Training Tuesday: Strength Training for Recovery

0:08Brian D. D. G.: Welcome to The Running Public with Bracken Crocker and Kirk DeWint. It's Tuesday folks and you know what that means, Training Tuesday.

0:15Nick Simmons: We are going to take every rabbit hole, follow tangents, use useless metaphors, get lost in the weeds. This is Training Tuesday.

0:32Brian D. D. G.: When 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.

0:51Nick Simmons: Kirk, I'm trying. I'm trying to be training, not exercising. I'm trying my best. but I'm firmly in this for the millionth time in the last however many years, firmly in the everything is kind of rocking me stage where like yesterday I did a recovery run, 42 minutes, easy, not even a recovery. This was two days later. This was just an easy run and I felt good during and then my legs were very tired and heavy the rest of the day. So like just everything things making me tired or sore or that the ball's not rolling yet. You've been in that stage, I assume.

1:33Brian D. D. G.: Yeah,

1:34Nick Simmons: of course. Okay. But I am finding that lifting is the thing that makes me feel the absolute best right now.

1:46Brian D. D. G.: Like you feel best afterwards. Yeah. Towards the end of it.

1:50Nick Simmons: And then afterwards, it feels regenerative, restorative to me.

1:55Brian D. D. G.: Not everything. But it doesn't kick you down. You mean you're not snubbed afterwards. You're more invigorated than beat up.

2:02Nick Simmons: Yes. But I'm also not killing myself on squats.

2:05Brian D. D. G.: And I'm not doing any Bulgarian split squats at all. That was going to be my exact follow-up question was, well, how hard are you going on your legs? Because I find you can walk around with a sore chest or your lats ripped up or even biceps that are torn up. but the legs will suck the life out of me and then it ruins my running. And I do it every week. I have a terrible Thursday and Friday of running generally because I have some doms. We've talked about this in the podcast before, so I won't go into depth, but I think the restorative, like use it, but don't obliterate it in the gym can make you feel really good.

2:43Brian D. D. G.: So I agree with you.

2:44Nick Simmons: Yeah. And, and we've talked about it. We don't have to go deep dive on this, but if there happened to be someone, some new listeners, there, There are chemical releases in your body when you lift really, really hard that are good for an endurance athlete. Good for anyone, but good to counteract the effects of endurance training. We know that. And you have to lift pretty hard to get them. So I believe that just the movement, like light front squatting and light deep back squatting that I'm doing, very light. That is a good movement to make you feel better if you're really sore. But after your warm-up sets and a couple working sets, it's just you've got everything flowing in your body.

3:23Nick Simmons: It makes you feel better. But the having to bear down and work is what really releases the good hormones in your body. But A, it's really tiring to do that for some people and for some lifts. And B, there's the classic runners don't want to get big kind of fallacy. But there also is – there's some validity to that. if you're a responder or if you're taking certain supplements or protein or have a calorie surplus, like, yeah, if you lift hard enough, you're going to gain muscle. So what would you, you're the personal trainer in this relationship. What would you list as exercises you would sign off on for the people who want all of the benefits of lifting hard and no possible blowback of gaining muscle mass or impacting your running too much.

4:18Nick Simmons: You want to use it as a recovery tool.

4:21Brian D. D. G.: Okay. With the goal being running matters the most to you. Yes. And your run metrics matter the most to you.

4:26Nick Simmons: I'm not doing this for physique. I'm doing this purely to feel better and to balance my body from a chemical or regenerative standpoint. what would you prescribe for that um well i first of all very very very much agree about when you

4:43Brian D. D. G.: have to truly brace like do the full and your whole body has to commit to a movement that is like that flood of hgh type movements like bicep curling 20 pounds for 20 reps isn't going to do what a heavy five rep back squat is going to do from that standpoint so i agree with you I have a different take on this now than I would have three or five years ago because I'm aging. We all are. We're all slowly dying, right? However, with the big movements like a deadlift or a back squat, I have tweaked my back more than I care to at this point. And now I stay away from parallel stance movement. If I were healthy, I would put a squat firmly on the lift or a high high bar hex bar deadlift firmly on the list loaded up minimal risk of doms with like a hex bar deadlift with that high grip do you know what i'm talking about beautiful beautiful load that son of a gun up however if you're playing with fire with the back i leave them out so that's a long intro to my answer okay so i'm going to leave those out because i found they can impact my running by making me have a tight lower back a messed up si and eventually feeling inefficient on the run front.

5:57Brian D. D. G.: So I think there's three, four movements I'm going to say.

6:01Nick Simmons: Okay.

6:02Brian D. D. G.: I'm generally not the long-winded one, but here I am. I'm going to put a barbell bench press on there, three to five reps, heavy, maybe one rep in the hopper. That's going to be your biggest upper body. Like what you think you got to think this way, what movements can I do with my upper body where I can move the most weight? Pick that one. What movement would that be for your upper body?

6:21Nick Simmons: For me, it's bench press and bent over row.

6:23Brian D. D. G.: Thank you. Okay. So heavy bench press. If you don't have lower back issues, a bent over barbell row. Even barely bent over. It's fine.

6:33Nick Simmons: Almost a vertical row.

6:35Brian D. D. G.: That's safer for the lower back. But you could either do a really heavy single arm dumbbell bench row. I'm talking like reps of six to eight a side.

6:44Nick Simmons: Yeah.

6:45Brian D. D. G.: And I'm talking heavy. Otherwise, the traditional weighted pull up, I'm on a five rep scheme with them right now. and it forces you to brace everything to fight for that last top six inches on your last couple of reps and that does it for me so as traditional as it sounds a weighted pull-up or a bent over row heavy and then a barbell bench press those are the first two i like that and the next one is a reverse lunge variation um i don't care if you have a barbell on your back i've been holding dumbbells lately like a farmer hold i have a crash pad for my knee so you can even elevate it maybe I have like a half inch pad just to save my knee from banging the floor and heavy.

7:22Brian D. D. G.: I have to brace on those to get back up. So like last week I was holding nineties for, I was only doing six reps a leg and it took everything in me. I failed a couple of times and had to reset. So those would be my three. I would do a heavy reverse lunge. It doesn't seem to get you too domed up, but it's really good for power production. And then yeah, barbell bench press and then either a row variation or a weighted pull up.

7:45Nick Simmons: Okay. What would you add to the list? I would sub out reverse lunge, because I do find that that affects me. But as high as you need to build up, a deadlift is what I would do. Now, I've switched to the Hexbar. I think I talked about I really wanted to get one. And after one of our interviews with someone who had talked about it again, I was like, forget it. I'm just buying the next one. What did you pay for it?

8:08Brian D. D. G.: Out of question.

8:09Nick Simmons: I bought it on Facebook Marketplace. So I think I paid 90 bucks. Okay, very reasonable. Hexbar, and it has the rotating handle. So you can use it regular or use that elevated handle like you talked about. So when I go heavy, I rotate that handle up, the suitcase handles, and then you can always even elevate it, stack it on top of plates or boxes. But I would recommend – I find that the deadlift affects my running the least of any of the heavy exercises. If I want to load that up to the point where it takes me five seconds to lift it up, the next 20 seconds of my life aren't great, and then it's done.

8:46Nick Simmons: I don't feel it running after that, especially if it's a high grip. So that's the one I would put in there. I find that to be very useful for myself. And I agree with you on bench press. I agree with you. I agree with me on bent over row and then pull up. I think that if people are afraid of adding weight, if you're going to add weight, you add it to your trunk. Yeah. That's how I do it. Yeah. If you're going to build mass in your lats, that's the easiest way to carry your weight as a runner. You're going to be fine. And you're not going to gain a lot of poundage in your lats doing this kind of thing.

9:23Nick Simmons: But that's the area I would load up, my trunk. so that if I, which is why I wouldn't do single arm row myself. It's probably the way I do it, but my arms are going to get bigger if I do single arm row. But if I do bent over row, my arms aren't going to do a lot of the work, but my lats are really going to take over.

9:40Brian D. D. G.: And to clarify, I could not agree more with you. I think if I had to pick one hormone stimulating lift, it would be the deadlift, by the way. I think so. I am with you on that. For me, the cost versus reward at some point just became, I clearly have some sort of disc issue. Anyways, if you're healthy, the high bar position with lots of weight, 100%. If I had to pick one, healthy side, that would be – Rack pull would work as well. Yeah. Put the bar six inches higher than the floor and pull it from there very safe.

10:12Nick Simmons: Yeah. If you know you're – like with me, I can do explosive hang cleans or explosive high pulls because – I love a hang clean. Good old barbell hang clean. Are you talking?

10:22Brian D. D. G.: Barbell hang clean. Oh, love it.

10:24Nick Simmons: or high pulls because I don't think I've ever hurt myself doing those. But if you smash, like if you are smashing that bar, taking it from your chin or from your shins up to your chin with all your fours, your feet are clearing the ground, like you're exploding. You're releasing some stuff internally. But again, knowing yourself, like you know you shouldn't deadlift hard, hard, heavy while running volume. I know I shouldn't squat heavy. Same thing with like leg press. That's how you can move hip press. That's how you move the most weight, but that's going to affect my running. Such a dang balancing act, man.

11:05Brian D. D. G.: Yeah.

11:05Nick Simmons: Anyway, I think the good takeaway is tailor it to yourself, but for the runners out there, there are things you can do to make your body feel better without having most of the drawbacks, your consequences of size or soreness.

11:21Brian D. D. G.: And I said this, I think in our last Q and A about somebody asking about core work and should I use the same low rep philosophy with core work as I do other movements. And really it's just like, whatever is available to you still, like you have to have some core movements where you go heavy brace and fight to move the weight. I think that's the biggest thing. Pick a big muscle group, pick a big movement for that muscle group, pick a low rep scheme and try hard. That's it.

11:45Nick Simmons: Yeah. And I think the key part for most runners is to overweight the reps and under load the sets, if that makes sense. If you're going to do five by five in the last two sets of five are going to be a fight all the way through, I think that's going to set you back more as a runner than doing two by five and fighting for every rep of the two rounds. It's once you're really fatigued that you start to take damage. I agree with that. I'm not talking powerlifting.

12:15Brian D. D. G.: Those are important sets for a powerlifter, for an Olympic lifter,

12:18Nick Simmons: for a bodybuilder. But since your goal is not bodybuilding or power, if you're simply talking focus and work hard, I think I would cut the final set off everything and put that extra energy into doing the previous sets better.

12:32Brian D. D. G.: Yeah. One rep in the hopper philosophy, an end on that, right? You don't have to actually fail or you could finish your final rep and say, I know I can do one more. I'm going to stop here. Like that decision right there, like on a squat, for example, can really save you for your running the next few days. It's, I mean, it's a balancing act though. It really is. And the overarching theme is like keeping muscle mass and just keeping strong structure. It doesn't feel like it directly pays off to your running, but when you extrapolate this things out as you age, then it becomes priceless. It's hard to put an exact tangible benefit to it.

13:07Brian D. D. G.: Like, yeah, this will make my 5k better, but if you're still available and running well and keeping low body fat because you have a high metabolism and muscle rate in your forties, I don't care. Like you don't need to prove to me it makes you a faster runner if it keeps you available, um, over time. Right. Yeah.

13:23Nick Simmons: The healthier human will run faster, longer.

13:25Brian D. D. G.: Strength training is more an investment in your future self, not your tomorrow self. And running can often be an investment in like my tomorrow self. My two weeks from today self will be better for what I did today. And the strength front, it's like, this is paying off for decades.

13:38Nick Simmons: It's like extra bracing to a house in Hurricane Alley. It doesn't make your day-to-day any different, really. It doesn't make your house look or smell prettier, but when the storm comes, you're going to be the one that survives it, and then you can continue on living day-to-day. Anyway, that was top of mind for me, and I wanted to just touch upon it.

13:58Brian D. D. G.: You haven't given us a good analogy in a while, and I like that one. It's been how long since a car analogy? I think you can do better. It has been a while. Also, I doubt it's Hurricane Alley. We have Tornado Alley. That's true.

14:12Nick Simmons: Last thing is that I have failed out upper body lifts constantly. I can't remember the last time I failed on a lower body lift. And that's what I recommend to runners. You should not be in a position where you're not going to get a rep on squat or deadlift or lunge of some sort. But if you have to drop the bar on bench, well, probably shouldn't unless you have something safety-wise, but drop the dumbbells on a heavy bench or something, great. I fail out on overhead press all the time. I agree with that, although I did fail on one rep of my reverse lunges last week. But the nice thing is your knee hits the floor.

14:48Nick Simmons: I can't come back up.

14:49Brian D. D. G.: The dumbbells are four inches from the floor. You just drop them, and you're not in a compromised range of motion. It's stopping me at 90 degrees. That's why I like the reverse lunge. The floor keeps you from going too low, which keeps you from getting a little bit too much muscle stretch, which keeps you from getting overly doms. But it's another conversation.

15:05Nick Simmons: Last part of Lifting Kirk, I bought two new dumbbells yesterday. A local store near us had just a random set of 95s. They're not even a strength and conditioning store. They just had someone returned one that they had bought somewhere else in this store, took the receipt or whatever, and it was extremely discounted. So I bought them. So I got a pair of 95s at home now.

15:29Brian D. D. G.: Tell the good people, what would you do with a set of 95s? I can think of a few things I would do with those, but not many.

15:37Nick Simmons: Currently, short bursts of farmer's carry, heavy shrugs, and I can do decline bench with 95s right now comfortably. I don't think I would get the first rep up. I think I could flat bench them. I think without a spotter, I wouldn't get the first rep up with 95s.

15:57Brian D. D. G.: and then eventually it'll be the a lunge tool or something like that and goblets do goblet squat it you could do some other variations of it yeah um okay uh also speaking of that i guess since we're talking about strength i am getting scrawny bracken what do you okay so i'm up in weight my my metrics if you saw me in person i'm just putting a bit less effort into my lifting i'm only lifting twice per week i'm kind of capping myself at the amount of weight i'm using And then I'm like in the phase of life where I'm training a good bit. I'm running 50 miles a week, but two big intense sessions in there.

16:31Brian D. D. G.: And then I'm in the woods hiking constantly and sweating. And I think I'm just like kind of withering away. And I hopped on with shoes on and I was 168 on like the gym scale. And so I'm guessing I'm running like 166 to 167. But then these paces are clicking. Like today's I did thousand meter repeats and like I didn't have to reach. Those few pounds make a difference when you're like, so I don't, I'm really like, I don't love how I look right now in that regard, but I'm also like, I don't know if you can have your cake and eat it too. So that was appalling. I bet you I'm 166 morning weight, like standing there in my underwear.

17:08Brian D. D. G.: That is white for me.

17:10Nick Simmons: That's you. You see how quickly the, uh, the mindset changes, how quick, how slippery that slope gets. As soon as a workout goes well at a lighter weight, you see how it gets slippery real quick.

17:22Brian D. D. G.: For me, luckily, I don't have that relationship, but I noted like you could see and be like, I'm running fast thousands and not where I know that would not have been possible if I had five more pounds. I mean, I don't think it would have been. So anyways, I got to figure that out there.

17:37Nick Simmons: Well, I'm up now sitting between 181 and 183. At this point, I should just bulk for a month or two and start doing Clydesdale races. Thick boy. You should. I just made a round of of buying three or four of the shirts that I currently have, but in a bigger size because it was starting to not be the same.

18:00Brian D. D. G.: Somebody just said to me, they sent me a meme on Instagram. Dr. Patrick, we've had him on here. And he sent what I feel like at 200 plus pounds running. And I'm coaching Dr. Patrick to run his first half marathon in September right now. Yeah. Anyways, and it was like a freaking giant ass steer running through a field. And then it was a rhinoceros. And then it was this big gorilla. Just things you'd expect. And then I said something about it. I asked him what he related to most. And he said the rhinoceros sort of. It doesn't matter. And then he said, I'd like to see what pace you could run at 200 pounds.

18:37Brian D. D. G.: He said, I bet you couldn't hold 730 pace for a half marathon at 200 pounds. And I said, oh, what did you say to me? So the question -

18:47Nick Simmons: You'd still run six-minute pace easy.

18:48Brian D. D. G.: That's what I told him. And he said, yeah, right. Prove it. And I was like, not a worthwhile experience. Yeah.

18:55Nick Simmons: Sorry, Ben. There are levels to everything. And 20 pounds, 30 pounds. That's what Jared did with 40 pounds on. He still ran like 550 pace for 10 miles. Yeah, insane. Yeah. All right. But you can adjust you much quicker than you can learn to run fast. Especially if you have decades of running under you. That's exactly it.

19:20Brian D. D. G.: Last thing I want to say. Okay, gosh, we're 20 minutes in. Last thing is I made a comment last week at one of our episodes about how we're getting all these listener questions more than ever, but our ratings and reviews, we haven't gotten very many recently. And Bracken and I just hopped on to record, and I said I'm going to look really quick to see if that made an impact. and we have three new written reviews on Apple Podcasts, at least what I checked quickly. So thank you for those people who wrote a rating and review. That is so helpful for us. And if you thought about it and said, oh yes, I should write those guys a reviewer.

19:55Brian D. D. G.: I haven't yet. And it fell off your radar. I won't bring it up again, but it would be awesome. If some of you guys have been listening for a while, haven't written something to do that. We would really appreciate it. And some very kind words. I read them to Bracken and Bracken was blushing. He was blushing over there. Tearing up. You do not tear up.

20:13Nick Simmons: I tear up all the time. I'm such a softie in my old age. Movies? Yeah. So today's Brayden's birthday, and we went and saw the new Spider-Man movie, and I teared up probably three times in that movie. Wow. I'm just becoming a big old sopping wet rag.

20:30Brian D. D. G.: That's one time in college. Can you hear me right now? You're frozen.

20:34Nick Simmons: Yeah, I can hear you.

20:34Brian D. D. G.: One time in college, I was sick, and I took too much Robitussin. I uh, I didn't have the cap. So I just chugged out of the bottle And then I started feeling real goofy, right? Like like an hour later I couldn't figure out why I was feeling all if everything was funny and making me feel things And I cried during an episode of the simpson and I blamed the tussin. That was my lamest cry ever Well, like I said, there's levels to things. Yeah, you're really choppy and like uh Robotics sounding. Do I sound fine to you?

21:05Nick Simmons: Yeah, you do.

21:06Brian D. D. G.: I wonder what this is. Yeah, and you're freezing up constantly. So I guess if, if you can hear me and fine, then we'll just roll on. Let's go.

21:16Nick Simmons: Send it. All right.

21:18Brian D. D. G.: Yeah. I'm just gonna look at pixelated bracket here. So, uh, we have, uh, more Q and A's that we've not gotten to. So we're going to do our best here to, uh, keep the train rolling, uh, 40 to 50 minutes of question answering for you. So, uh, Bray. Bray asks, I was wondering what y 'all's thoughts are on a situation. Some backstory. Earlier this year, I had bilateral stress fractures in my fibulas, which is odd because it's normally a non-weight-bearing bone. Anyways, I have lost pretty much all fitness from this injury and have now just hit 15 miles again, whereas before I was hitting 55 miles very consistently.

21:56Brian D. D. G.: I'm a collegiate athlete who has cross-country coming up soon. I am in no way in shape to compete at this level right now, but I was wondering if I should be running more for less days a week or less for more days a week. And any further advice would be awesome as I've really felt draining and unmotivated in my running for so long.

22:16Nick Simmons: Yeah, I was feeling real positive and confident in this until he said I'm a college kid and crosses coming up. It's got to be starting like any day now. It's got to be reporting to campus soon. That's such a difficult situation. I empathize with this greatly. We've all been in this situation. Unfortunately, every college runner has been in this where something pops up and you realize I've got to borrow from something to get ready for this season.

22:48Brian D. D. G.: And it's just, it never works out.

22:52Nick Simmons: So what's your gut? So let's just simplify it. Let's say that you, well never mind I'm not even gonna I was gonna ask you should you run more frequently for less volume or more volume less frequently but I think we have to decide first I mean I wish we had more info but are you trying to get ready for this season or are you just rehabbing this thing

23:16Brian D. D. G.: on its own timeline let's assume he's getting ready for the season I think that's probably the case um so I do have a thought on it I've been in this situation I wish I had somebody to give me this advice when I was in this situation back in the day. Because first of all, maybe it's a different generation now, but cross training was like not even really a thought for me. It was like, I'm not going to cross train. That's not running. It's pointless. Why would I do that? So when I had stress fractures, I would just take off. I'd go to the gym and lift and I wouldn't do anything else on top of it.

23:50Brian D. D. G.: If I were to roll reversal and I said, I have to make this work on 15 miles a week, I would probably be peppering. I hate to say it. I would be doing more frequent to the whole grease, the groove, uh, shorter mileage, but more frequent running. And then I would be a monster on some of these cross training sessions. I would live on the assault bike. I would be doing some pretty punchy stuff. And with the, with the hope being is to just build up my general mileage by the time practice starts and know that it should come around once I start implementing the run quality work with the team. It might be a slow start, but I know I'll have the backbone of an aerobic engine waiting for me.

24:31Brian D. D. G.: So I would be big, big, beefy cross-training sessions and I would be just spamming. If you could run four or five days a week in the buildup, but they're all shorter, great. I don't care. So that would be where I would start, but I wouldn't have said that back in the day, I guess. What do you think?

24:47Nick Simmons: I agree with that. I think that, especially when you're young, you gain fitness so quickly. College athletes return to form racing-wise really quickly. So I would stick with the least amount of stress while dosing it as frequently as possible, which would be a lot of zone two and three running and cut it short each day. And then I would get big volume on the machines and I would get all my quality work there for now. So that when I was confident, I was ready, I could step back in with an engine and some running efficiency and then just get sharp as the season goes on. I think the first three to five weeks are the most dangerous part of cross country and most destructive for people anyway.

25:32Nick Simmons: They come in, they work too hard the first couple of weeks because you're trying to shake out what's what in the pecking order. And then a lot of people don't finish the season strong. And so I would make it my goal to be the highest, fastest riser in the second half of the season. So it's really hard. I've been injured starting seasons as well. Not stress fracture. Luckily, I've still never had to deal with one. But I would let that thing run its course. I would do exactly what you're saying.

26:03Brian D. D. G.: It's all you can really do. And I'd rather be a late season press versus an early season press. because how many of the guys you remember, you'd have a recovery run on your first day of practice. It'd be like, the team meets again. You all say, hey, after the summer away. And then you know you have a quality session on day two because that's usually how it works. Usually coach didn't smack you with something big on day one. And you'd have guys racing that quality run like literally for no reason, or sorry, recovery run day one. Like it was already like a dick swinging competition. And people do, they peak early, they drive themselves into the ground.

26:34Brian D. D. G.: I would go in underconfident and plan to build. You don't need to peak until November. if I understand your collegiate season, right? Even later in November. So that's August. Remember that.

26:45Nick Simmons: Yeah, there's, we've, almost every high school and college runner has gotten to the point in at least one season where you realize, we always call that we're just drawing dead. Like no matter what card we pick up, we're dead here. We can't win this hand anymore. We're just drawing dead. There's a point of your fitness and your body energy where you just realize, I'm drawn dead. I'm not going to get any better this season. Best thing I can do right now is try to just stop the bleeding, hang on the best I can and finish the year up. And I hit that most of my seasons, all but one. I hit that in college.

27:24Nick Simmons: And I get to high school every year.

27:26Brian D. D. G.: Right about conference.

27:27Nick Simmons: Yeah. Yeah. That sounds about right. And sometimes, Nadia, I wouldn't even get there. My senior year is the only time outdoor I felt like I had, and I showed it in times, the only time I improved all the way through a season. It's a worse feeling and you get to avoid that now. So flip the frown upside down, focus on being the person who's going to be the big mover in the second half.

27:48Brian D. D. G.: Flip the frown upside down.

27:49Nick Simmons: The stressful parts of running is once you get past 40 minutes. Yeah. So I'd stay under that for a long time. Yeah, I agree.

27:56Brian D. D. G.: All right, hopefully that was helpful. Michael, this is via emails. and Michael I work with.

28:02Nick Simmons: I do want to say though, just like speak directly to that person. Sorry, before we move on. You are going to feel like you're going to be left behind in that program. The team's going to leave you behind. There's so much social standing determined by your ranking on the team at a lot of these universities. You're going to feel like it all rides on how this starts and it doesn't. It really doesn't. Things come back around. There are so many times people are just studs to start the year and they're forgotten by the time the leaves start dropping. It is going to feel like panic inducing, but it's not what it seems like it's going to be.

28:40Brian D. D. G.: It's a really good reminder. You forget about the social status thing of those younger years, high school, college. Oh, that seems so important. Who wins the first 3K time trial we do to open the season to make the team cuts and da da da. Yeah. Coach is going to forget about me. This isn't basketball.

28:59Nick Simmons: You're not going to get stuck on the bench and never get a chance to show it. The second you start running fast, the stopwatch doesn't lie and you're traveling with the team.

29:07Brian D. D. G.: I came into my first collegiate cross country season coming off of a tibial stress fracture, running 20 miles a week, barely worked my way up. And I was our 12th runner bracken on our conference team the last one that we picked because i had a slow build literally five months later i was an all-american in the 1500 eighth in the country because of the slow build i wasn't forgotten about then i took my time and built it up and then it came together and the timeline it feels so desperate like i have to be ready day one of practice i was not ready day one of practice my freshman year when everything matters you show up and it's instantly who is this kid eyes and nobody like it's not you have time so i'm really glad you said that you feel like

29:52Nick Simmons: you'll never catch back up yeah and you do you all it all evens out eventually michael asks i'm

30:00Brian D. D. G.: gonna ask these one that we can do short answers for the first two questions and i know nothing about this other than just snippets so the first question is bicarb lotion actually a thing and is it better than intaking it through a drink and having tummy problems later?

30:14Nick Simmons: I don't know. Apparently it's a thing. I, so, okay. There's the, I forgot the name of it. You see it now. It's the lack, it's like lactic, some lactate something. It's yeah, it's a, it's a rub. It's a cream or gel or whatever that people put on and you're starting to see athletes rep it. But the way that internally the ingestion of this works so that the sodium bicarbonate gets utilized to buffer the hydrogen ions essentially i think is what's happening but it's it's staving off the the lactate production um can't possibly happen without ingesting certainly not from like uh I mean, not to reduce it down to this, but your ATP cycle is not super impacted by what you rub on your skin.

31:10Nick Simmons: So I'm not saying it can't have a benefit, but that's not where the magic lies.

31:17Brian D. D. G.: Well, there's some compounds that can be absorbed through the skin, and there's most that can't would be my understanding. For example, you can rub testosterone gel on your chest and your arms and your back, and you will see your testosterone numbers go up for sure. It's called androgel. It's been around forever. It works. Some substances can be in. But if I rub a chicken breast on my arm, Bracken, am I going to suddenly intake the protein value of that chicken breast by rubbing it on my arm? No, because it doesn't work that way. And so how is that barrier breached with a rub-on sodium bicarb?

31:58Nick Simmons: Yeah, it just – sure, you can absorb it through your skin, but is it going to – Can you though? Is it going to hit your system and work where you want it to?

32:07Brian D. D. G.: I can't absorb a chicken breast through my skin, so why could I absorb bicarb through my skin?

32:13Nick Simmons: So we have something called PR Lotion. designed to deliver bicarb directly to working muscles through the skin to neutralize acid buildup, reduce fatigue, and speed up recovery. It's transdermal bicarb.

32:25Brian D. D. G.: I mean, if they say it's true, I believe it. To what degree is it effective? I mean, you can put a big old chunk of skull under your lip and suddenly you're lightheaded five minutes later so things can absorb through the

32:38Nick Simmons: bloodstream that way. Maybe you just need a bicarb lipper. What do you think about that? That would get in your system faster.

32:46Brian D. D. G.: Yeah.

32:47Nick Simmons: All right. Okay. So I guess my educated answer is that I'm not educated enough on this. But if I had to just stake my claim on this, I would say that it's mostly snake oil and mostly placebo. Maybe there is some science behind this, but...

33:10Brian D. D. G.: We're under...

33:11Nick Simmons: I know that bicarb orally ingested is scientifically proven, and I can't imagine that the lotion is. And also it's cheaper.

33:23Brian D. D. G.: But what if maybe it's 25 % as effective as ingesting it, but it's 25 % and you have no GI distress, right? And then it's like, okay, is it a fraction of a percent helping my performance? Maybe. All right, let's move on from that because we're researching as we are answering, and I don't have a good answer.

33:40Nick Simmons: I can tell you this, that of the athletes that I've worked with and known who follow the protocol and find the ceiling from below on bicarb doses, the stomach intolerance occurrences are very much lower than they ever used to be. Bicarb suppository, that's your answer. All right. Yeah, cut out the middle, man.

34:03Brian D. D. G.: Cut out the middle, man. For my high rocks block, do you think creatine would be beneficial? If yes, do you have a brand you recommend and why that brand? Yeah.

34:12Nick Simmons: Yeah, it can be beneficial. Elaborate. Well, from what it's intended to do, which is help you through duress at the end of sets and to give you more kind of oomph as you fatigue, that's high rock specific. And it also helps you gain weight, which for a lot of people is an issue with high rocks. So yeah, it could be beneficial. and I'm of the mind that all you have to do is buy from a trustworthy brand that you're not getting anything but pure creatine and you can buy anything.

34:49Brian D. D. G.: You don't get what you pay for with creatine. You think it's pretty reliable across the board?

34:54Nick Simmons: Yeah. I think as long as you pick a reliable brand, buying$20 jars versus$70 isn't going to give you any benefit. it?

35:05Brian D. D. G.: Um, I think creatine is very, very, very much playing in the fringes of what doesn't matter as far as athletic performance goes or even muscle building goes.

35:16Nick Simmons: I don't like how I feel on it. Um, I don't either. I don't take it.

35:21Brian D. D. G.: And I've recommended a few athletes I work with to try getting off of it because they're dealing with weird things like muscle cramps or soft tissue injuries constantly. And I know that's a very left field way of thinking, but these are muscle bound guys already and we keep having problems. And so I'm like, let's try to maybe take off a little bit of this muscle and not retain as much water and see if we can't nip some of these issues in the butt. Because when I was on it, I felt more broken than anything at times. And so, um, I just, I think if you're asking that question, I would rather you do other things instead of like take creatine and hope it makes a fraction of a difference.

35:57Brian D. D. G.: Spending another$40 on the next big, on the next super shoe is going to yield better results than$40 on your tub of creatine.

36:06Nick Simmons: In my opinion. Yeah. I'm to the point where I don't think people, there's a ton of reason not to take it. I agree. Unless you don't like it or don't want to. If you don't like it or don't want to, it's also not a game changer. All current science says that the things it's best for are 10 years down the road plus. That seems to be what it is. There's a lot of anti-aging and brain health and things like that. but no one's going to ban it because it makes you too good at high rocks. But yeah, as long as it's monohydrate and as long as it's micronized, I don't think the brand matters. It's like protein where you get what you pay for.

36:42Nick Simmons: People aren't cutting things into creatine. Creatine is cheap. It's simple. Anyone can produce it. It's stable. Yeah, I think I just do optimum nutrition. I think that's what I order when I order.

36:53Brian D. D. G.: Yeah, I couldn't tell you I don't order it. So we'll go with that. Maybe if Simply Good Supplements has a product or Pure. I like Pure Encapsulations. They make good stuff. Next question he asks, and I don't know if you want to spend any time on this for real. This is a lot of attention you need here, Michael. Here's a longer one but more fun. Earlier today, my fantasy football had discussions on deciding our draft order. There was an idea floated of the fitness games. Each person puts in an event. 12 people. He didn't say strength, cardio, mental health. Each event is timed, capped at 20 minutes, and based on a percent of winner.

37:31Brian D. D. G.: Events are drawn out of a hat. After the events, everyone goes down the list and gets to choose their pick based on standing. What event would you and Bracken pick? Events have to readily available to each person. The location takes place at a local high school track. If it requires equipment, you are required to supply equipment for individuals. I'm thinking a mile. We already have three events. Longest field goal, standing, broad jump, and dead hang.

37:54Nick Simmons: you feel like entertaining this yeah first of all all of real true fantasy football players know that the draft must be randomized that awarding it based on your standings at real life has no carryover to fantasy but it is always amusing to see people blow up and screw their draft up in a position that they earned i think that having the randomized order is it's it's on a cellular level important to fantasy football because then people can complain right from the start about their draft order. That is a key part of fantasy football is constant complaining. So I'm actually not a fan of doing this myself, but I love watching other people's foolish draft antics.

38:32Nick Simmons: And I think you stick with what the NFL would test. Speed, explosive power, football skills. I love watching everyday individuals, weekend warriors and middle-aged individuals embarrass themselves doing that. So yeah, keep it sprinty, keep it powerful, pull a hamstring or two, make it and record always record it you wouldn't have an interest in watching people run a mile around the track or it seems no but i'd watch them i love when on instagram and stuff they show they get a they time their 40s to determine draft order and people are falling and pulling hammies i i love watching that absolutely record it but a mile come on now that's not football related it's a dead hang football related no i like the idea of longest football i do our field goal i I would do a 40-yard dash.

39:22Nick Simmons: Yeah, let him kick a football. Let him do a passing target.

39:26Brian D. D. G.: I think you just launch the football for distance.

39:29Nick Simmons: Yeah, do it all. But do some things that could cause you to fall or hurt yourself and record it. All right.

39:39Brian D. D. G.: Let's move on, although the question could be entertaining. For the sake of we've already given three questions from the same wonderful gentleman. All right. Scott the Fane Knowles. I am a Spartan. He says, next Q &A, I'm disagreeing with your take on adding skateboarding to hill repeats. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about doing hill repeats with a skateboard. For OCR, you could put it on your shoulder and run back up. If you have the right hill, you could coast all the way down. You wouldn't have to push at all. Granted, you would have to have skill with the board to not get hurt, especially if the hill is steep.

40:12Brian D. D. G.: You could even strap a ruck plate to it and make it an interesting carry. I would do this before I would push a bike up a hill running. I feel like running while pushing a bike would mess with your form and efficiency for hill repeats. Also, electric skateboard would work too. I was excited to hear I'm not the only one thinking about doing this. My problem is a long, steep hill. I guess my question is, don't you think pushing a bike up a hill would be awkward on running form and efficiency for hill repeats than carrying a skateboard on your shoulder? Good job with the pod. I think we've lost the plot here.

40:43Brian D. D. G.: I think we've opened a door here. We didn't mean to.

40:45Nick Simmons: I'm going to continue picking right on up with my fantasy football rant with another mini rant here. Our problem was not the up, it's the down. If your hill is steep enough that you want to avoid the time spent running down or the damage going down, it's too steep to skateboard without consequences. Agreed. That was our final takeaway. If it's gradual enough that you can just longboard this thing, then it's not a hill worth avoiding in the first place. And you should be ripping that thing. and you're not getting enough vert on that day with a steady hill to be worth trying to spam those uphill repeats.

41:19Nick Simmons: And anyone who's pushed a bike knows that you can actually push a bike really efficiently with one hand on the seat, look at triathletes. So no, an uphill is not about efficiency. It's about power output. So I disagree, Scott. You take the bike just because it would keep you alive? Yeah, because it's the downhill I'm focused on, not the uphill. I said this last time, but I prepared for Vermont World Championships for Spartan for Killington. Pushing a stroller, that compromises form, but it's not about form uphill. It's about power. Well, it's a little bit about form, but for your sake of argument, yes.

41:54Brian D. D. G.: If it's steep enough, it's not form. I don't think I'm going to entertain this anymore other than this is an asinine plot. And we know Scott, so we're comfortable talking about this. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, Scott's great. It's just some people don't know that we know Scott. Some people have no idea even what this is about. Somebody asked if they could run up a hill and ride down it on their skateboard to reduce impact and get more hill reps in. And we entertained that question on a previous Q &A, and this is a follow-up to that. So I'm going to move on. Scott, different Scott, asks. This is a little longer-ish.

42:27Brian D. D. G.: All right. Hey, Bracken and Kirk, I'm racing a mini backyard ultra in October. So instead of the 4.1 miles every hour, it's 2.1 miles every 30 minutes with about 270 feet of climbing per loop. So this is a punchy little route. 2.1 miles and 270 feet of climbing per loop on the half hour. That changes things. You actually start at nighttime, 8.30 p.m. To me, it feels less like a traditional backyard ultra and more like the mid-state Tennessee mile format that Bracken, I'm sure, has murder mile scars from. If the goal is to contend for the win, how would you train for and race it? Would you hike the climbs from the start or run more to maximize recovery time since the loops are shorter?

43:07Brian D. D. G.: What loop time would you target and how would you balance vertical training, downhill durability, fueling, and sleep deprivation? Most importantly, what does the little rooster stop being a harmless mascot? When does the little rooster stop being a harmless mascot and become a sleep-deprived demon trying to convince me to quit? I jest, but thanks for all you do for the running community.

43:26Nick Simmons: Oh, I have thoughts on this, Kirk. Oh, go ahead. With the surprise of no one. I'm going to talk a little. Shut up, dang. The difference between one minute or two minutes per mile running flat is pretty small in the cost and damage to you. But it's extraordinary up and down a hill. So in a flat-based race, I still would err on the side of slower, but you could prioritize some recovery in between rounds and get some stuff done. I would not on a vert-based backyard ultra. I would be moving. I'd be running as little as humanly possible. From the very start, I would be doing all my fueling while moving uphill.

44:09Nick Simmons: I'd be walking all the uphills. I would try to walk as much of the downhills as I could get away with. I'd be jogging backwards down the hills at times. I'd be shifting it up because I'd be saving my legs for later. I'd be using poles down the hill from the start if I was able to. The downhill and uphill is about avoiding damage and avoiding running out of power. It's not anything else in my book.

44:30Brian D. D. G.: Do you believe that a half an hour loop format versus a 60 minute loop format would be, my thought is it'd be done notably sooner than a 60 minute loop format. Like you take the same course and you make people do two loops in 60 minutes or one loop every 30. I feel like your chunks of time to troubleshoot become smaller. And so my guess it would probably, it's going to leave smaller nap windows if that is your strategy overnight to sneak in a five minute power nap here and there.

45:02Nick Simmons: So I would assume this would be done sooner than if it were a longer. Yeah. It won't go as long.

45:08Brian D. D. G.: Yeah. So you have to take that into consideration. But when there's that much.

45:12Nick Simmons: These funky ones often give people breaks from time to time too. Like you get a big reset at some time. Yeah. That I don't know. Anyway, I'm a proponent in these long ones to go with the, we had Mark on talking about this and he's just done nothing short of be top two and everything he ever does. And he, he said it from, if, if an hour one, you're not planning for like hour 60, you're, you're doing it wrong. And I think that that doubles down when it's including 135 feet of vert per mile. Yeah.

45:44Brian D. D. G.: I just, I wonder how, like, is it rollers the whole way or is it one you're going up and then you're going down? All

45:49Nick Simmons: that really matters, the course profile. He brought up Tennessee mile, but it's the mid-state mile is the last man standing event. But you see the people out there, they're not breaking from the climbing or from the duration. They are breaking because they can't go downhill anymore. They can't walk downhill anymore. They're reduced to trying to move backwards or sideways or crutching on their pole. You got to start doing that stuff from the start.

46:15Brian D. D. G.: Yeah, and I think also the more frequent stopping will eventually be some sort of an issue. Like I've had a few people recently race backyards who just said like, you know, they can run a hundred milers, but they drop at 60 in a backyard. And they're like, it makes no sense. You know, I took so much damage and things started hurting or I got so much stiffer than I did in my hundred previously. I feel like a failure. And I'm like, well, imagine if you ran for 25 minutes, sat in your car for five minutes, rinse and repeated that how long every then you have to restart again every time and get moving again and at some point the warm-up and cool-down effect has to play a role in how your body takes damage and responds and so my biggest concern would be like like i hate to say but like planning some sort of like long training day where like yeah you're running for 23 minutes and then you're literally sitting still and doing nothing and you're repeating that for six hours to feel out what happens.

47:15Brian D. D. G.: Because it's the stopping and restarting that I think so frequently that I think will get difficult.

47:20Nick Simmons: Mentally, you just have to get up out of the chair twice as often. And that's going to be hard for you. And there's two types of people. There's the type that gets better at the interval style challenge of last man standing. And there's the type of person who's better at the long, steady grind of never stopping. You're one or the other. And this is going to expose the gap quicker.

47:43Brian D. D. G.: I would experiment with literally experimenting with the format on your own for a time period for sure. And all of it, you cannot do enough descending in your training block, in my opinion on this. I would just beat the crap out of it.

47:55Nick Simmons: Anything else? There's also no event on earth with the exception of a one descent event. If it has two descents or more, there's no descent on earth. I would ever intentionally start out too fast downhill.

48:08Brian D. D. G.: Even in an event, a 5K with two descents, I'm not ripping the first one.

48:14Nick Simmons: So extrapolate that as you will. It is paramount that you don't blow up without intending to just by going a little bit too fast downhill. I agree with that. Anything else?

48:24Brian D. D. G.: No.

48:24Nick Simmons: Yeah, I think I'm good there.

48:27Brian D. D. G.: Next one.

48:28Nick Simmons: Would you be more likely to do a flat or a hilly last man standing?

48:33Brian D. D. G.: Oh. Do I only care about the end result?

48:37Nick Simmons: Yes. flat like my own personal end result i feel like gosh i could run pretty slow for quite a while i

48:43Brian D. D. G.: would think on flat ground so like my odds would probably be better whereas 130 pound guy who's tough as nails and this is his style on vert might i might just structurally break down more on but i

48:56Nick Simmons: know i would what about you pick your poison it's hard for me in this level of durability to imagine either but i would say at my best in either one i would take vert to get rid of you to get rid of the the really good fast clean runners yeah i'm gonna grow to hate it at some point of course

49:17Brian D. D. G.: um all right this one's titled military training and the screenshot was short enough where i can't see the gentleman's name um i'll read through this let me know what you think um it says uh hey guys i've been listening for a while and basically have caught up on every episode One episode I want to say was spring of 25. Y 'all talked about tapering while preparing for military courses. Having been to a lot of courses and seen what special operations selections, Marine and Army entail, I'm not sure how you feel about tapering. Y 'all mentioned it may depend on the course. For SOF selections, most have an initial testing phase one to three days, but then follow on tests that could be long rucks, runs, obstacle course, etc.

49:56Brian D. D. G.: Would y 'all taper for something that requires high-level fitness for a month? Oh, didn't we answer this already? Yeah, we did. This exact question? Yeah, we did. I must not have deleted it. A similar question, at least. I feel like this is the question we answered. I personally have never tapered, just sharpen, as you'd say. Don't know if a military listener population is big enough to warn a Q &A. I'm pretty sure this is the exact question. It must not have got deleted from the queue. And if it is not the exact same question, go back and listen to literally our last Q &A, and we address this exact thing, right?

50:25Nick Simmons: Oh, in our last Q &A? I don't think we talked this. Two Q &As ago. We talked about this with our recent guest, with Gribble.

50:32Brian D. D. G.: No.

50:32Nick Simmons: Not the tapering part, though. Well, do you want to address the question?

50:36Brian D. D. G.: I thought we talked about this thing like a year plus ago.

50:39Nick Simmons: It feels like it was way more recent than that. Are you sure? Maybe you just read it last time in your head as you were scrolling through. That's very possible.

50:49Brian D. D. G.: Or I'm losing my mind. Okay. I think I'm losing my mind. But what we had said was that basically just train right up to it. take like a slight deload week heading into the, your first week, you're not going to lose fitness by deloading that last five days before you head off. You'll just freshen up and then we'll bam. Um, but a full tapered certainly wouldn't be necessary and it wouldn't help draw out your fitness through the, the first month. And so I'm pretty sure we talked about this more recently.

51:15Nick Simmons: Okay. I don't know. Maybe we need to cut our losses, move on. I hope my answer is the same as what it was, especially if it was last week, but I really do not remember talking about this that recently. I look at it like world's... It's going to be crazy if this is word for word what I said. I'm looking at this like world's toughest or Spartan 24-hour. It's not like any other race. But if you come in with something wrong with you, it's going to expose it rapidly. And so my main point with my fitness would be to arrive with full health. I would not want to be nursing anything, including overtraining.

51:50Nick Simmons: So I would not back off of working out, but I would rather show up over like a couple pounds overweight and super healthy than lean and mean and held together by thread. Neither of those are the way you want to do it, but no, I would rest up. I would show up ready to get to work from an ultra standpoint. The only caveat to that would be if they were going to start with some basic fitness testing and you have to be sharp to make their one and a half mile time trial or two mile, whatever, whatever the thing they're using. But for most people who are asking from a training perspective, the runtime is not so challenging that you need to be sharp for it.

52:30Nick Simmons: I think that I would sleep like crazy leading up to it and I would hydrate and eat like crazy leading up to it.

52:36Brian D. D. G.: I think the main concern for some people who take this very seriously is actually losing fitness once they're there. Right. Because the demand is different and not as high. Like, like now they're doing these other tasks and they're in the classroom and they actually may worry about losing fitness. So the fear is tapering. I'm already going to lose fitness if I taper and then just get less and less in shape while I'm there. I know most people think they're going to go to camp and get in shape, but I think for people, the discipline crowd, you're actually going to go to camp and lose fitness. And so you could also say like, show up with all the fitness.

53:06Brian D. D. G.: you can have because it's probably going to degrade based on what they're having you do compared to what you were doing on the lead-in. That's all I would think.

53:12Nick Simmons: If we're talking basic or boot camp or something, show up ready to rip faces off. If we're talking about special forces, if we're talking the selection, how weak, you better be rested with a huge underlying base of fitness. I would honestly, if I had to go into boot camp or something, I would think,

53:30Brian D. D. G.: I know I'm going to come out less fit from a top-end performance standpoint.

53:34Nick Simmons: Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure.

53:36Brian D. D. G.: Yeah. All right. We got time for probably one more here. This is Adam. I work with Adam. Adam's been killing it. Possible episode topic or Q &A. How would you, as middle-aged runners, program your training differently, if at all, if your goal was a half marathon race in 20 years instead of this year? Would you prioritize durability, training load, and volume now to expand capacity for future age-related declines? Would you keep your training load more moderate to avoid injuries and setbacks. I've been daydreaming about this question today and wondering how you two might tackle the topic. So basically saying as a middle-aged athlete, would it change our training decisions if all we cared about was long-term potential, not worrying about racing our best right now?

54:19Brian D. D. G.: Like if I want to be doing this into my fifties, sixties, seventies, would I approach it the same way or differently right now? Because all I care about is longevity.

54:27Nick Simmons: That's a good question. I'm going to say, I think if it was like a three-year timeline, it would really change how I'd structure my training. On a 20-year timeline, I think I would just prioritize health and happiness. I want to still want it and be able to do it 20 years.

54:42Brian D. D. G.: So I would lower my volume and I would be in the gym one to two more times per week. Okay. I'm generally a five-day-a-week runner right now, sometimes six. I would go to four days a week. they'd all count and I'd be in the weight room minimum three days per week I'd add a weight day and subtract a run day for sure for my future self yeah I would make that change for sure to keep to stay available to keep muscle mass to prioritize the structure I would probably back off mileage I'd aim to run 40 miles and four runs sessions if half marathon's what he's talking about three shorter efforts, one of those with a quality and then a long run that I can still draw out.

55:27Brian D. D. G.: So I'd run 40 miles a week and four days of running. And yeah, and I would, I would sit there. And I've considered shifting to that Bracken.

55:35Nick Simmons: It's funny he asks.

55:36Brian D. D. G.: I've been considering seeing the scale recently, thinking about long-term metabolic health and structural health. And part of me wants to go to like an every other day lift run schedule. And on one of those lift days, add in just some easy short mileage. Not today, but someday in my future, that might be a thing. Yeah.

55:55Nick Simmons: I guess my mind went a different direction. Mine went right to, I would try to eliminate risk and rash decisions day one, because that's been the thing that has cost me and others chunks. And I wouldn't want to miss chunks. I'd want to be healthy throughout it. So So I wouldn't rush any progressions. I would just let it be like, yeah, 20 years, we'll get there. But no rushing things. But pivot and do the things that I'm excited to do because I want passion there in 20 years. I agree with you. Limit your joint wear, do all that. Sure, great. But my mind went to health and happiness. Well, 20 years is a long time to be available for.

56:35You're sort of outlining like the, if I have to ask, I can't afford it.

56:39Brian D. D. G.: meaning like, oh, my knee's bugging me a bit today. Should I tempt fate with this run? And the answer is, nope, don't. You always make the conservative decision.

56:46Nick Simmons: Yeah. Cause it's the rushing to get ready for blank that gets us in trouble. If 20 years is the timeline, there's no such thing as I need to be ready. It's like, I need to get this sorted and I'll be fine. And I would embrace cross training from the beginning. I cannot tell you how many probably cumulative now years of available training days I've lost. certainly months and months by not embracing cross training throughout.

57:14Brian D. D. G.: You mean by just like choosing to run when you shouldn't or like -

57:19Nick Simmons: Run or nothing rather than what's next on the list? What's next on the - Like you talked about in college, you were running or you were lifting and rehabbing. There wasn't a lot of cardio happening that wasn't running. And for how many years did I waste time not developing myself aerobically because it was run or nothing? And you choose run. When that's the option, you choose run in times you shouldn't be. But it doesn't mean I couldn't have been cranking on a bike or an elliptical or rower safely.

57:49Brian D. D. G.: Well, his specific questions would be, would you prioritize durability, training load, and volume now? And volume now. Like durability, like I can go run 20 miles whenever I want. That's what I think of durability. to expand capacity for future age-related decline. So we say, build the biggest engine you can now. No, I wouldn't. Or would you keep your training load more moderate to avoid injuries and setbacks? It's basically saying, do I double down now while I can and build up this huge piggy bank of fitness that I know will be with me forever, or do I play it smart and stay available? And the answer is the second question without a doubt.

58:28Brian D. D. G.: Yes.

58:29Nick Simmons: Yeah. I don't think there's such a thing as build such a big engine that when you lose a bunch of it, you're fine. That works up front. Ex-pro runners are still really fast for a while. And then when they're overweight and broken down, they're just not even remotely good anymore. We've seen a few. I'm not going to name names, but we've seen a few ex-monsters race recently. pro runners who are no longer and are not even like close to fast. Not even like what the average listener would consider fast. So when it goes, it goes. So you might as well be healthy the whole time.

59:07Brian D. D. G.: Well, I'm curious who you're talking about. You don't want to go there? No, because it's rude inherently the way I'm saying it. All right. Well, that's our time. And thanks again for those few who wrote us a rating and review. And if you're considering it or have just a few seconds on your hand, we'd love to see a few more pop up. But I think that's how we're going to wrap it today. All right, until next time.

59:33Nick Simmons: If anything resonated with you on today's episode and you're curious about taking your training to the next level, check out therunningpublic.com where we have a training plan to fit your needs.