Training Tuesday: Kirk’s 50k + Listener Questions

0:09Welcome to the Running Public with Bracken Crocker and Kirk DeWint. It's Tuesday, folks, and you know what that means. Training Tuesday. We are going to take every rabbit hole, follow tangents, use useless metaphors, get lost in the weeds. This is Training Tuesday.

0:33When you're ready to take your training or racing to the next level, go to the running public.com. We have both monthly subscription training plans,$19.99 a month. And Bracken and I both offer one-on-one customized coaching. Again, go to the running public.com and check out our offerings. It feels like a while since we've had a one-on-one date. I think this is our longest stretch we've ever had of just straight guest interviews. It's three in a row, right? Three in a row and four out of five. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you got to kind of take them where you can get them when they align with schedules.

1:06And it just happened to work out that way because we're all off with our Tuesday being training Tuesday and Friday being guest interviews. It's like, it might be a little bit of Russian roulette based on guest scheduling. Because I find if we just open up an extra day for guest scheduling, it actually gets us much more able to schedule guests a little bit more consistently. So here we are. Here we are. So Kirk, I am coming to you on vacation from my own house. Okay. Tell me more. Tomorrow is our 15 year anniversary. Lisa and I, not you and I. That's amazing. Congratulations. Happy anniversary.

1:43Thank you. So we are away for the week, not week, for a few days. We have to get it ahead of time because Braden has a double race weekend this weekend. So we are taking the second half of the week and doing a getaway in the same town we live in. Okay. I love it. So it's not a far travel. So it's a getaway, but we're coming home each day. So you have plans every day to go do things together as a 15-year married couple? No, not for this one. This is simply a time together away and do nothing if we feel like nothing. Go do something if we feel like something. And then we'll do something bigger later in the summer when our schedule opens up.

2:25But it's kind of tough to go out and really go somewhere and do it with kids' sports schedules, which I'm not complaining. That's the reality of people with kids. That's the decision we made. But on the way to the hotel, we were wondering if anyone has ever driven less far to their anniversary hotel. Okay. I was assuming you were staying at your house. So you're staying in a hotel. We're in a hotel. Okay. But coming home to take care of life when needed. What are your children doing? Just living life in our house. My parents are next door. Right. So they're being checked on, but they're still staying under your roof.

3:03Yeah. So last night, my sister, who was home for like a two-month section here, she's home from Poland before she goes back off overseas to play. So she took them out to dinner and ice cream and then brought them back home. And then my parents came over at bedtime and did that. So they're luckily very self-sufficient, so we don't have to worry too much. But having the parents next door is enormous. Your kids are great. Most of the listeners don't know your kids. But I spent one weekend with them when you guys were here for my wedding and then spent a few times in passing. They're just so well-behaved, but also kind of spicy and sassy and quirky.

3:41They're very different, but well-behaved. But like, I mean, like at our wedding, like they were following Jess around and asking her what they could do for her and like being her little assistants. And everybody was so polite. They're good kids. I don't know how you did that, but they're very good kids. Yeah, it's mostly just Crocker genetics. Is it that's built? It's built in them? No, I think it's interesting that Brayden is Lisa and Ayla is more me and Mira is my younger sister. Oh, interesting. That is their archetype purely. So all different forms of genetics want out with these kids. I would welcome hanging with your kids.

4:20If I was around a bit, I'll go hang out with them while you guys go roll around in the hotel bed sheets or whatever you're doing in there. Kirk, this is a family show. Back in. Most parents are proud of their kids, but I'm having dealt with a lot of other people's kids. I'm aware of the fact that we are extremely lucky with how our kids behave. Extremely lucky. The problems we deal with are minuscule in comparison to what it could be. So, yeah, we're lucky. So it's been cool. It's been a nice time away. 15 years kind of flew by, but we're approaching that. And we dated for three years, so we're at 18 years.

4:56And I met her at 20. So we're getting into that stage where we'll have spent more time with each other than without each other in life. And that'll be the big anniversary year. We'll do something big for that year. We'll have to have Lisa back on. Folks like hearing from Lisa. They do for whatever reason. My gosh. All right. Well, cool. Well, thank you for taking a vacation from your vacation to come record today. We needed this time together. Wife, wife, and work wife, Kirk. That's right. I'm not as pretty. You're more ruggedly handsome. Thank you. Do we have a peach Alani in your hand? I don't want to talk about it.

5:33Is there anything? Are you still licking your wounds?

5:39It's funny. Did the 50K take you so low that you reached for a peach flavored Alani? I just lost all my man credibility. Or did I lose mine for recognizing that flavor through a pixelated screen? So I allow myself one energy drink generally a week. So I haven't had one this week. But it's just early morning. I got up at 4.30. I just needed it, right? It's the middle of the day. And Jess started buying these because these are definitely marketed to women. This is not a man marketing thing. I mean, juicy peach, and it's all like bubble letters and like pastels. Go either way. I don't think so. Anyways, it's not bad.

6:16It's actually pretty good. And there was one left in the fridge. So here I am. Thanks for calling me out, though. I feel a little bit insecure about that. You're welcome. Yeah. Well, you want my confession? Is this confession hour? Then yes. Guess what time I woke up at this morning? 8.30. 9.12. I already lived a full day by then. Yeah. Good for you. I feel fantastic. You look good. You're glowing. I'm glowing today, Kirk. Sometimes you're sleeping too late and you're just, you never wake up. I apparently needed some sleep. Yeah, you look ready to go. Too bad you don't have a race recap for us.

6:51I don't, but let's talk about you. Uh-huh. We just did this like six weeks ago. Here we are again. Yeah, you tried the tough task, which is you ran a 50K, turned around, and I think seven weeks, was it race day to race day? I think it was seven. I think it's seven. And you tried to recover, race prep slightly, more than slightly, recover, get race specific for this course, and arrive fresh, healthy, and also hit a time goal. Yeah. So that's a, we talked from the beginning, should you or shouldn't you? Is it smart? Is it even doable? And I think my response was it's 50-50. And that's good enough to pull the trigger, I think.

7:38Yeah. It was a very, I shot my shot. I don't even think I would call it rolling the dice because I'm more calculated than that. It's not like, you know, like Russian roulette as I just referred to. It's like, I was pretty calculated with the what's and the why's between races. I took an entire eight days off. I built up aggressively, but I stayed healthy enough to still show up at race day. And to be honest, I had a good day until I didn't. I mean, going into this race, I felt notably better than the previous 50K and superior. I wasn't on meds. I wasn't coming off being sick. I was feeling much more stable.

8:16My heart rate was responding wonderfully. Even in the beginning stages, the first half of the race, I was like, I got this on lock. I'm 90 minutes in smiling, fist bumping, floating, choosing not to chase the guy that was in front of me. Who ran very well, by the way. He ran very fast. Run 338 and a 50K with 4 ,500 feet of gain. Pretty impressive. Yeah, you see the 330s and under, or 340 and under, and oftentimes you see that 2 ,000, 2 ,500 feet of gain type of course profile. It's quick. He ran very well. But I don't know. I mean, I can walk you through it, But I didn't know anybody on the start list that I had history with or that had like a very impressive ultra signup resume.

9:09Okay. Now, with that said, there's a plenty that don't have a resume or haven't, you know, they're just not, I don't know, curating in the system. But I didn't really care about where I placed going into this thing. And I meant this wholeheartedly when I said it to a couple of people beforehand. I said, I don't care if I win or take 10th. What I care about is my time. Like if it were a stacked field and I ended up back in it, I don't care. I really just cared about time. So that was sort of irrelevant. It was actually nice to have somebody's back to look at for nearly half the race. So I'm not upset about that or taking second place.

9:45It's fine that I took second place. But it's how epically, how epically, and the head and what went on in my mind, the back half while doing so was interesting for me. I'd never experienced what I experienced this weekend cerebrally. Really? Well, walk us through it. So I landed on the tecton. Yeah. Okay. First, I just want to put time in perspective. What was your goal time? 344, 27 or under. And what was your halfway split 150 dead 150 oh flat yeah so three four so four minutes under record pace just over four put yourself on pace halfway through that was if i could have called my shot perfectly i would have came through exactly where i did to like the second i nailed my first half on paper 706 pace i think with 2200 plus feet of vert on trail yep somewhere around got it Okay.

10:45So you settled on Tecton X2. Yep. I think I made a mistake, but the shoe isn't the reason. I think this wouldn't have gone perfectly either way. That shoe needs technical terrain. And if there's runnable sections, I need a better shoe. Once I broke down, that shoe worked against me for sure on anything flat and runnable. The Rocket X trail would have been a much, much, much, much better choice, which everybody else around me had on me, which I found amusing. The guy that beat me did, the guy behind me did. And I was like, I should have just, even though it's a little sloppy on descents, it would have helped a ton once I broke down.

11:24So lesson learned. It's a horse apiece, right? The Racket X might break you down early, but if it doesn't, it's fast on the back end and whenever it's flat. And the Tecton X2 won't ever betray you on anything, but it's going to beat you up a bit because it's not giving you anything and it's not soft. I've never heard that plate slap so hard once my form went. Oh, yeah. It was just like slap, slap. You could hear the carbon on firm dirt slap. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. And I was like, that sounds damaging to my legs. But anyways, beside the point. So I said, Kirk, you're going to mind your heart rate, unlike you did in Superior.

12:09you're going to make sure you stay within yourself. I was taking sodium. I was taking my nutrition ahead of schedule. I was drinking well ahead of thirst, staying well ahead of that. I feel like on a nutrition front, I don't know what I would have done differently. And people have been kind of on me about it. Like, I think you're under fueling or you're electrolyte imbalance. And maybe there's still more to be gained there, but I was pretty, I was really good about it. I mean - Do you know the numbers? After the fact of what you took in per hour, the first half? Fluid-wise or? Oh, fluid, carbs, sodium.

12:46Yeah. So I was taking about just over probably like, I'm going to say 300 cals an hour. So not a ton, about 150 cal every 30 minutes, sometimes every 25 minutes. So it might've been a little bit more, but straight carbs. So what does that come out to? I don't know. 80 grams. We'll call it maybe 75. And then I was drinking, gosh, 40 to 60 ounces of water an hour. I mean, yeah. 40 to 60 ounces per hour. Yeah. I would, in some hours, I think I put down well over, I put down over 60. I would see the aid stations were frequent. There's like seven on course. I could see Jess 40 minutes later, I'd grab two 16-ouncers.

13:29They'd be gone by the time I saw her 40 minutes after that. put down two 16-ouncers nonstop. And so I didn't feel like I was ever thirsty, which is interesting. So the point being is I don't know if it was a glaringly obvious nutrition or hydration flow. I'm not glaringly obvious anyway. I don't care what people say about high carb fueling. Any amount past 70 to 80 grams per hour is debatable if there's a benefit. Any amount past that. If you're getting near 70, you're not leaving like a aha moment on the table. You really aren't. I don't, that's my gut. I am going to start experimenting with liquid, uh, nutrition because my gut went really South on me from the sweet.

14:16I think it was the combo of the heat and the sweet. Like I was wrecked all day afterwards, like to the point where like I was not comfortable like at all until I woke up the next morning. So there's something not sitting well with me there. I got to figure that out. But anyways, do you have another question? No, I was just going to agree with you. I ran a 50K on a very similar course profile to yours. And it got up to 91 that day with humidity, like very similar day. It was high 80s, low 90s, high humidity, similar vert. And I was nauseous in waves until I slept it off from my fueling that day.

14:58I had to sleep it off, I think. And I did. The next day, I felt much better. But even like, I think it has to do, because this didn't happen in Superior, even though my stomach was a mess from being on antibiotics and such. Like this didn't happen during that race or after it was much, it was fine. This one was like halfway in and I'm like looking for a spot to dip off in the woods and holding it back. And that messes you up in a way too. And it felt like something wasn't sitting right in coupled with the heat and high heart rate, Which is funny because we weren't, we just talking about this. I don't know, but Danny, we were talking about temperatures and this, and I'm like, okay, well, there's something I got to get figured out here.

15:33Cause maybe a liquid approach might be better in high heat conditions. Um, but nonetheless, I still feel like that wasn't really my main issue. So we take off and it's very clear. Like suddenly I'm in front all by myself, a quarter mile in just holding like, Oh, I'm like, okay, I see this. And there's one guy that sort of comes up on my shoulder and he's got his t-shirt around his neck, but he's not wearing it. And it's kind of like flowing like a cape behind him. And he looks pretty smooth. He's got a handheld, you know, got a very classic, I can run well build. And I knew instantly, like literally I was not in trouble, but this guy had to be respected because it had rained the night before.

16:16And we're a quarter mile, a half mile, a mile into this thing. And all the foliage is full of water still. And he's running along the trail, kind of slapping the bushes on himself and like running his hands across it, like putting water on himself minute one. Right. And it's in the 70s. It's like 75 to start. It's very humid at 630 in the morning. And he's like shaking branches and like I think getting his shirt wet on purpose. And I was like, OK, this guy has done this before because he was like so far ahead of it. everything he went by, he'd wipe his hand and then kind of rub it on his head and like right away.

16:55And I was like, okay, he's not a rookie. It just seemed like a tenured thing that I didn't even think of doing, nor was I interested in doing that, but he was running off to the very side of the trail, getting slapped with wet branches on purpose. I was like, interesting, smart. I wasn't interested. I'd be so itchy. Yeah. It was just, I didn't expect to see that. And so anyways, I'm like this guy's running fast right now. Shoot Uh, we basically I basically kept my eyes on his back within 20 to 100 meters for the first 10 miles Maybe more And just kind of going with it I'm checking my heart rate I am within myself my own parameters my own governors when i'm climbing i'm peaking at 168 ish I didn't even see 170 till after the first 45 minutes.

17:40I'm like you are feeling good I'm like doing the airplane and high-fiving like my wife. I'm like, it's a good day. 45 minutes in, I'm like, heart rate's still just beautiful. Legs feel good. I was just like, be patient, be patient, be patient. Came through, and there's a climb to the finish, which then you have to run a whole other lap. And it was somewhere in there where we climbed up out of the valley, up to the finish, which is the end of lap one. And I noticed like out of that climb into the halfway, I'm like, okay, I don't know. I feel a little fatigued, but I think it's just because it's kind of a punchy climb and we're out exposed now, right?

18:17It's bright, sunny, it's 80 degrees now. And there's zero wind, which could be great. But it is like one of those days where like the lake is glass. So there's no breeze. And I think, yeah, I started to feel like cooking a little bit. And I noticed my heart rate wasn't kind of doing what I wanted it to do anymore. It was staying up a little bit. And I would say within, by mile 17 to 18, we hit our second big climb of the course on lap two. And I was like, uh-oh, that quick. I went from like smiley, genuinely enjoying myself to like, uh-oh. And I get on the top of that next climb. It's like a 250 foot, 300 foot climb.

18:59and then the very same section of trail, I was running about 555 to 605 pace on this flat section of trail on lap one. I was looking at my watch, 555 to 605 heart rate at 158. For me, that's brilliant. I'm like right where I wanted to be. I looked down at 730 pace, a minute and a half per mile slower. And I'm doing the math in my head, trying to keep my heart rate in check still, right? Like, Hey, don't tip. Cause if you do, it's done literally a minute and a half per mile slower on the same section. Uh, and then I start thinking, well, you still have, you still have 13 miles to go. Uh, and so I decided to let that sort of win and say, okay, don't press here.

19:46Still mind your heart rate. It's an exposed section again of trail up on the high prairie. so it's again 80 and pounding on you and it was already then I said all right I need to move as quick as I was before and if I'm losing a minute and a half per mile right here I'm starting to and I have 13 miles to go that does not bode well because I'm only four minutes ahead of the record and I did not phone it in that's not what I'm going to say I did you can look at my heart rate day to approve it. I pressed, but I had about 12, 10 to 12 miles to go knowing that the main objective I went out there for was I stopped seeing the dude's back, right?

20:27He was suddenly out of picture. I was told I had a 15 minute lead on third. Okay. And I, I was working hard and I, my legs were totally wrecked. They were, they just went on me so fast, but like, I just knew it wasn't going to happen. And so for me, I had to keep recommitting to be like, this is worth it. Run on pride. You're not going to get the record, but don't be a B. Like ho-hum, I took second place. This isn't a pity party. It's just like the reality of knowing you have to run for another 90 minutes and what you went out there to do is not going to be done anymore. That was hard for me. So I stuck with it.

21:07When it got bad, I let it get bad. I didn't lean into it as much as maybe I could have. If I leaned, I wouldn't have gotten the record regardless. It was not happening on the day, objectively. I could have literally done anything in my power. It wouldn't happen. But I hadn't been out on trail so long with a sense of defeat and I just succumbed to the fact that it wasn't going to happen. And it's a weird position when it's slipping away, but it's not at the end. There's a long ways to go. I haven't experienced that before. I didn't realize it was a thing and I had not that far out ever you sure you get close to the end of a race and you're like it ain't gonna happen but you're you know or I'm not gonna get the win or catch the guy but when you have a time-based goal and it's obvious it's not gonna happen I fought hard out there but it makes it hard to fight when you ever have it in OCR in beast distance races not but I wasn't as in like what am I fighting for 20th or 30th like it didn't feel as important like like that was like I was still worth fighting for position in those races this I didn't care about position like if you go to run a 5k and you want to run 15 flat and you get to mile two and you're 30 seconds off pace like that would be like what's the point like i'll finish the race but not just sit in it for over an hour and a half yeah and so it was just interesting to find myself there and it really tested like well who am i what am i where am i when it's not like i'm not fighting for the win like i wasn't superior and i'm not going to achieve my goal that i very publicly said I wanted to reach.

22:36So you find out a bit about yourself in that moment, those moments. That's it. And I stuck to it. Go look at my Strava and how hard I pushed in the back half, but something like there was a gurr factor that just disappeared just a little bit at times. I'd be going up a hill and I'd be lapping traffic. And there may have been three total minutes of power hiking in the back half. There was zero in the front. And I may have let myself power hike behind slower runners to just give myself 30 seconds before I said, okay, it's time to go. I would not have done that if I was in hot pursuit. Little moments like that.

23:11It's just interesting. What do you make of that? It is. I mean, I'll be probably off on tangents on this, but there's a lot of factors that came together at that cracking point. I believe, and I've talked about it here, heat, but specifically humidity. I think humidity is worse for a runner than heat is. The longer the race goes, maybe that's debatable, but humidity is an absolute killer. And it's one of those things that when it, you're good until it goes. And when it goes, it goes quick. That's exactly how it felt. But so is not recovering from a long race, that type of systemic damage. When you can come out and be good because you're fit and you've done some recovery, but like once it gets through the scab, the wound underneath isn't fully healed.

24:00And then suddenly like when it goes, it goes. And then mentally, when you've been involved in like, it sounds dramatic, but like when you've been in a war, which you were in a war with that last course, Superior, you were like, you had your hand on the flame for a long time. It takes a little bit to build those reserves to going through that again. And sometimes when it goes, you start to have like blips in your effort or your focus. There's a lapse. Like, okay, I can give myself 30 seconds here or whatever. So you have three of those factors. It sounds like converge on the same day. So it would be easy to question things, but it's also for my, because I didn't feel it.

24:41I don't have to like question my resolve from it. I just get to look from the outside and say, yeah, you had humidity and lack of recovery. Because you wouldn't tell someone to race two marathons in six weeks. Hard. No. But you did that, but a little longer, but it's a trail race. So who cares? Kind of. It is funny how that works, but yes. Anyway, you, you had that and you had this and you had that and all three combined on one day and yeah, you cracked. And all three, two of the three are when it goes, it goes fast. And I, I'm assuming they were hurting each other. And then the mental part is understandable.

25:14So the fact that you didn't walk off and that you kept pressing just with a few lapses, I think is a good sign. Honestly, it was ego. That was it. Keeping me going. That's a good sign. Yeah. So no takeaway other than that. Sure, it's supposed to happen. Well, thank you. And I didn't want to be the one to say it. I'm glad you said it because I said this to Jess. I said this to many of my own athletes I coached that asked. I said, I'm just starting to wonder when the race got real, if we use the phrase, the button's been pushed. Like I didn't have that, like the button like got pushed, like in a sense where like, I think I could have ran a great 25K.

25:56I was ready to run well for two hours. I was, and I, and I also said, after I said, I think I could have run my best time on this course if I ran the 25K, which I've run five times. And I actually fully believe that. Um, but like when it got real, I think I just wasn't back yet. That's exactly what I think. Like it just, I wasn't nearly as sore the day after I've run this week. I ran 12 by a quarter mile and closed in 62 on Tuesday, two days after the race, because I just had to go run fast because I'm like, F this, like my body's available. I was craving to run this week already. Like I didn't even take the, I didn't get to the place to take the damage or something long-term from it.

26:37So I'm running this week. Like it's, I'm taking it easy, but nonetheless, there's something to it. I couldn't access that place and sit in it. Cause I don't know if it room existed for me again quite yet. That's exactly what I think it is. Yeah, it has to be rebuilt. But you don't know it until you're in it. Yeah, we had John Albin talk about this half a decade ago. He's as pro as it gets in the mountain scene right now, in the ultra scene. And he talked that being tough is not improved by being tough more frequently. Sometimes it has to be done more sparingly. You're safe. It's almost like you got a panic room.

27:15and you just barricade yourself in there during the bad efforts. You got everything in there to survive for the next couple hours. But the room doesn't get stronger by being in there. You deplete the resources of the panic. It's weaker. And you have to rebuild your stockpile before you can use it again. And sometimes you get on a heater as a racer where you can just do it a few times in a row, and it's usually when you're younger. But no, the room has to be replenished and restocked before you can really use all the resources again. And otherwise you get in there and you realize half my water's gone.

27:47Half the, you know, the batteries didn't reach out. Like you run out of it quicker. But you don't know it until you know it. Like half an hour into that race, you'd be like, I'm good. I'm recovered. I'm ready. Like this is going to work itself out. And now we're in still totally fine clicking along. Yeah. And then when you got in the room, you're like, this is a shitty broken down room. That can't, I can't live here right now. I just can't. Yeah. You reach for the next bottle of water and it's not there. And it went from like, hey, water's great. I love water too. Water's gone. And now there's like, it's that abrupt.

28:18I do think if I went out in 155, I could have came back much closer and probably run 350. I think that's fair to say. I ended up running 401 Bracken. I went 150 the first lap, 210 the second lap. And most of that was in the last five miles. That's bad. That's over a minute per mile slower in the second loop. That's bad. It's bad, but it's also like, that's ultramath. That race I told you about that I said similar profile, I felt this, but not as bad. I cracked with three miles to go. And mile like, what is it? Mile four and 29 were the same or something like that. And loop one, a big 400 foot climb in the middle of it.

29:03Loop one, I was like 740 through there. loop two, I was 955 or something, like two plus minutes different on the exact same mile. And in loop one, I was like, just breathe, just relax. You could run this harder, but don't. And on that mile 29, I was flailing uphill, 220 per mile different on the same mile. Those things happen sure does and you know it was probably 15 degrees warmer at that point than when it started right and that so those things get a little bit cloudy that's i mean we started at 6 30 we had a great early start time there's nothing else it's summer i do i think if it was 10 degrees colder it would have made a difference yes but i will also tell you do i think i would have gotten the record no i think irregardless it wasn't going to be there i think i would have missed it by some margin it would have been smaller but i don't think i was it wasn't there just wasn't there So I can't blame the heat.

29:58I can't blame like, no, it's just me and my mind and my body weren't ready for what it needed to do. And I broke down to like every step hurt. I was running with my left toes curled under my feet because my forefoot hurt so bad from that plate slapping that I couldn't run on my foot anymore. so now i'm curling my toes running on the side of my foot trying to heel strike because my foot hurts so bad from that plate and the plant on like the flat hard packed areas there were like all sorts of things like that where it's just like it's just there are things working against me i limp not limp ran but ran with curled toes for probably five miles of that race just my left foot like stuff like that you can't foresee that no and that just that's a ripple effect up the whole chain from that point.

30:46So Danny said something I thought was great. If I had to take anything away from Danny's episode, you could have had several different spots where something beautiful was said that would really be useful for runners. But one was when she was talking about her fueling. I have to have my plan for when it's cold, when it's warm, when it's hot, when it's humid and hot, when it's dry and hot. Her fueling strategies aren't just like set it and forget it. She's always optimizing to find what is the best version for the situation I'm about to be in to the point where she's going to travel all the way across the country and race a nasty race in the heat and humidity to test out some baseline feeling for that.

31:26And I believe that that's what these bad races remind us is that it's not as doom and gloom as it felt in the moment, but it highlighted the things that can be optimized. You probably don't get a perfect day if you're in the perfect shoe there, but it reminded you that I really can still optimize what shoe I use for this type of terrain and effort. And if I have an effort where I'm going to do this, I think finding that shoe that back half compatible is an ongoing process. Finding your fueling for this temperature, it's an ongoing process that you have in the ultra minutes to shave off, off better planning.

32:06That's not a shot at your planning. That's everybody. Like none of, I shouldn't say none, very few people are optimized in every ultra setting. Like you run mid distance, eventually you just know what their strategy is. It's ever evolving in ultra. So there's always a moving target to chase for some other factor to remove from the list of potential things that can go wrong. Yeah. And I guess that whole, like once you get over two and a half, three hours and you're really pressing, right? Like this is a, like a barely an ultra we'll call it like that. For me, it's a four hour time domain, give or take, um, figuring that out.

32:44Cause like in these conditions, even with the same fueling strategy, I really think I would have been fine again for half the distance, 25 K. We wouldn't even have this. I would have, I wouldn't have learned anything. Right. I would have gotten done and been like executed, nailed it, which it's like, I kind of wish I would have ran it. Cause I think it could have been a good day. but yeah so it's also like one of those things like okay but how often do we get to that point in training we don't like have i pushed myself with a one seven you know average 168 beats a minute so lower than superior but um like am i gonna go run 168 beats a minute for a four hour long run to find out i'm just not that wouldn't be smart nor productive and so sometimes it unfortunately has to be found out on race day it just does you i've gone for three hour long runs on the same strategy and been fine.

33:30But it's not a three-hour long run, and it's not at the same heart rate, and it's not in the same conditions. And so it's a fun, like, I'm not boo-hoo. This is a great learning lesson for me, and I shot my shot. I said what I wanted to do, and I went out there, and I failed. I'm good with that because I committed. It's kind of interesting to learn these nuances because I thought I could kind of get away with anything, truthfully, meaning, like, I'll figure it out. I'm tough enough to figure it out, even if it's not perfect, I think has really been my mentality. and I found out on Saturday, I'm not tough enough if it's not perfect maybe or something.

34:03You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. Maybe if you don't race superior, then you don't have to learn this this weekend. A good race is great for that race. A bad race is an investment in a future race. And that's what this was. This was an investment in your next time you face conditions or scheduling like this. That's fair. Maybe next year I'll take a crack at this one. coming off nothing long. And maybe it'll be a different story. So you've already said you're thinking about revamping your fueling with the hotter it gets, the more liquid-based you go. It's my first thought.

34:38I agree with that. This is not science, although there could be science to back this up. I don't know it. I think the hotter it gets, the more you want to drip-drip your fuel. And it's hard to drip-drip gel. You can, but it's not even convenient. So I think you want the IV drip approach, the hotter it gets and the more humid it gets just simply because your GI system does not work well when it gets hot. And that heart rate in particular. Yeah, for sure. But it just doesn't like heat. People don't fuel well, even like on the job. You work manual labor. People don't fuel well. You go out and work in the backyard.

35:19They're not hungry all day. Mm-hmm. When it's hot, that's just a thing that is. So I agree fully that coming up with a plan for this temperature that's more liquid-based is a good takeaway from this race. Yeah, I'll play around with that. I just don't know. My interest in going long again in the next few months is whatever beyond negative right now. All I'm craving is literally I'm going to do some like VO2 max over speed training work and just have fun with training and not worry about mileage and see if I can. My freaking Strava says I'm in 1645k shape and it's insulting me and it can't be right.

36:01So like part of me wants to just go like show it like F you. It doesn't know. You don't know me. So I think what I'm going to do is just I mean, I'll still run mileage, but I'm going to put a little less emphasis on vert. and I'm just going to have fun with the training now because I was very purpose-driven now for how long? I mean, it's been mission-focused for me since February. I mean, I was all in from February until May. I turned around in one week and was back doing two and a half and then three-hour long runs again. And now I think I just want to make training fun. And so I'm going to do the whole what sounds exciting to me and I'm going to always air on the short, punchy side with maybe even lots of rest.

36:40I have plenty of a foundation. I am going to go run fast and see what that I feel like doing in a month. That's what I'm going to do. What do you think of that? I think you follow, it sounds like a Disney movie, but like you follow your heart after a big race. It's postpartum that you're dealing with. This is the closest you'll get to postpartum. That's what after a big race is akin to, not same as, but in the same vein as. and very rarely do people get done with a hard ultra and think, oh, I can't wait to do that again. It happens, but usually it's you're already before the finish line, you're already telling yourself, I'm probably not going to ever do this again.

37:24And so usually that means you need an off season. You need two weeks off. That's what you would prescribe to an athlete. Go take two weeks of no running, but you're craving something. So like, sure, go follow the craving. Have fun. I like that. Yeah, I might pick something spicier too. And then in the fall, I put for two or three months, I'll put very little emphasis on my metrics as I spend time doing my other hobby. And so I don't want to take a break now. I want to just run fast and F around and find out and I don't need to go long. So that's what I'm going to do. And I'm happy to do it. Yeah.

37:57So I think this though, I think you learned something in the buildup to this, which was there is some magic to finding the fastest super-est shoe for this type of thing, but it wasn't a viable option yet. And so this is also the perfect time to begin dosing that thing. You got a lap out of the Vaporfly and you got everything but downhills in the Rocket X trail. And there were limitations that you got everything but climbing in the Tecton X3. So I think that the non-pressing race schedule is the time to find all those things out. What you don't want to be in the situation, and I'm speaking to everyone.

38:45I keep saying you, but I'm speaking to everyone here. You don't want to be in that situation you were in, which is I only have like two or three efforts to find the right shoe for the next race. And I don't have time to build up tolerance to it. Like if you gave yourself seven long runs with the Vaporflies, you probably could have made them work. And if you gave yourself seven quality long runs in the Rocket X Trail, you probably were in that shoe. You just, your timeline was so compacted. You didn't have time to develop, to figure out how the shoe wanted to be run in or just develop resistance to that shoe or have it lead you to the shoe that was going to maybe not change your first half, but help you in the second half.

39:25Yeah, I was out there thinking I would have ran faster in the vapor as well at some point. It just would have helped me. So you just don't know. So anyway, that's for everyone in this situation. This is the time to look into some things. Start building up baby long runs and different types. Do more work that will be real. Again, I'm not necessarily talking just to you, but like my feet can't handle this, but my stride loves it. Like start doing the footboard work and the toe mobility and the banded work, the things that are required to then do long runs in the shoe and then race in it. Those are cool things to do now where I'm not thinking ultra at all, but I'm at least staying in touch with the thing that's going to allow me not to have to work on a compressed timeline later on.

40:11Yeah, that's a very good point. I don't know if I'm going to be going out of my way to get to these trails anytime soon. I might just be a road warrior. You need a break? It's an hour drive there and an hour drive back and three hours for a long run. And with transition, it's six hours out of your day. Yeah. So it's like one of those things where I might just actually try to sleep in on a Saturday and not worry about it. But it's a good point. Sleeping in is for lazy people. It takes one to know one. All right. So do you want to transition to get in a few of these questions? Sure. I mean, what else are we doing with ourselves, right?

40:48Let's hit a few. That's what I think. Oh, I hope they're ultra questions. The universe, if they had a sense of humor, would be sending us ultra questions right now. So I have one question that I am, I have two questions, I should say, that I'm going to cycle to the top mostly because they're time dependent. Okay. And we got about 45 minutes to still roll with questions. So we can bang off like four. Question first. Natasha and I have been working together for like six years over in the UK. We've had her on the podcast. She wanted to ask us a question because she got an upcoming race. So her question is, I wrecked the route for my upcoming 25K on Saturday.

41:33Please ignore the average pace as I had to keep walking. You mean wrecked? Yeah, wrecked. Just like that term? Yeah, wrecked. Sure, wrecked. Okay, just want to make sure people are understanding what we're saying. Wrecked. Course recon, folks. Reconnoitred. The route from outcoming 25k on Saturday. Please ignore the average pace as I had to keep walking or stopping to check which way to go, and you can't see the map if you stop the Garmin. Laughy face. Anyway, the start is literally straight up a steep hill of about 500 feet. Then you come straight back down, and it's pretty steep and not the easiest to tear down.

42:03Anyway, what's the best way to warm up for this scenario? A, normal warmup and get the heart rate up so it's been elevated already. But in this scenario, that means the heart rate will spike quicker on the hill? Or B, warm up well so the body is loose, but don't get the heart rate too elevated as it will happen on the hill anyway and gives you a bit of extra time before it gets up there in beats. I have a pretty firm answer on this. I think you do too. I think the most common thing I say is, well, it depends. It does not depend today. Oh, good. I hope you're going to say what I'm going to say.

42:35If the effort requires something of you from a heart rate or a pace nature, you must meet and or exceed that in your warmup. Thank you. Full stop. Thank you. That made me so happy. But elaborate. You don't want your body, I've said it before, but it's like using your car in the cold. For anyone who's ever parked their car overnight in the cold, when you first turn it on, it can start up generally. If you're lucky, it'll start up and then it'll do whatever you ask of it, but it complains the entire time. If you took it right from parked on the street overnight in a snowstorm to taking it right onto the interstate ramp, it would get you up to interstate speed, but it would complain.

43:21It would sound weird the whole way and it would take forever to do it. But if you sat and let it run for 15 minutes and got it all heated up and all the lubricants moving in the car and you got fuel and oil everywhere throughout the system and everything is hot, the moment you start going, it's just going to do what you ask it to do. And your body responds in the exact same way. You do not want to start up the hill, have the heart rate jack up, and then suddenly it goes too high and you're gasping when you normally wouldn't be gasping because it's complaining on the way up the hill. We weren't ready for this.

43:54get it out of the way, then bring it down and go rest for a bit before the race, but you must touch it before you use it. So well said. So well said. And, and Natasha's a racehorse. It's not like she's going out and running this 25 K in four hours. Like Natasha is going to go out and run low six minute pace wherever she can run well. And she's going to probably win and beat all the women. Actually, this is a very competitive race. She told me by the way, at some championship, but she's fast. And even if you're not fast, but especially if you are fast and you're going to be out there for a shorter amount of time, it's even more of a reason to make sure you have revved the engine and pushed the gas throttled on and off in your warmup so you can shoot out like a shot.

44:38If I were her, I would do five to eight minutes of steady running. I would meet the bottom of that hill and I would do like three by 30, 30 up the hill pretty hard. And then I'd run easy back down and then finish out to my festival area and then do my dynamics and get rolling. But I would do punchy work on the hill. I would get climbing in, in the warmup, driving power. You want your legs to burn and your heart rate to spike and say, oh crap, this might be a tough day. and my legs are burning already and I'm breathing a little bit hard and my heart rate jumped. Good. You got it out of the way.

45:13And so that's how, that's what I would do. I do about, that's what I did this weekend. And I felt ready to roll. I did eight minutes of running and four by 30, 30 on the hill, um, my way around. And it, it worked out wonderfully, um, out of the gates anyways. And so that would be my exact recommendation, roughly something like that. Yeah. Minimum, you have to do your strides before the race, but do them uphill and downhill. Usually do four by 100 meters. Do that. Do three by 100 uphill, one by 100 downhill. Now you are at least ready to do the thing. My advice, Kirk, I guess I'll ask you, where does this advice in distance or duration of race, when does this stop being your advice?

45:54Like for sure, 100 meters through 25K, absolutely. But at what distance do you say you no longer have to meet or exceed the opening demands of the race prior to the race starting? That's a great question. Well, it depends your fitness level and your volume going into it. Meaning if you're running a hundred mile weeks and you have a 50 K go ahead and do a 15 minute warmup with some punchy stuff. If you're running 30 mile weeks and the 50 K is going to take you nine hours, this rule doesn't apply to you. So I think it might be time, time-based as much as anything. And I think that that rule is probably somewhere around three to four hours out there, you might be able to reconsider this.

46:35What do you think? Well, it's kind of like a gotcha question because I don't have a distance. I have an intent. Okay. Are you racing off the line? Yeah, sure. And the answer is yes. I mean, it's the same answer. Yeah. because if you look at it and say, I, if I do a full warmup and these accelerations uphill, that's only hurting my race, then you're not fit enough to race the whole time. And that's your answer. Your response to this is to dog it at the start, build into the effort and then go. But if you can't do the warmup, then you can't race the distance. The warmup's required to race. So are you racing or are you not racing?

47:19If you're going to walk up the hill in the race, then walk up the hill. then just do a bunch of dynamic stuff and static stretching that's going to allow your calves and quads and the hips to be ready to do what's asked of them to go through range of motion but if you're racing i don't you might be racing moab but if you're going to run up that first hill you gotta get at least one feeling of that prior gotcha kirk gotcha i'm gonna stand by your answer is correct i'm gonna stand by that three to four hour because i do think i could have worked in like i could have gone cold even to the start of my effort and felt a little clunky early but it would have worked itself out in a four hour effort.

47:53I know it would have eventually. I just might not have liked how long it took me to get there. And it might've impacted my first 15 minutes of the race in some capacity. End result probably would have been close probably. But yeah, reality is three to four hours. That's what I think. Yeah. Okay. Good question, Natasha. Now, you know, all right, Jeff got a little bit longer one here from Jeff. And I felt like this one was important to get to because I think he's got a race coming up and such. So, So Jeff says, I know this is the running public and not the cycling public, but I have a question related to volume and cross training.

48:27I am a marathon, ultra marathon runner first and foremost, but have had recent minor injuries that have resulted in me spending more time on the bike. This is it. I have a 50 mile trail race coming up in Marquette, Michigan later this summer. I'm coming off a grandma's marathon and have seven weeks to train for that. That's why I felt like we needed to get to this guy needs an answer. I have transitioned to training mostly on trails, but also want to include biking. During your episode where you highlighted how to run your best ultra, you mentioned shooting for 9 to 12 hours per week of running if you can.

48:59And if you can't, you still must hit that, but with hiking or biking or something else on top of that. Sounds about like something we'd say. So here are my questions. I challenge you to keep the response under five minutes, he says. Challenge accepted. Listen, do you want the question answered or not? one how do you think about calculating total weekly volume when factoring both running and cycling two would you consider days that i only bike say 12 miles at 18 miles per hour an off day would what would be an ideal framework for running five days per week biking three days and strength two days open to a two open to two a days and would love to complete off would love a complete off day.

49:40Would also consider a nine-day cycle. The clock starts now. And he says also, love the pod and congrats on your 50Ks this year, Kirk. I wondered if that second loop at Afton might crack you. You're a beast regardless. Respect. So, the guy needs the bike to get his volume in because he's not fully healthy. One, he didn't mention me in that question anywhere. Two, he said that you were going to crack in the second half. So, I'm going to give him the rude answer first, which is, I'm not building your training schedule for you. You can pay someone to do that for you, or you can ask AI. Not build in your plan.

50:11I can tell you how many times per week to do it. What intensity is to use it? What? Oh, he's not asking for that. No. Real answer is I don't necessarily believe in calculating total training hours. What I believe in doing, because I think it's way too dependent on the person and what the non-impact cardio costs you. Biking for 12 miles at 18 miles per hour, are you doing it on a single speed or Are you doing it down in the drop bars or are you doing it in arrow position? Like it's - And what heart rate response is that getting from you? Right. What terrain are we on? So I don't even go down that path initially.

50:47I think you have to build out your own framework for what costs you what, but I believe you prioritize what durability and run skill do I absolutely need for my trail ultra? And then how much can I run without compromising that, those workouts? And now that's your run training. And then how much more can I add on top of that from biking without compromising any of the running? And that's how it's built sequentially in that order. The important runs, the aerobic runs, and then the aerobic volume elsewhere. And if any of that starts to be like, well, I can't even add much more in, then you can always take out a run and add in.

51:27I would recommend uphill biking for ultras. I think that's more useful from engine building standpoint, but the reality is the runs come first, the volume comes second, and it's however, always the rule of volume is how much can you handle without it giving you any negative consequences? That's the right answer. I'm going to give them some big answer. I'm going to give them more tangibles. Good. I think if I have to, if I, if, if, you know, it's a long race, right? 50 miles. Marquette, I believe, is hilly in that area, right? So it's probably - At least technical. At least technical, but probably terrain-based.

52:03I mean, even the winner of this race is probably going to take six hours, I would guess, or more. So we're out there for a while, right? Fair enough to say, six hour plus race, even for the winner. I believe this one's along the lake. I'm going to look this up, but I think it's going to be a lot like superior, but less technical than that. Okay. Well, just framing the conversation from that lens. So volume does matter in my opinion. And fully healthy, Jeff, if you were like, typically if I'm fully healthy and I'm in ultra build and I know what I can handle, I can run for 10 hours per week. That's typically where I land or whatever that number may be.

52:44But now I'm only able to run seven hours per week. So I'm missing three, right? Are you tracking me? I know you're looking at stuff. I normally would like to run 10. I'm only healthy enough to run seven hours. I have three unaccounted four hours that I'd like to make up. I think on the bike, it's not science. It's just how I feel because I've done it. Time and a half, meaning you want to make up for your three hours that you can't run. What's three hours time and a half? It's four and a half hours. Now you're going to go put four and a half additional volume of hours on your bike. I don't really care how it's done.

53:17I don't care if it compromises your running because what are we doing? We're trying to beat ourselves up anyways. heaven forbid. And so I think the time and a half rule via bike, if you're translating and have the ability to do it should be plenty of peace of mind. So one for one, I like, but I don't like it as much as time and a half. It feels like you're really doing something. So I say time and a half. That's what I try to have athletes do that can't run enough volume. Um, so that would put you at 11 and a half training hours per week instead of your typical 10. If you were able to run, it means you need to run, you need to put in more commitment, but you have to, because you're playing with like a card or two missing from your deck and that's okay.

53:53Um, I don't really care how it's done. Honestly, I love the idea. I love the idea. If you run a Monday through Saturday schedule of still prioritizing your Saturday long run and then going out and getting a long bike in the following day and using Monday as a chill recovery run and getting right back to schedule. I find the non-impact nature. Once you build up to biking, you can handle a three hour bike on a Sunday, shake it out with some short easy miles Monday and still maybe have a good Tuesday once you get accustomed to the focal fatigue of biking. And so I would be probably winging like a Sunday ride at you or a PM Saturday ride at you.

54:32But those are my first thoughts. Yeah. I love the idea of doubling with a different modality. 100%. Run in the morning, double on the bike in the afternoon. But in terms of does a bike ride count as an off day? No. An off day is an off day. I agree. It could be an off day from running, but the labels I think are important to understand what they mean. Recovery means that you are recovering from the prior effort. Easy or aerobic means that you're staying aerobic and quality means that you're driving some sort of serious adaptation, which usually requires some sort of impact or systemic damage. And so if your bike is giving you systemic damage and not impact damage, it's not an off day, but it may not prevent you from taking damage the next day impact-wise.

55:17But if I crank uphill for an hour on the bike on Thursday, I can go do a long run Friday, but I don't want to also do intervals on Friday. Because the system is damaged, but the legs really aren't. So figuring out what label the bike falls under, it makes it a lot easier to see where do I slot this in or how do I slot it in. But yeah, Kirk's right. You want tired quads during an ultra block and bikes are going to give you tired quads through a butt. No, just that's okay to bring into run workouts. Yeah, I agree. Especially for something so long, like, I guess you want to be efficient no matter the race duration and distance, but at some point, like you're running a fraction of even your marathon pace.

55:59And so like if the, like, if you're not able to be real twitchy and open and fluid in some of the shorter punchy stuff, if that's even in your calendar, I'm not worried about that in telling me that you can't run a good 50 miler. Like really it's about low grade grind on legs that are fatigued. And so we kind of want that in our training at points, right? So we're aware and used to the feeling. And so he asked about five, you know, what would be like five days a week running, three days biking, two days strength. Yeah. That sounds great. Great. That sounds perfect. If you could figure that out, that actually sounds like a fantastic split to me.

56:33about bingo. Kirk, I have a question for you. Sure. If you were to run a trail 50 miler and two groups of athletes show up at the line with you, no trail runners there. You're the only trail runner. One is a training group that is training to qualify for the Olympic trials in the marathon. And the other is a training group that is training to qualify for the Ironman World Championships. Who are you more worried about? You know who I'm more worried about without even stuttering. The long course triathletes. At what distance does that change over? Half marathon and under. Marathon maybe. I would say 50k.

57:12Oh, and the trails you're talking? Yeah. I don't even know. The Olympic trials marathoners are going to smoke me in a trail 50k. Yeah, that's probably fair. Look at Tyler Jermaine. By 50 mile, the long course triathletes who are used to being out there, 8, 10, 12, 14 hours, they scare me more. Somewhere between 50K and 50 miles. Anybody with a bike background, in particular a mountain bike background, would scare me as much or more than anybody running 40 miles a week on the roads but can do it fast. I wouldn't even be like that mountain bike dude who's putting in 200 mile weeks on his mountain bike.

57:48That guy's going to be a problem. That was going to be my next question. Now you have the group of triathletes and some of them are training for Kona and some are training long course Xterra or mountain biking, which one scares you more? Xterra. Yeah. So now we take that and that informs our training. I'm adding in cross training. Is it okay to spam miles on the hours on the bike? Yeah. Because that would scare me if someone else were. And is it better to do road or uphill? Well, probably uphill because that would scare me more if someone else was. I think it's as simple as that sometimes in training.

58:24Yeah, I agree with that. brings me back to like, he said it to me twice over the years. I don't remember what, for some reason, Robert Coble, if you remember, Spartan race director or I don't know, official, what was his actual title? He wore everything. He did, but he was head referee at some point, but he was head, whatever it was, but it was like, I came from flatland out to Palmerton or something. And I was like, so frustrated with this. Like I can run, I can beat most of these guys. If we just ran a flat 5k and I'm getting whooped here, which is true. Those are facts. And he just kept saying, just get on your bike and go, just get on your bike and start biking.

59:04Just get on your bike and go. And I was like, shut up, Robert. You don't know anything. Yeah, he did. You want to get ready for these mountains? Just start. That's one thing you can do right now. Even if, even if it's not uphills, you can bike, bike, bike, bike. We have met enough. You run enough trail races and you run into people who do other sports who are doing it. And the people who do well are athletic marathoners or runners, cross-country skiers, and mountain bikers. And the cross-country skiers and mountain bikers are more guaranteed to do well than the marathoners. They just transfer so well.

59:40So when in doubt, do what they're doing as you're cross-training. You didn't include ultra-endurance cross-country skiers into that what am I more scared of mix, But I think if I knew an Olympic, that might be the one, to be honest. I know what that takes. I'll never forget talking to Marco Bedard. He was the Canadian Olympian in biathlon. Not even long distance, just biathlon. He was ultra world champ in Spartan, right? He won the first Spartan Race world championships. And I don't know if he won ultra or not. But I was asking him, like, how are you so good in the mountains? He goes, oh, we run 15 to 20K a few times a week as cross training.

1:00:16And then we do this, like, two-hour stair workout. We have a long stair workout, stairs that lead up into the mountains. But yeah, we'll go 20, 30 K in the forest is our cross training. So your long runs are the same as my long runs, but you're doing it as cross training to your real work. And that is my real work. I get it now. You're not just a skier. You're running legitimate mountain long runs as your double session for just cross training. Marco Bedard. I haven't heard that name in quite a while. All right. Next question. Damien says, I'm curious about the younger crop of Spartan athletes in the elite field these days.

1:00:52There has to be something akin to the early years of Spartan when you, et cetera, were racing, maybe just with less notoriety due to less publicity and advertising these days. Maybe Jack Bauer could come on and talk about it or bring on one of the young guns that are leading the national series or something. I don't think you guys have touched the OCR topic much since BK went to the desert to record it. So maybe we are due for something along those lines. I wanted to save this because I don't know if we'd talk on an entire episode about it, but talking about state of the young crop in the Spartan field and what we think of state of sport right now from a competitive level.

1:01:33Because some of these guys, I think it has less eyes on it now. And some of these guys are fast, like fast, fast that are running very well. And so there are very good athletes still showing up to some of these races and running the series. The issue at hand is there's less of them. And we're not seeing the NBC series posts or the YouTube videos with high viewership and the commentating like we used to. And so our eyes are on it notably less. So one, we're less aware and exposed. Two, I've said this in past episodes, like we're not making heroes in this sport anymore. These are just your neighbor running a Spartan race as far as we know.

1:02:14But they used to build us up as heroes and people you would aspire to be like because they put us in your face. And so now we just don't have that like we used to. And so it's hard to know what's really going on with the young crop and how talented they are and the state of sport. Yeah. The reality is I'm going to exclude some people through ignorance that deserve to be talked about. but the reality is there's not a huge young crop. It's the old dogs that still do it are winning these things. I don't know if you saw big bear results this year. Did you see who won? I remember seeing it. I don't recall off the top of my head.

1:02:51Tyler Veerman. Oh, Veerman. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. Like second place, Giovanni Mendoza, Ethan Brown. Further down, we had Jeff Shady. You go to the Sunday. I mean, Ethan Brown's been around a while, but he's young. Yeah. We had Vadzeem, Demir, Ireland. These are the old dogs. This is the old crowd. Ethan Brown has been winning a lot of things. Balin Bean, when he shows up, crushes everyone. I saw that Josh Fiora was still out in an ultra. It's the same people just show up here and there and they win it. I don't think there's a huge young contingent coming out and pursuing it because there isn't a big thing waiting for them.

1:03:34There are some young kids doing it. We saw it at the USA OCR championships that happened. I believe it was in Ohio, somewhere in the Midwest, not too long. A couple of weeks ago, there's a young girl, maybe like 16, who is fast and good. And they're just in a few weeks here heading out to Ireland for the OCR World Championships, whatever, World OCR. It's still happening, and there are good young people out there, but it's really the old guard cleans house whenever they want to show up. There's a host. If you look in the Central, South Central, and East, there's a couple of younger guys that we've seen their names a little bit in recent years, but they wouldn't be household names.

1:04:20But you're talking guys that are running low 15s, mid-15s for the 5K that are not household names of old, that are running fast. If you look at like, like some of like the North American championship race, maybe it was on Seattle or wherever it was. Um, I wish we could pay you some more lip service, but you're not being put in our face like you used to. I see your name or a podium pop up. Um, and the other part of this that is a little hard for the lay folk to digest is like time means nothing to us. Right. So I don't know if you're, I don't know if you're 52 minutes on the super course is impressive or sandbagged.

1:04:58I just don't know. Like it's not as objective. So seeing it is hard to respect it unless you've been shoulder to shoulder with those guys, because you don't know until you're in the race with them. And so that's also tricky because it's not. So I just pulled up Seattle. Okay. 2026 Seattle. First place, Jalen, uh, Balin Bean. Second place, Jared Franciosa. I coached Jared. That a boy, Jared. Go to Sunday, Sprint Elite, Daniel Ludwig, Mike Higuera, Jared again. Again, these are not a lot of new names. And not saying that there aren't young kids out there, but A, you're right. They're not putting them in front of us.

1:05:33And B, the people who were good or on their way up when Spartan kind of fell off are still the ones who show up and smoke everyone when it's time. Maybe that's your sign. No, I wasn't good when Spartan fell off. I was retired when Spartan fell off. All right, let's move on from that. Janet. I work with Janet. this is coming actually sorry one more i got a message just yesterday kirk from someone okay ocr has certainly died over here now which is a shame maybe something similar will take its place one day that's a guy from the uk yeah i've been hearing the same thing now the uk is the birth place and was always the thing we could count on so other places still have it but it's dying from the center out.

1:06:15The nucleus is melting. All right. Janet. Janet says, I like this question. I hope you have a good opinion on this one. You will. She's been shoe experimenting, Brack, and she's been running up that credit card bill. She says, is there a way to know what shoes are meant for just by feel or looking at them? Or does everyone have to look up the specs to see? So for example, this morning when I was headed out for a tempo run of 45 minutes, what shoes should I wear? Do I wear a 5K shoe? Do I wear an easy day shoe? And then one of the guys I follow on Instagram was talking about a tempo shoe I roll.

1:06:54So how many shoes should I have? I definitely have more than three pair for sure, Laffy Face. But how does one know what shoe is a good tempo shoe? Just the one that feels good? I chose the Adidas Evo Strung. Hope you're having a great week. Thanks for everything. That's a very good question. The downside of the shoe boom that we are living in is it can be very confusing. The good news is that almost every shoe out here nowadays can cover like three deviations of running. So a shoe made for just easy running usually can also tempo these days and do recovery days. Shoes that are so-called super trainers, like tempo shoes, they can tempo great.

1:07:39You can also race in them if you wanted to, but you can usually also do your easy and long and recovery stuff if you wanted to. In pure super shoe racers, you can usually tempo in just fine as well. And they're not made for speed work, but you can run mile pace in them if you really wanted to. So the good news is there is a overlap of this Venn diagram. My first answer is going to say just buy something labeled as a super trainer and you can go either direction with it. If you need a fail safe super trainer, you could wear it and be like, yeah, I could run easy in this. Or yeah, I could run fast in this.

1:08:14Or I could run right in the middle with this. The super trainer is like my new favorite labeling. Because generally when I buy something that's labeled as a super trainer, I'm like, God, it's got some pop to it, but I could wear it every day. And that means if it's got some pop to it, I can run fast if I need to. It might not be the sharpest arrow in my quiver, but it's an arrow in my quiver that I would still use. And so the super trainer label for me just is like, I don't know. It's one that I typically look for now when I'm looking for like my recovery day shoes, honestly, because the technology is there.

1:08:46They're plush enough. They're responsive. So, yeah, I was going to go right to super trainer, which you said.

1:08:54Again, it's preference, right? She said it right the first time. It's, is it just what feels right? And the answer is yes, absolutely. Because you talked about it on here. There are super shoes that are supposed to be so great for racing and I'm slower in them because they just hurt my stride. They're not good for me. And there are just regular trainers that are so good to race in. And so, yeah, it is literally just what feels good. And again, one of the positives of the shoe industry right now is that it will blow your mind the number of good shoes that stores now have in stock. We have a store here, Performance Running Outfitters.

1:09:27They used to have a few trail shoes. I walked in there. They have everything I could ever want now on top of like 15 super shoes. I walked into Dick's Sporting Goods the other day. They've got like seven different super shoes and three super trainers and Dick's Sporting Goods. So you now can go in and try on multiple pairs of shoes and just get a feel for what's there because stores just carry them now. You don't have to as much anymore rely on ordering something and hoping it works well. Who goes to real stores anymore? I have been again. It's what we should do. I just never can trust that all the options I want to explore are going to be there, but a running specialty store should have most of the things you're considering at this point.

1:10:08They really do. So Kirk, I was at some store yesterday that was next to just a generic shoe store and it's at our semi-annual 50 % off sale. So I just went in there on a whim to see if there's anything for the kids and there was an Adidas shoe in there. I'm trying to find what it would be right now, but it looked identical to the Evo SL, but you could see they just didn't use premium materials. And the Evo SL is like the darling running shoe right now, right? And I'm looking, it was a$99 shoe. I'm going to, I'll find it here in a second. Okay. The Addy Zero Pacer. The Addy Zero Pacer is basically a knockoff Evo SL.

1:10:51The way that Nike always had the Pegasus and then underneath that they have the wind flow or the, trying to think what else their other one. Like the Coles version of the Pegasus always existed. The AdiZero Pacer is the Coles version of the Evo SL. I'm like, I have to try this thing on. And I put it on and I thought, you know what? In college, this would have been the most mind blowing shoe I've ever put on. Because it's light. It's definitely under nine ounces and it has a noticeable rocker in it, but it's all foam, but it's like a dense light foam. It's like, all right, this is protective. this is light.

1:11:26I could turn over in this shoe. I could run easy or I could probably tempo in this. This would be, if I was stuck on an Island with this shoe, I'd be just fine. And this is a $99 Kohl's running shoe at this point. So the trickle down is so real that you can just find the shoe that works well for you and go and not worry that it doesn't have the price tag or like the fancy specs that some do. Yeah. I agree with you. I also think, I think, you know, when you're racing like like janet's racing deca but she's also racing high rocks and then she has some road races and you start a cross-country race she just ran and then you're like suddenly you realize like if you really want to find like your golden shoe for each event they're all different shoes and so she's to the hair splitting phase i think you know which it's like well it's great for this but not for that or i like it here but then i don't like it here and And so it's like, well, maybe you just need as many shoes as you have golf clubs in a golf bag, Janet, and be okay with it.

1:12:24Because a nice set of clubs is going to run you over$100 a club, and a nice pair of shoes is going to run you the same. So you might as well get the right wedge for the right chip shot for every single option you have and just bite the bullet. That's what I say. Rack them up, man. Or you find two shoes and you just roll with them. You have one out. You either have like one or two or you have to have like 11. Yeah, because if you open the door a little bit, the shoes just come bursting in at you. I'm a two-shoe or I'm a... There's no upper limit. 20 plus. If you had to... So this tempo shoe has always been a thing.

1:12:59Even back when we were in high school and college, they were putting out tempo shoes, which always used to kind of be a joke. I still think it's kind of a joke. You either nerf a racer or you lighten a trainer. That's really what a tempo shoe is. if you had to not own a shoe specifically for tempo, are you leaning towards a racing shoe or towards a training shoe? If you're going out for like the classic, somewhere between three and eight miles at half marathon to marathon pace, what are you choosing? A racing shoe every time. That's what I choose now. Give me a racer. Let me go for sure. Racing shoe.

1:13:33Yeah. 10 out of 10. Because if you get the right shoe, like if you get like a marathon racing shoe, like a lot of them like have enough stack. they're protective enough yet propulsive enough you may take less damage in your racing shoe than you would in one of your training shoes it's with the technology of some of these so i just pick racing every time it would work because most super shoes are designed for 10k in a marathon yep tempo exists in between or at the far end of that pace so it's fine for that but if you didn't have it there and you're like you have to run it in your clifton or you have to run it in your speed goat even, or your Hoka Tecton X3, it's your trail shoe or your road shoe.

1:14:12These days, would you get a bad workout in those shoes? No. No, because they're as light as our tempo shoes used to be in college. The shoes are so good that you can get away with not the perfect shoe for the job because they all do a good job at several things. Yeah. So you either do what I do and you get way too anal about it, or you can just say, hey, everything's good. I'm just going to choose what my footwork wants that day and I'm fine. Or buy them all. Or buy them all. Buy them all. Johnny asks, hey guys, I'm training for a hundred mile race at the end of September and being a shift worker and going into the summer, the majority of my four or five day off stretches will be home with my five and seven year old.

1:14:55They enjoy going for runs in the double stroller together, but obviously running much longer than an hour isn't a whole of fun for them. I was thinking of adding in a weighted vest and some increased speed for maybe half of the run with the stroller and then the other half without set vest. So it is somewhat of a simulation of running with tired legs. I wanted to get your thoughts on that as well as any other suggestions for training through the summer. So this would be the kids are home from school. I need to get my work in, but the kids are around all the time. What do I do? I love The idea of pushing a stroller, especially two kids in it, it amplifies the work you're putting into the run.

1:15:31I ran with a stroller for years and I was very fit and I raced very well with that. Hill workouts, track intervals, I did it all. I coached track pushing a stroller. It works and it makes your rear chain work a little bit more. And it's actually good for developing a forward lean if you don't have one. I'm hesitant to recommend flat out road running in a weighted vest the only time I would recommend it is for a really long race where you're going to be wearing 8 plus pounds of pack so you might as well get used to it but then in that case you start light and you move up incrementally and I would not do it every day that's where I'm going to start Kirk get yourself a treadmill son thank you get yourself a treadmill beg borrow steal buy a crappy one on facebook marketplace take a gamble you could probably find one for 300 bucks and have it in your garage or in one of your rooms in your house tomorrow if you are a dad or a mom at home with your kids a treadmill is the best training tool you can absolutely positively have to hack this situation so i'm gonna start with that you're looking at it right now second i just went to Facebook to see what could I get right now.

1:16:44And on the first home page here without scrolling down, there are one, two treadmills for sure I would be comfortable going to check out, buy, and train on for an Ultra. One is$360. One is$250. If I scroll down a little more, there are two for 300 in one person's basement that look like they're commercial models. There's a pre-core here, their commercial model,$700. Here's one for 200. Anyway, incline trainer, 150, probably needs work. But point is they could probably get you through a block of training. I got a treadmill after we had our first child as a, if he's napping and I'm the one here, I at least can get something done.

1:17:38and within like two weeks, I decided I would never not own a treadmill again in my life. And I haven't. When we moved across the country and we did it only in a minivan, I brought my Nordic track. That's how important that thing. And I was moving to Colorado. That's how important it was to me. So that's the most glowing endorsement I can give it. I had only a minivan to move. The kids and wife were flying out. So I could fill one minivan, seats out with all of our stuff and the NordicTrack came with us. You don't need to say anymore. Go for your double stroller run for that hour. Before you leave, have the snacks and the freaking bluey or whatever the heck the kids are watching these days, red demon hunter or whatever.

1:18:24Have it ready. You swing in the house. You put them in front of there with their little healthy snacks right next to that treadmill. You get rolling. Bam, that's another hour for you. You just found two hours right there. You need to have the best of both worlds. Other options. I don't know how much you trust your kiddos, but do you have a small kids? You're going to play in the front yard like you always do. I'm going to run the block around the house where I come by the driveway every three and a half minutes. And I'm going to do this and it's going to be annoying and I'm going to get interrupted.

1:18:53But that's what dad's got to do right now. Run the same block. You're checking in constantly. Take or leave that recommendation. But if there's a means to an end, that would be one. Actually, those are the two. get a treadmill or do like the small block run in her back and forth across the street. It's better than missing the volume. And a lot of parents can't get away with having like a 40 minute block on the treadmill or 60 minute block. And so you break it up. Most people can get 15 to 20 minutes before the kids need you. So you do 15 to 20 minutes and then you load them quickly into the stroller and then you get an hour and you come back and you get another 15 to 20 minutes.

1:19:31And now you have nearly a two hour long run and they've never been alone for more than 20 minutes. And maybe if you have a neighbor or your partner's there or someone, they can watch during those first 15 to 20 minutes. There are ways to hack this system. And for ultra, all work is good work usually. So gamify it best you can. It's a good point. If Derek Rubis can run 70 mile weeks inside the walls of his house, maybe one or two runs a week, you can run back and forth up your same stupid street, keeping an eye on your kids at the same time. I'm just saying maybe, I don't know your situation. Maybe it's much more complicated than that and we're gloriously oversimplifying this, but maybe a version of it.

1:20:14I'm looking right now for a workout Dusty sent me. Okay. He did the backyard thing. What do you mean by the backyard thing? Like ran around his neighborhood for a long run, like a psychopath. That's all you can do. That's all you can do, man. Whatever. I'll find it later. But point is, it is very, very doable. Yeah. Let's move on to the next thing. I think he took what he needed out of that. Here it is. I got to say it, Kirk. Okay. Two and a half hours, part two of a back-to-back weekend, 18 miles done around his neighborhood. 18 miles. How big was it? It was 33 loops of his neighborhood. So you do the math.

1:20:55Yeah. Half mile loop. That's brutal. But sometimes that's the parent life. All right. Justin says, cue for next Q &A episode. I feel like I'm really bad at managing effort in quality day workouts. And as you saw firsthand sometimes while coaching me, this gentleman I used to work with, it has a tendency to tank my volume or ability to retain consistency later in the week. I understand mentally that if I have four more days after a hard Tuesday session before I get a rest day and I'm training for a mountain ultra, I shouldn't always strive to totally bury myself during a track style workout on a Tuesday.

1:21:30But when I am there doing the work, it's hard for me not to fully commit to the effort. Is this a maturity as a runner thing where you just get used to it over longer periods of time, sticking to consistent quality work? Feels overdue for me if that's the case. Or are other average runners who are successfully hitting high mileage actually dialing back their hard midweek efforts to be more available, say for their three-hour Saturday long run? Interested to hear your opinions and what you've seen from other athletes on how they approach this. Do you want the rude answer or the nice answer? Well, you're going to give us both.

1:22:04So whichever one you want to lead with. I'll do the same thing I did for the last one. I'll do with the rude one. It's not a maturity issue. It's a stupidity issue. Oh boy. All right. Okay. I'm not saying you are stupid. I'm saying the action is stupid. That it is a stupidity issue. if you know the thing you're about to do is going to have negative consequences for you and you continue to do the thing, that's foolish decision-making, right? It's not a maturity thing. That can come with maturity, but if you're old enough to use the internet and send us in these questions, you're old enough to understand that actions have consequences.

1:22:48So obviously that's overly rude, but it's intended to kind of cut through the brain fog that's happening here. If you're training for something, do the proper training. If you're doing quality work, do the proper quality work. If you're supposed to hit volume, do the proper quality work so you can hit the proper volume. I'm real soapboxy on this here, but it needs to be said aggressively. You're tanking your training if you make this kind of decision. I rarely go that route, Kirk, but we're going tough love today. I like when you're on a soapbox. So just riddle me this, just so people are hearing me clearly.

1:23:25I worked with Justin for a handful of years. And sometimes he would, I don't know, he would pay the piper for his hard efforts. And then he'd have like a tough back half of the week. So Justin sees 390 repeats by 10 on his plan. And I don't coach him right now. He's self-prescribed. We're running through old plans. But 390 uphill. And he goes, wow, what should I do with this session? I have a big volume week planned. You're saying execute the right training for the race. I get it. But what does that mean in a sense if he's running Eastern States 100, which I believe is what's next up for him, what do you do with a 390 session?

1:24:02What does that mean? What's the appropriate? Because if you're training for a 5 - What does 390 mean? Three minutes on, 90 seconds rest are off is what I'm getting at. Okay. I'm just making up a session. I put 90 seconds rest in there because it's just enough, whereas if you wanted to work a little harder, you could. But if you're ultra training, And he's never going to be running faster than marathon pace plus two minutes a mile. So what do you do with it? So he's wondering, do I still zone five it and reach? Or is the right thing to get my heart rate into threshold and keep it square in the middle so that I don't hate my life the rest of the week?

1:24:35I think that's what he's asked. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my belief for quality work across the board is that it is better to go slower and do more reps than it is to ever reach on a single rep. So if you're doing 10 reps of three minutes, you shouldn't be able to work so hard that you can't run your quality work four days later and that your volume is compromised in between. So something's not adding up here. You're either so tough and good at working hard or you're not handling volume real well right now. But either way, volume is the answer to ultras, volume and durability. And you're not building crazy durability in 10 three-minute reps.

1:25:20So the answer here is you need to do them in a way to hit all your volume. Going zone five, if that compromises your next two days, you go to zone four. All zones three and above are higher than you're going to be working at Eastern States. Eastern States is just a grind and it's going to be hot and humid and miserable. And there are water crossings. You may have to pull yourself across a line to get across the river. You are going to spend most of your day trying to hold it together at no point using any stride that you used in zone five. So give it up. All right. Well, I was going to back clean up with that very same sentiment.

1:26:00So I was going to let you get off your soapbox. Do it again. Do it in a different way because it sounds like this is years of inappropriately applying training. So you might as well hit them over the head with it again. When we talk to even marathon distance athletes, the coaches, or we've talked to, we said, would you take 60 miles a week in all easy runs or would you take 30 miles a week with some quality? And 10 out of 10 basically said I would take 60 miles a week over 30 miles, but a quality session because they felt the volume was that important. And these are people who are trying to run fast over a marathon duration.

1:26:37If they're choosing volume over intensity, what should you be doing for a hundred mile ultra marathon? Every time the answer is volume over intensity. I hate to say it because I love my intensity, but the answer is always volume. So if you've noticed a trend with yourself, Justin, then the answer is run your quality days at a six or a seven RPE, run them at zone three and zone four. Maybe let yourself eat a little bit on the last rep or two and stay available for volume. Volume is all I care about in a hundred mile race. So the answer is, yeah, now you need, you've walked into the wall how many times, and I've used this phrase before, take the door.

1:27:12And the door is back off an effort deviation on your quality days if that means you can get the volume in. It's that simple. So that's all I wanted to say. Then I'll back clean up on that. If you truly can't be trusted, because there are some athletes that are just like, they are, like you used the term before, a racehorse. like you turn them loose and they're just going to send it and it is in their DNA and they can't help it. I believe you can help it, but if you really can't, then you need to invest in the technology that's going to allow you not to. For you, that might be a power meter, a run pod on your foot that's like a stride pod that's going to give you a wattage that you need to work at, or it might be setting pace alerts on your watch.

1:27:52It might be a heart rate limiter alert on your watch, but you might have to outsource the decision-making to a piece of technology in order to keep yourself under control. That might be the way to do it. Or honestly, I rarely say this, just give up on quality work. Just run more vert, run more volume, run strides four times a week, and don't do any quality work and see if that leaves you available on more volume. And then you start to add in one session a week or half a session and see what happens. I realized I have to go in like three minutes ago. However, however, uh, the last thing I want to say to Justin is I understand how you got into that position because Justin was a very low mileage ultra athlete and we started working together and we started implementing quality for the first time in, you know, recent years.

1:28:43And he had success. He was making him a better ultra runner. I was like, we, you need to turn this over. We need to actually have some punchy days and we were running low volume and we were making up for it in quotes. And I believe this was the right thing for him at the time. And now he's trying to add phase. Correct. And so it worked well for him. He PR'd all of his races, notably, even on low volume, even lower volume than previous, but it was the right next step for him at the time. And now I could see how he would be stuck in that saying it worked once, but now I'm wrecked from it because he's trying to run more along with it.

1:29:17And now we have to look at it differently. And so we can't elaborate on it because I need to go. but I just wanted to say that is how he ended up there. So I think that makes me even more confident in the next, the answers we gave you. That is okay. Well, Justin, just remember I'm attacking the action, not the person.

1:29:36If anything resonated with you on today's episode, and you're curious about taking your training to the next level, check out the running public.com where we have a training plan to fit your needs.

1:29:51Thank you.