know the people that really pay the. price in some of these situations are. the women because they're the ones that. get saddled with like the water. gathering and things like that so the. reason that justin picked wells. to build was because he thought to. himself if we can get them wells. then now these women don't to spend all. day walking and carrying water.

now they can just get that water and now. we have half the population freed up for. other things now maybe they can start. farms. they can build some housing and stuff. like that and it just. it exponentially improves once you take. care of some of those. big key early things so when i'm. thinking about like. you know do i really need to go out here. and travel another 12 hours a day my. mind's going to hopefully go to. well if one of those women woke up in. the pygmy tribe one morning decided you. know what do i really need to go get. water today. well yeah you do you really do have to.

yeah you're running for that uh-huh. yeah and that that will give you fuel. hopefully but. yeah yeah i mean the reality is always. there where i don't have to do it like. they do. have to do it so you know but i think. just keeping that perspective. it it puts us back to the beginning. where. it's this is one of those situations. where i think it's like. uh a no-quit situation you have to put. yourself in a no-quit situation here. because it's. uh you know it's just bigger than you i.

can't wait to see like the dark places. you go. i mean there's some yeah the the quit. situations. and hopefully we get to have a glimpse. of those because i think those are. really inspiring. when somebody is uh both gets broken by. them. because you know how tough you are but. also it's almost broken and overcomes it. i mean that's just fascinating stories i. can't wait. i i know does joe know you're doing this. by the way yeah i sent him. i sent him a note a while back because. he was the first spot i mentioned it on. so i think he he knows i'm not sure if.

he's followed along about the exact. starting date or well he will no. this is great you'll probably think. you're a. crazy uh mfr for doing this but. uh i think you'll love it and i think i. love it and i think the world will love. it. ridiculous question who's the greatest. endurance runner. or endurance athlete of all time oh. that's a good question. um i think i'd probably go. maybe two directions here uh.

i think uh helly gabor lassie is. one of the best in my opinion because. just i mean 27 world records. like like not all the different distance. but like. breaking and rebraking and that sort of. stuff um. i mean he ran two what was it 203. 59 before the shoot technology came in. that is estimated at anywhere between a. two to eight percent performance. advantage talking about a two hour.

marathon two. zero three yep two hour three minutes. yeah so he did that with the old shoe. technology. which uh essentially dates back to. anything if. if you were a nike athlete it could date. back to as early as. i think early 2016 is when the first. prototype started showing up. uh so if you're before that in your. career you are using you're guaranteed. to be using the old shoe technology. um and i mean just the range of it too. and uh yeah it's it's hard i mean. there's there.

it's uh is he a marathon runner purely. no he did everything that's why i pick. him i think because he. he he went everywhere everything from. the 800 and his like. at a national 800 yeah at a national. level i don't he wasn't competing. at like olympics or anything in the 800. but he was he was. mostly like 5k to marathon um. yeah yeah so just incredible i mean i i. could go a totally different direction. too i think like steve prefontaine. stands out. in as an american runner just because if. you look at it outside of just like. performances. and stuff like that i think um.

he basic like you can't find. an american male runner who. probably didn't get some motivation or. some catalyst into their running journey. from. a prefontaine story or what would you. say is inspiring about prefontaine. uh like from the philosophy from the. technique from his story. uh i think there's a few things i mean. there's a lot of things which is why he. is who he is it's uh. one was just his attitude about it where. um he wasn't like this.

picture ask runner i mean he was. obviously talented. but you know you have the perfect story. of like he wanted to be good at. something. like most american kids tried football. no hard work was going to get. pre-fontaine. starting in varsity for football starts. running. he fell in love with a mile uh his. college coach told him no you're not. going to be a miler you're going to be a. 5k. guy and he popularized the 5k in the. united states or three mile in some. cases. and i mean he would the way he would.

race i think is what. really made him interesting for po folks. where he would. he was just like all guts runner where. he's like he's like i mean one of his. famous quotes was like. if you if you beat me you're gonna have. to bleed to do it because he's gonna be. in old guts race in. in a sport where it gets very tactical. at times especially at the like. national or i shouldn't say national but. at the like competition level. the championship level where it's like. kind of more of a sit and kick. approach a lot of times where everyone's. kind of waiting for someone to make a. move like priy was going to make a move. really early yes so this idea of leading.

from the front which i guess is. tactically. really a bad idea well from a. from a running a pr standpoint it's a. bad idea. in most cases but so race i guess is not. just about the pr mm-hmm so race it's. about winning. in a lot of cases and that's what he. thought was going to put him in the best. advantage to win i think. it's just the run from the front i mean. what what do you cause you mentioned. this. uh the 100 mile you ran you were in. second place in the. in 90s you were able to get to the.

first place how hard is it to run when. you're in first place. you know i think this is really. different some people thrive under it. where it's like for them. i mean like i talked about jim walsh. before i think he loves being in the. front. if he's in the front he loves it that's. where he's excited that's where he knows. he's. he's doing what he's doing where he's. pushing his limits and things like that. uh pree was probably the same way and i. think there's other folks who are. much more comfortable kind of saying. let's let things settle down here a. little bit. and uh then i'll make my move when it's.

time to make my move. or they think of it as and this is a. very important i think lesson for. for the average ultra runner is just. like knowing what you're capable of. is going to be an important piece to the. puzzle because you can like. you you you can try to say i want to run. faster than i'm capable of. in an early part of a 100 miler but then. you're going to pay for it at the end. so really unless you're trying to go for. the win and that's a tactic that you. think is going to produce a win versus. trying to run your fastest time you got.

to run within yourself. within your parameters obviously there's. a big question about. where those parameters are in a lot of. cases which makes ultramarathon even. more interesting because it's like. there's so much unknown about it it's. like well maybe you can go faster and we. just don't know yet. so there's in the face of that. uncertainty there's something admirable. like it was with prefontaine. where you take the risk and run faster. than. you know you you think you might be able. to run. in terms of pace that you can hold so. push the pace that's possible yeah.

explore the unknown. experience i think it's like a pioneer. spirit right yeah you know the. next frontier kind of a thing but i mean. prefontaine also there's other angles. with him too where he was like in the. amateur era where. to be an olympian you couldn't be pro so. he's turning down i mean the guy was on. food stamps and living in a trailer. because he wanted to run at the olympics. and. there was a lot of like politics. involved with not being able to take. take sponsorship money and things like. that which has changed since then but. uh so he was huge in the movement for.

that to kind of like. you know have a situation where now as. an athlete you can. finish in most cases finish college sign. a big contract with uh you know a. sponsor and then. also still compete in the olympic games. and go to the events that are actually. ones that are going to. likely catapult your career in most of. the olympic distance endurance events so. so he just revolutionized the sport and. then to add even more flavor to the. whole thing i mean. he died of very premature death he got. in a car accident and. died before he would have likely.

probably meddled at the olympics. so he and there was a tragedy the fact. that he didn't. yeah well he was fourth place at the. olympics the prior. his first go of it and it was kind of. one of those things where it's like. fourth place at the olympics is the. first. man looking out or the first woman. looking out and for a guy that had as. much hype as him i think like. a medal was something he really wanted. to take home with him there and. especially how that race went i mean. yeah i don't know it's. it's it's tragic the whole thing but. that's one of the things that makes. olympics amazing is the tragedy of it.

like. one race decides the story of a lifetime. which is like yeah that's why it's. that's why it's amazing. even if a lot of people get hurt because. of it. tragedy makes the the triumph special. right yeah and well it makes i mean it. makes life. like a movie almost where exactly if. everything's all. sunshine and rainbows then it's not as. entertaining to watch yeah there's no. adversity to overcome. you mentioned shoe technology how much.

has shoe technology advanced through the. past few decades. how much has it changed running. generally but also. running like ultra marathon running i. would say in. ultra running it's had much of a less. of an impact because ultra running is. still. heavily skewed towards the trails so the. technology. at least from what we know isn't. necessarily translating over to these. like massive varied terrains certainly. not the technical terrain and things. like that. now on road races flat stuff like the. track stuff the roads the.

run i guess you a runnable trail um. where it's just like basically crushed. limestone more or less. uh you definitely get an advantage from. it it's uh and essentially what. what happened um is in. it this probably dated back actually. before 2015. uh you know nike decided well their. their their. their development team uh was ahead of. the curve. they've developed this new foam they. call it like a peabod foam. uh and they they realized that like when.

you step down into a shoe. the reason like uh racers a lot of times. would wear these flats. because they're trying to take out any. of that lost energy into the foam in the. shoe. well this foam that nike came out with. is so good that it actually returns. way more energy than the average foam. did to the point where. like when they test these things on like. force plate treadmills and things like. that it's like a. depending on the person's gait and. sometimes it's like a two to eight. percent. improvement in performance i mean we've. seen records just. across the board get broken since this.

came out all distances. basically yeah yeah i think from at. least from the. 5k up through the marathon and i mean. we've seen some. insane improvements in the marathon i. think like uh the women's marathon went. from. what was considered relatively. untouchable like 216 to a 214. and i mean like it was like 218 was like. just world class like if you could run a. 218 marathon as a woman that was like. i mean it still is to a degree but then. you know now you have someone run a 214.

like that's and you attribute a lot of. that to the the shoe. yeah yeah i think there's probably other. things that come in mind too like now. that people know there's a performance. advantage from a mechanical standpoint. it's also a confidence thing where it's. like oh no i can probably. try going five seconds per mile faster. and maybe they could have anyway and. they just now they think they can so. they are so there's probably a little. bit of that that's just adding to it. do you think there's a lot of extra. innovation that's still possible like. what. if you could do this kind of big leap.

with a little innovation of foam is. there other stuff that you can do or. further innovation materials that make. up the foam yeah so they can definitely. go much. more advantage they put a cap on it. essentially so. there was a there's also a carbon plate. element to this too where they put like. this carbon plate in there in between. the foam. so like i believe when when kipchaki. broke well when they did that that kind. of uh. uh the sub two hour project he actually. had on a shoe if i'm not mistaken that. never got to market because they put.

down some parameters on it after. uh before it that one came to market. where it was actually like. stacked up to i can't remember how many. millimeters was an insane amount and. they had like i think maybe even three. layer plates in there. and that was a nike shoe he was wearing. yeah yeah so what makes it kind of. controversial or difficult is nike came. out with these prototypes so prototype. for people don't understand shoes like. these these companies they'll develop a. shoe and it usually takes like. somewhere in the neighborhood of like. probably 18 months to hit the market.

so if you're like a sponsored athlete or. work for the company. you can get your hands on these shoes. before they actually come to market. so we had an issue i think this wasn't. necessarily as big of an issue in the. ultra running community but. uh in the track and field olympic. distance stuff was a big issue because. you had nike athletes having these. prototype shoes before anyone could get. them. and then you had athletes were sponsored. by these other brands who couldn't wear. them even if. even when they did come to market so. then we had this like chase to catch up. where.

uh other companies are starting to make. their own version of it and now we're. getting to a point. where most companies have a version of. that shoe. um but we had a huge transition phase. that impacted the olympics big time. i mean think of here's a here's an. example of it uh there's a. there was a an athlete kara goucher um. she. was not she was a nike athlete wasn't uh. when they came out with this shoe. and she ran the olympic trial marathon.

and got fourth place the first person. out and two of the people had ever had. that shoe on. and she was maybe a minute or two like. i'd have to look to see exactly but it. was within the. the performance advantage range and so. you could argue that she was the first. person in modern running to lose an. olympic spot due to a technological. disadvantage. wow and and it's like i mean it's one of. those. yeah i mean it's one of those things. where like um. it's it's a transition right so there's. gonna be bumpy road and there's gonna be.

people that get caught in that. transition that it's unfortunate for. but it's also like uh you know once. everything does catch up and every shoe. company has a version of this there's. still problems i mean these are. incredibly expensive shoes it's like a. 250. shoe so it's like at what point do you. tell like a wealthy family with a high. school. kid that you know you can get that 250. shoot and then you go and this kid's. family can barely afford a pair of shoes. for that much less a 250. pair of shoes like where do we draw that. line and that sort of stuff.

um also just here's the other big one. like. let's i mean two to eight percent is a. massive range what if you're on the two. percent versus someone's on the eight. percent. you know chances are if you're you know. blowing a record out of the water you're. probably closer to that high-end. percentage versus someone who's maybe. getting incremental gains or probably. closer to that lower end. so is it fair to have a piece of. equipment that has that big of a range. when we're talking about. less than a percent determining these. races when all is held constant. those are fascinating like philosophical.

questions that i think. it's nice to solve that for the shoe or. to raise those questions for a shoe. because the more complicated place where. they will be raised is probably like. genetics. genetic engineering all those kinds of. things yeah you'll get a lot more. complicated. so it's nice when you have like a. particular piece of technology that's. just like right there it's a shoe. we can understand and we can study it. right we may be coming on the precipice. of like. human powered sport performance is no. longer being something that we like look. at. as this like pinnacle of uh like i don't.

maybe. entertainment's the wrong word but like. is that a pursuit. you know do we end up just going a. different direction i mean i think it's. like it's so hard for us to think about. that. right now because it's so part of like. the culture and the lifestyle of the. average. person where like sport is a hobby of. theirs as well as a passion to follow. and it's like how complicated does it. need to get before people lose that. interest. and and there could be a future where. most of the olympics is esports somebody.

told me. that esports is in the olympics i've. been meaning to look this up oh. huh which is you know like what video so. video games are in the olympics. yeah yeah it could be as like a trial. that they're doing. mm-hmm um yeah. if this is true i'm trying in real time. look it up but if this is if this. esports joining olympics in 2024. wow so that could be just a. that could be a fun side thing but it. could be a first step into. a complete transformation what sports.

mean yeah because you can control video. games better than you control. for genetics and humans well in reality. we've been dealing with this problem in. other areas. just with the performance enhancing side. of things with drugs and all that stuff. too and anyway that. that conversations flared back up with. track and field too where. we are seeing a lot of records get. broken a lot of it probably is to shoot. technology but. you know in 2020 with the covid stuff. you you have all these out of. competition testing protocols that a lot. of these top tier olympic athletes are. getting.

uh to try to eliminate like is it like. if you just do inter competition testing. like there's potential for people to do. things that are. uh going to give them a performance. advantage but not going to show up on. that. test on the day of or after the race. where now you have these like. limitations of being able to test so do. we have a. like a group of athletes now who decided. oh i'm not going to get tested in 2020. do the covert restrictions is the time. to dope up and then. you know hit some stride and some. records and then taper back off when. they get this thing fired back up again.

and. so there may be some of that as well and. i mean that's always been an ongoing. problem and. yeah but the boost you get from. performance-enhancing drugs could be. tiny relative to the stuff we have in. the future. right yeah you might be the last. generation of like. natural unmodified humans that. we're running and who knows maybe that's. already over who knows who's. who's modified that that's that's true. you might we might be living through. that transition to the new nike shoe. but broadly defined yeah.

so you'll be uh in some sense in in the. history books as. uh humans used to run without any. modifications they used to destroy their. body and let it recover and then do it. again. and they used to be impressed with the. with an 11 hour. 100 mile time when we could do it in. under an hour now yeah yeah so uh but. nevertheless it is incred the four mile. the four minute mile was incredibly. impressive uh.

the i really love the 11 hour mark for. the 100. and the two hour marathon by most people. um for the longest time was thought to. be impossible. you know there's still people that think. it's impossible with under certain. constraints. so um uh elliot kipchoge. of kenya as you mentioned ran a one-hour. 59-minute. 40-second marathon but he had. like he said the prototype shoes and he.

had the. the pace setters yeah i don't know how. essential that is. but it seems quite essential do you. think it's possible. first of all what do you think about. that accomplishment uh. and he is one of the greatest if not the. greatest marathon runners of all time. what do you think about that. accomplishment and do you think it's. possible to run a two-hour marathon. without any assistance yeah i mean i. think yeah there's no question about it. regardless of technology. he's world class if not the best. the i think he.

i think he could go under two or someone. equivalent. to him could go under two hours with. with the shoe technology probably what. it'll take is it'll take a fast course. a course that has like very few tangents. because like. you know turning on a course they. estimate adds about a percent to the. to the distance so you know when we're. talking about a marathon. you're getting up to like a quarter mile. extra running you know that alone could. potentially put you down near.

near too flat based on what you know. we're seeing because. i mean kitchen keys got a was it 201. i believe is his actual world record. where it's actually like you know. certified. so i mean he's right on the door. knocking knocking on the door there. um yeah the prototype he had since then. they put in a regulation where you can't. stack a shoe for the roads more than 40. millimeters. so you can only have so much of that. energy returning foam and you can only. have i think. one carbon plate in there now uh.

so that puts a little bit of a ceiling. on that technological thing. uh but but who knows what else will come. out and that and and. and to be honest who comes out with it. because the fact that nike came out with. this technology is the reason why. it's being allowed to be be used if that. would have been like. you know another running company that. that came out with it i'm sure the. the the regulations would have been. slapped down on it immediately and they. would have probably just thrown it out. all together would have been. this politics yeah oh yeah well and i. mean it's it. you can go you can go super like.

you know negative with that and say like. hey like this is. like this is terrible or this is like. super nefarious when in reality it's. like. you know you have a company that has you. know billions of dollars. and is interested enough in the sport. that otherwise doesn't generate a ton of. revenue. to you know pick up a big tab and. support like uh you know track and field. and things like that but. you know with that you know you you want. to be the guy who says. yeah thanks for the millions and.

millions of dollars but we're gonna. st all those years and money you spent. on that foam yeah you wasted it we're. not gonna let you use it. but you know if you're another company. who uh you know revolutionizes the sport. in potentially a negative way. uh you know maybe maybe you say no to. them. so it gets interesting that's the way. that's how it always happens yeah yeah. yeah. there's really no way around i think. phil methatone i think it's him that he. wrote a book about a two-hour marathon. what are the limits how fast could we. run and i think he puts it like an hour.

and 42 minutes something like that or 40. something minutes. it's kind of an interesting question uh. of what are the limits. uh do you think do you think we'll just. keep pushing the limits of what humans. are capable of. in the ultras in the marathon is this. just like the way. yeah the uh the way of sport and i think. ultra for sure because that is a fastly. growing. sport and it's there's. there's a lot of potential for a much. bigger pop or a much. pool bigger pool of like talent to pull.

from. uh that could really push the needle. down on some of these performances and. things like that. uh especially as it becomes more popular. if people start realizing or. i shouldn't say realizing but if a. scenario happens where like oh. i'm one of the best endurance athletes. in the world i make more money running. ultra marathons than i do running the. marathon then you know. all of a sudden we see every record get. broken in a matter of a couple of years. uh but the the. for the marathon i mean it's gonna get.

faster i think. but like to what degree is so hard to. know it's very hard to know and that's. the one hour and 40 minutes seems like. that's pretty fast. yes that's very fast for folks for some. perspective there the current world. record. is like in the 440s per mile a mile like. just to add a little flavor to that. you're basically sprinting yeah i mean. go out to a track. and run one lap as fast as you can. and then reflect on what time you get. and realize like the world record for.

the marathon. is that is that lap. at just over 70 seconds per lap so. minute. and ten just over that but you're doing. it 26.2 miles. yeah so so over a hundred times it's. mind boggling but watching elliot. kipchoge just first of all he was like. smiling at the end of it. so the there's an extreme efficiency. here too so he's not. he's able to just find the right way to. maximize yeah maximize efficiency.

it makes it look easy i mean that that's. true for basically every olympic athlete. when you watch gymnasts they kind of. make it look easy. yes but there's like tens if not. hundreds of thousands of hours. behind that training yeah just to be. comfortable enough to even attempt some. of the moves they do in gymnastics is. mind-boggling. that one is super awesome because uh how. tragic it is like. one little slip up four years of work. and your room. it's all gone not just four years of. work for many of them. like a lifetime of work and they're.

teenagers and they're teenagers. and they get dedicated everything yeah. to it. that's that's what makes the pursuits of. humans so fascinating. we kind of talked about this a little. bit already but. is there something that stands out to. you as one of the hardest things you've. had to overcome. in all the either training or the. competing that you've done. has there been moments that kind of. stand out where you're proud of yourself. that. that you were truly tested and you. overcame it i think i'd be more inclined.

just because it stands out to me. much bigger than any one like hard. decision or. outcome i had from a particular race is. just like the trajectory of like you. know doing what i'm doing now. is so much different from what i would. have ever expected. uh you know i mean i was a talented. enough runner where i could make the. state meet by my senior year at a small. division iii school. and you know compete at a division three. college and be pretty.

modest talent comparative to my to my. peers at the top level of division three. um to think that like i'd be doing. anything that was revolved around. running as. as an occupation as is uh i still. second guess that that's actually. occurring makes me wonder about the. whole simulation theory thing. it's like who's got my joystick exactly. with it. they've got cheat codes yeah exactly. because i mean i went to school to be a. teacher and i really loved that. profession i taught for about five years. and. i got to a point where you know some of.

it's just perfect timing too like a. sport. gain enough popularity where there's. enough money in it where like i could. start a coaching business i could get. sponsorships and things like that. and actually look at it and say. financially i can make a go of this or. at least risk it but. there's such a fine line between like. deciding to do that or. kind of staying comfortable because uh i. mean i was at the perfect teaching spot. for me i was at this. uh like project-based learning school. and just outside of madison wisconsin. loved it um one of the hardest decisions.

my life to make was to step away from. that to pursue running. more holistically and i mean i almost. didn't i had a co-teacher who was. i was thinking myself i knew that was. like a decision i was gonna have to make. the next few years but it was such an. easy decision to say well. wait wait one more year and he was just. like he was a little more of a free. spirit than i was certainly at the time. he's like. dude what are you waiting for just go. why why are you here. like like after i told him that he like. every time we'd. i'd come into i'd come into school the. next day and he'd be like why are you. still here. but i mean that was there's a.

tongue-in-cheek for sure but uh. but it's hard to know that you're gonna. be successful right in that kind of leap. given your like you know. because it's easier when you're like an. ultra performer early on. but to have the faith that you can. accomplish something in some regards. it's. a blessing in the sense that like uh you. know failing would have been. fairly predictable right whereas if like. you know i always wonder. i mean i think of these like especially. the big sports like baseball.

football and basketball and you get you. know. guys who guys and girls who are like. identified. in like early high school as being the. next. and it's like what kind of pressure is. that to think like well. if i'm not like literally one of the. best players in the nba in 10 years i. failed. yeah it's just mind-boggling i think if. i'm not one of the best at one of the. most competitive sports on the planet. in what is an athletic i think an. athletic state of an nba basketball. player is probably one of the most.

athletic human beings on the planet. and to know like in a teenage year that. your. your your your success bar is being the. best one of the best. in the league or the best ever and that. conversation is floating around. everywhere you look and see. versus being able to kind of quietly. fail and go back to teaching. it makes it a little more digestible i. think you have a little bit. more freedom to be great because. nobody's expecting you to be right. uh is there from that is there advice. you can give to. young people today high schoolers.

college students. taking on trying to figure out their. career trying to figure out their life. advice on how to succeed in either yeah. i think. you know one thing i was always. interested when i was teaching was like. you'd have these. you'd have students who had like. interests. they had what they were good at and. sometimes those ran in. in unison with one another times they. didn't and it was always interesting to. me when you'd have a student who's like. i'm really into like you know guitar.

or i'm really into skateboarding or. something like that where it's like. pretty small like success rate on that. avenue versus what you can maybe. accomplish by focusing on. just something like a little more. standard and i think like. really like besides the likelihood of it. becoming. something you can turn into a. professional or not you should just ask. yourself like. is this something that i want to spend. my free time doing. uh and because if it is then you want to. keep that in your life because that's. something that's rewarding motivating it.

might be the catalyst that gets you out. of bed in the morning and you know go to. another job in order to go do that thing. afterwards i think. nowadays we're getting to a point where. like. the your reachability from even a really. small. like unmonetized thing previously. is now an option where if like you live. in a city where there's only two other. people interested in your topic of area. so you're not going to turn into a job. now. with the internet you have the world at. your disposal so.

that two to three people in every town. can turn into thousands tens of. thousands hundreds and millions of. people and if you. really focus your time and energy into. that thing then you know who knows where. you can go and how much more enjoyable. your life can be if you're able to turn. your career into a passion of yours so. i think like that is something i would. tell. tell people um folks on that see the. thing you're. good at and you kind of sparks that. flame. and uh go with that even if society. doesn't really want you to.

like it's non-traditional uh. and the odds are low of like. traditionally defined success. just do that thing i've struggled with. that it's like it was always clear. especially like in school there's stuff. i'm actually good at. and stuff that the world wants me to do. right yeah and i kept the world wanted. me to be a plumber when i took that test. my sophomore year. but even like like academically just. going to university and. academia there are certain ways even in. i would say even in the thing you want.

to do. the way you do that thing the world will. want you to do it a certain way. and even just like finding your way of. doing that thing. is really powerful like for me the way i. do research. the way i learn is is different than. colleagues of mine and i realized that. that i really like to follow things i'm. passionate about versus sort of the. rigor of studying ever. like the fundamentals all across the. board and building up and castle.

um on the fundamentals like layer upon. layer just there's a bunch of details in. the way i. pursue the very thing that i currently. do that's different than others. and it took me quite a long time to. accept like you don't need to do it the. way. everyone else is doing it doesn't not. everyone else but majority people are. telling you to do it. because one it's beneficial to do it. different because then you'll. more likely stand out and two like why. the hell are you doing it the way it's. not working for you. yeah you know i saw that all the time.

when i was teaching i was. dual certified i was my my. certifications were in. history and broad field social studies. so like econ. uh psychology history all that stuff. and then i also had a certification of. special education which was. you know people think of special. education a lot of times as like oh it's. the you know the kid who is not smart. enough to do the regular thing when. reality it's like. i mean there is some you know there's. obviously like. you know like certain things like down. syndrome and stuff like that but like.

there's also like a huge population of. groups of. both like gifted and talented on one end. of the spectrum where. they're incredibly smart and they're. like the geniuses. but for whatever reason the standard. method of learning does not click with. them does not work with them and then. they just need a slightly different path. or maybe a drastically different path. and they're going to. just flourish and you have kids that end. up falling on the other end where. you know maybe it's really difficult for. them. to be able to read at the speed of other. students but if you give them this.

specific direction they can just thrive. in a certain area and just. seeing that like the you know like that. there's. multiple ways to do stuff and there's. not necessarily one path to the end. is i think such an eye-opening thing to. learn especially if you learn maybe. that's what i should answer the question. that you asked me with is you know keep. an open mind as to what paths there are. forward and. know that you know maybe just because. even if you look to your left you look. to the right and all your classmates are. successful doing it one way it doesn't. necessarily mean that's going to be the.

way for you. yeah so that could land you in eating a. meat based diet running across the. country. uh like the the incredible madman that. you are zach i'm a huge fan as i told. you many times you're an inspiration to. many. i'll be there checking in every day if. you somehow make it out the starting. line on september 1st. i know i know joe rogan and millions of. others will be as well so. i'm excited to see all the suffering. that you're gonna go through i wish you. the best of luck and. thank you so much for talking today i. really really appreciate it well thanks.

a bunch lex it's been a. an honor to come on your podcast i've. been a fan of it for uh. for quite some time and i thought about. wearing a white suit but. michael malus already took care of that. one. [Laughter]. well and uh i think it would be really. good for the ratings of this. conversation if you end up dying during. that run so yeah. i'll do my best so the everything that. could happen will be positive for uh for. the world. so you're saying i should try to average. 100 miles a day 100. well i think you're going to push. yourself to again it's not the main.

priority but. it's trying to beat that record that's. probably going to take everything you. have and that that. that's truly inspiring i wish you the. best of luck man thanks a bunch. thanks for listening to this. conversation with zach bitter and thank. you to. ladder balcampo newm and betterhelp. check them out in the description to. support this podcast. and now let me leave you with some words. from steve prefontaine. i'm going to work so that it's a pure.

guts race at the end. and if it is i'm the only one who can. win it. thank you for listening and hope to see. you next time.