Episode 16: From Preparation to Finish Line: Mastering Race Day Psychology and Performance

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Daily Edge where we bring you the
latest insights, opinions andthought-provoking conversations
to give you that competitiveedge in life, business and
beyond.
Let's go Daily Edge.

(00:27):
I'm here with my brothers, tjDaily and Todd Daily, and today
we're going to talk about racing, like race prep maybe both
physical and mental kind ofgoing into it.
There's a lot that happensthere.
Tj, you have been in more racesthan all of us.
I know when I first started andI went into my first race how
nervous I was and I was tryingto do everything that you were
doing.
So I know there can be a lot ofemotions there.

(00:50):
There's a mental battle.
There's obviously physicalpreparation.
Why don't we just jump in withyou, start talking about maybe
some of your routines and howyou prepare mentally and
physically for a race?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, I'd say the first thing to call out from a
race perspective is it getseasier over time.
You know, I think what you seenow with professional athletes
and professional athletes asthey're on that journey
throughout their careers, is thecontinued exposure to it.
That's such a big piece of thepuzzle.
Learning to.
You know.

(01:22):
They say that in races, mostpeople, most people, common
people and this isn't related toprep but during the race they
try to disassociate, focus onthe music, focus on the crowd.
People that have had enoughexposure to racing do the exact
opposite.
They dial into the feeling andembrace the feeling and try to

(01:45):
listen to their body, as opposedto kind of disassociating, and
so that enables, enables them tokind of squeeze every um bit of
performance out of them.
So for me, racing has been anevolution.
Uh, starting in, I mean we'll,we'll just fast forward right to

(02:06):
kind of the beginning of theserious marathoning and road
racing in 2012.
There was a lot of anxietyaround it.
You know I have friends whohave extreme pre-race anxiety
and you know dealing with thatinitially can be you can
accomplish.
You know you can accomplishdealing with that through kind

(02:27):
of controlling what you cancontrol.
So this particular individual,even though he's local to the
races that we run in.
He will stay the night downtown, like within a block of where
the race begins, so that hedoesn't have to worry about
logistical stresses of themorning begin, so that he

(02:47):
doesn't have to worry aboutlogistical stresses of the
morning.
So, in terms of ensuring thatyou have the right mindset going
in, I think it's starting withcontrolling what you can control
, but not overthinking things.
I think, for me, we'll unpackall this stuff, but one of the
biggest mistakes I ever made wasover-preparation and
overthinking, and that wouldhave been Boston in 2017.
I had trained to break three.

(03:08):
I took basically three weeksoff of work, like I was working
for two of them, but it was justconstant research and this is
what works for me.
So find what works for you,right.
But constant research isrelated to the course.
And what does elevation looklike?
And looking at the weatherevery couple of minutes how hot

(03:32):
is it going to be, how much isthe temperature increasing, what
direction is the wind blowingfrom?
And then you know fretting overhow I was going to fuel gel
every 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45, all of these little things,
and by the time I got to thestart line of that race three
weeks later, I was so mentallygassed and this happened again
to me in New York in 2019 that Ijust exploded.

(03:53):
I just had no mental fortitudeleft at all.
And so you know, I think it'simportant, I think to call that
out at the beginning is you gotto find what works for you.
But everybody I've talked to,everybody that I've been
surrounded by, by and large,says the less I think you've
said this before the less youcare about it, the better you're

(04:14):
going to do.
Prepare yourself, know what'scoming.
Don't shy away from it, meaningdon't go into it thinking it's
going to be easy, because itnever is.
Know what you're gettingyourself into, respect the
distance, but maybe don't putthat kind of pressure on

(04:35):
yourself.
Just kind of see what the daygives you.
I've done that.
The results have been withinreal close proximity to what an
A race result would be.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, I would say a lot of this goes back to
something we've talked about inseveral episodes, which is fear
of failure, and I, for me that'swhere a lot of the race anxiety
stemmed from is you work hardto train and you've done all
this preparation, you've put indozens of hours over two to
three months and it allculminates in one race,

(05:12):
depending on the duration,anywhere from 30 minutes to four
hours or five hours, and that'sa lot of pressure and you want
to.
You almost you have this likedesire to do yourself justice
for all the training andpreparation.
Obviously, you, almost you havethis like desire to do yourself
justice for all the trainingand preparation.
Obviously, if you didn't care,you wouldn't have gone through
all that preparation, and so Ithink you know a couple of

(05:34):
things.
I would say is A it's supernormal Over time.
For me, probably the mostimportant tip that I learned to
deal with race anxiety is torace more.
The more you race, the morethat fades, because you realize
the worst that's going to happen.

(05:54):
I think one of the worst that'sgoing to happen is you're going
to have a bad day and you'regoing to run a few minutes
slower than you anticipated.
That's the absolute worst thingthat's going to happen.
Now I could say, you know, insome cases maybe you're going to
experience an injury and haveto drop out of the race.
Maybe that's a you know,depending on who you are,
whether that's worse or betterthan them finishing um with a
slower time.
But I think, racing, the moreyou race, the more you realize

(06:20):
there's not much that's going togo wrong.
I think one of my also my mythsthat I kind of busted through
experience over time is I feltlike my range of performance was
, uh, could, was going to bemuch wider than it really is.
Like you go into these racesand let's just take a marathon,
for example, um, you know, Ifelt if I have a bad day, I was

(06:41):
going to run 10, 15, 20 minutesslower than if I had a good day.
The reality is, if you, youknow, short of an injury, um, in
a lot of cases the differencebetween a good day and a bad day
is not nearly as wide as youthink it's going to be.
Um, and one of the the otherpieces that I'm going to add to

(07:02):
this, that's a little bit of acaveat there.
I know there have been timeswhere and I've had races where
you kind of mentally blow up andonce you start to slow down you
can't stop it right and youjust you kind of fall off the
cliff.
That does happen.
But in terms of your body'spreparation, if you can trust
that process and trust that yourbody's in a certain level of

(07:23):
fitness, you will perform withina few minutes of each other.
And you know again, dependingon good or bad day and the less
pressure you could put onyourself the better.
And I want to come back to thatpoint that you made, because one
of the things that I have had alot of success with is what I
would call mental tapering.
A lot of people talk aboutmileage tapering.

(07:44):
When you get up into a marathon, the couple of weeks before you
give yourself the physical restso your body's fresh going into
the marathon.
I don't know that this is athing, or if it is a thing, I'm
not sure of it.
I have found over time to domental tapering, especially for
a marathon.
This is more the week before Iwill really be mindful of the

(08:08):
type of cognitively taxingthings that I engage in, to be
going in fresh mentally to arace, and that makes a huge
difference for me.
You talked about being mentallygassed, getting to the start
line, and I can't tell you howmany times I've done the same
thing.
In my better races and oneswhere I've had more consistent
performance over time, I havementally tapered, so I've got

(08:29):
the energy to control thethoughts in my brain that you
know you're going to get hitwith.
This is too hard.
You need to slow down, it'stime to give up and if you have
that mental energy stored up, itcan make a world of difference.
Let's focus on the marathon fora second.

(08:49):
I don't think I've I wouldstill say I've never figured the
race day out.
I'm still not over the hump forwhat that actually means.
I'm always trying to save it inthe tank per se and I want the
back half of the marathon tofeel like the front half, like
okay, I'm just going to lock in.

(09:10):
I feel good, I get 13 miles in.
I feel good I get 17 miles inand I just I am completely dead.
You've said some things to mebefore about you have to kind of
transition with the size of therace.
How do you mentally because onthe marathon and I think
marathon and under probably saymarathon and mini are way

(09:31):
different than an ultra rightBecause you're not racing as
fast.
Generally speaking, how do youapproach the mini or the
marathon race and how would youcoach people to mentally get
through that and what to expectalong the way?

Speaker 2 (09:48):
I think there's two different things.
You can do three differentthings, right?
So you talked about negativesplitting, which is running the
back half and having it feelbetter.
That's very difficult becausemost people aren't experienced
enough to trust themselves.
So a lot of people don'tbelieve you know.
They think if they run.
Let's say your goal, justbecause I know the math.
Let's say your goal is threehours, which is 652 per mile.

(10:12):
People have a real hard timegoing out at 710 for the first
couple of miles and then writingthat down because they're like,
oh, if I go out at 710, okay,by the half I'm down 130 seconds
, that's two minutes and 10seconds.
I know that the back half'sgoing to be harder.
There's no way I'm going tomake that up.
Well, what we know is you do itthe other way around.
You could lose 210 in one mile,like on the other way.

(10:36):
So that's one thing you can dothrough experience.
It comes with trusting yourselfmore.
But what's worked for me is asunfortunate as this is yourself
more.
But what's worked for me is asunfortunate as this is running
faster races, running 5Ks,running 10Ks, running halves for

(10:56):
the full, and I say that youknow most marathon plans at
least most new marathon planshave some type of intervals.
But what intervals can do isthey can give you this false
sense of security, and I've runup against this myself.
I can go out right now and runa 545 pace, six minute interval,
and I can do that seven times,no problem.
You know what I can't do.
I can't go out and run 545 fora 10K.

(11:19):
So you know you run those pacesand you're like, oh well, I
mean I can do that, that's noproblem.
I can do those intervals andwhatever I'm using to measure it
, whether it's my relativeeffort, whether it's my heart
rate, whether it's my lactate,it's in the right range.
I'm running these intervals andI'm at a 150 heart rate and
that's about my marathon heartrate, so no problem.
Well then you go out there andyou extend that interval to a 5k

(11:47):
interval or something longerand you're extraordinarily
disappointed, and if that in inyour ability to perform, because
you know those are twocompletely different things.
So my point in saying that iseven if you're doing high
intensity stuff within amarathon build and it's 400s or
k's and it's these shorterintervals, that just isn't the
same as getting out there andripping a 5k and feeling that
pain.
And then again, I think itcomes with experience and racing

(12:10):
more like you said, but beingable to take the pain that you
experience in these faster racesand apply it to different
sections of the marathon.
So when 17 hits, you know I saidit was two years ago, boston,
the last time I ran it by myself, and I remember getting to 15
and my breathing pattern changedNormally oh boy, right, here it

(12:31):
comes, here comes the wall,whatever, whatever.
My thought process instead wasall right, half marathon, effort
time.
And so now I'm like okay, I canhandle this.
You know, I know what mybreathing pattern is like for a
half marathon and my effortfeels like and I know what it is
for these subsequent pieces ofthe marathon.
So I know I can.
I'm at mile 15, I've got 11left.

(12:54):
I know I can hold this for ahalf, and then it does get
harder over time.
But if you've run a 10K or a 5Kand you're at the last couple of
miles and it feels like you'rerunning an all-out mile, you
know that you're gonna be okay,that you're gonna live, you're
not gonna die.
I think one of our biggest allof us had this right.
One of your biggest concernsyour first couple of marathons

(13:17):
is you're gonna be that guy 500meters from the finish line on
all fours, like that's such ararity.
I've watched hundreds of racesand I've seen that happen three
times.
You know we're talking tens ofthousands of competitors.
So again, I think back toTodd's more exposure, more

(13:39):
experience, and then there willbe some things we can talk about
when it comes to training.
What what people are startingto recognize is there's other
elements of this approach thatyou need to focus on from a
training perspective.
Um to again, just another wayto help offset that feeling that
comes later in a race.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
Uh, one thing I wanted to add, um, and just to
putting those pieces together,how I've kind of experienced
exactly what you just said, isthere are going to be a handful
of moments in every race whereyou are put in a really
vulnerable, tough spot.
Your brain is going to tell youit's time to shut it down and

(14:22):
the key there is you have to winthose moments.
You have to win those momentsand you can never get to a place
, never want to put yourself ina position where, when you're
digesting the rest of the racein the context of your time goal
, that you don't believe youhave it, because at that point
it's when you shut it down.

(14:42):
So what?
Some of the tactics you'retalking about, I think are all
centered around winning thosemoments when you, if you bank
too much time upfront, meaningyou come out too hot and you're
trying to.
You're say you're shooting fora three hour marathon, or let's
just say you're shooting for afour hour marathon, which is a
nine oh nine pace, and you comeout running 8.45s.

(15:05):
You're going to put yourself ina pretty vulnerable spot when
you hit 13 or 15, and you haveexerted a ton of energy and you
realize you still have 10 to 12left.
That's a high-risk moment.
You're putting yourself in ofstill being able to win that
moment and say I can still holdthis.
On the contrary, if you go outtoo slow and try a negative

(15:28):
split too hard, you're putting alot of pressure on what you
have to run those last 10 milesat, because that's what happens,
right.
Let's just say you go out 915,920, and then you're like, oh
gosh, I have to run these last10 miles sub nine or I'm not
going to hit my goal.
You're putting a lot ofpressure on that moment and
you've got to.
And I think what you have saidracing, racing, racing is you

(15:50):
understand those thresholds, youunderstand those pain
tolerances.
You've been in the moment whereyou have exerted that high
level of intensity for longerperiods of time.
That's what allows you to tellyour brain I've got this.
That's what allows you to winthat moment.
So I think it's an art in termsof exactly how you want to pace

(16:11):
yourself.
I've had a lot of success withjust going a little bit under my
pace to start with, banking alittle bit of time, give me some
breathing room.
That kind of gives me somecomfort, but also not going too
far off of that.
There's been a couple times inmy life where I've been like I'm
going to overtrain, I'm goingto set myself up to run a

(16:33):
three-hour marathon and I reallyjust want to run a 315.
And mentally I'm like, oh thenthis is going to be easy.
It's never been easy.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
It never is easy.
I mean, I'm really nervousabout we're in the proximity of
Boston and I'm really nervousabout this particular race,
whether this airs before orafter it.
I've had a very, very difficultbuildup with a lot of injuries
that we've talked about in priorpodcasts.
And having done all of this, Iam missing some key pieces.

(17:06):
I haven't raced fast since lastsummer, you know, and a lot of
times it's having that, you know.
I'll give you an example Acouple of weeks ago I went out
and did a pseudo long run.
I have not run anything furtherthan 15 miles and I went out and
did a pseudo long run and I wasbuilding that.
That effort was built off ofEffort that I had felt in those

(17:28):
interval sessions I referred toearlier prior.
And I went out there and I didthis work at this effort that I
perceived would be stronger thanit was.
And, um, I was 25 seconds amile slower than I thought I
would be and I felt awful at theend of it.
It was just, I think it was 10miles of pickup within the 15
miles and I'd have been lucky tohold that for a half marathon.

(17:48):
So that was really.
But again, I've run halfmarathons where I've held my
heart rate in the mid 160s andmy heart rate was like 150 flat.
So I know there's aconsiderable, you know.
But I'm so used to theseefforts that in the comfort

(18:09):
within those, within thoseranges, and the lack of longer
and harder efforts, um is reallygot me Does knowing those
numbers help you though, like ifyou're feeling a certain way
and you're like I know I canhold one 60, my heart rates's
150.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Does that help bring you back in a little bit that
you're, it's all in your headand that really the body can
handle it?

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, especially at those moments that he was
talking about, like when I hitthat half that, that 15 miles at
Boston, and I looked down andI'm like, okay, we're at 154.
I know I can hold 163 for ahalf marathon, so I'm not quite
there yet.
I kind of know what my bodylooks like from a heart rate
drift perspective, because asyou go throughout a distance
like that, you're gonna drift,um, you know, one beat per 5k or

(18:55):
something to that effect, soyou're gonna be 10 bpm higher
than you were at the beginning,just off a drift, um.
But it's important to prepare.
But I think again, within thatpreparation and there's some
other things you need to do too.
You know I kind of alluded toit earlier, but is nutrition's a
big one?
You need to practice.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
That was kind of my.
Next thing is pre-race and racefuel.
I go back to the marathon.
We ran right after mom passedand we were all in incredible
shape.
We all had these goals ofbreaking three hours.
Two of the three broke it.
I exploded.
I ran the first half of themarathon around seven flat and I

(19:35):
felt incredible, like I justreally felt good.
When I hit mile 17.
And this has happened to me acouple of times I felt like I
and I took a gel at like 13.
I literally felt like I had noenergy.
It wasn't and I think I couldunderstand a mental battle, but
I got to this point of fatiguethat I couldn't even describe
and I ended up running I don'tknow a 315 or 320 or something

(19:57):
like that.
But talk to me about your fuelstrategies and making sure that
you have enough fuel during therace, or maybe even start with
what type of fuel you do up tothe night before um, you can go
ahead yeah, tj's probably abetter source of record on this.
I'll tell you what's worked forme.
I mean, I think I've justalways done a lot of carbs,

(20:19):
especially for the longer races.
You know I won't shy away fromprotein.
I would say I did that a lotwhen I was younger, um, but
anymore, as long as I'm noteating a big heavy meal the
night before, I just want tomake sure I have um, I'm getting
enough.
It's certainly not the time tobe fasting or intermittent
fasting.
I just want to make surethere's there's a decent amount

(20:39):
of fuel, um in there.
Hydration is also key Um.
And then morning of I try andeat something.
Maybe five to five hundred toseven hundred fifty calories, uh
, two hour and a half to twohours before the start of the
race.
I will say, as I've run more,my body handles digestion a
little better while I'm running,and and at a marathon pace,

(21:01):
let's talk.
I'm talking marathon herebecause this definitely changes
as the race gets shorter.
For marathon I'm not going tobe running as fast out of the
gate.
My body can process some ofthat as it's going.
If I'm running a much shorterrace, I'm eating a lot less and
I'm being more cautious of that.
I think the rule for fuel for meis you can't get behind, and so
you can't wait until you'reyou're tired or you're running

(21:24):
out of energy.
Once you have a deficiency it'sway too late.
So I'll do that at the five toseven 50.
And then my rule is a gel every10 K or so, and then I also
alternate between water andGatorade, and it sounds like a
lot, um, but generally I'll havea hand bottle that has one of
the two, and then at the AIDS,at the aid stations, I'll
generally take the other one onoccasion.

(21:44):
So I get a little bit ofcalories that way get a little
bit of calories from the gelevery 10K or so.
Six miles, which is 45 minutesgive or take, and so that'll be
four gels over the course of amarathon.
That's generally how I do it.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah, very similar to the night before A thousand
calories of a light meal Not alight meal, but light, you know
carbs, probably somethingItalian.
And then my day I was a littlebit different.
So I've intermittent fasted fora number of years now, and so
what I'll do typically is I getup about four hours before the
race and I'll do a Morton 320drink mix, so 320 calories, and

(22:21):
then I'll go back to bed and so320 calories, and then I'll go
back to bed and then I'll eat abanana or two, you know, an hour
before the race or whatever,maybe have a little like regular
Gatorade with some caloriesthere.
One of the big things inperformance over the last
probably two years has been thegut training, and so there's
been massive advancements interms of what people thought was

(22:42):
possible from a digestiveperspective.
You know, one of the thingsthat people are using and they
say they get great results Ihaven't used enough to like
comment on it is ketone IQ.
So ketones.
It's kind of built on thepremise that your body has two

(23:03):
energy stores that it's going topull from typically during a
race.
One is going to be your ketonepool and one's going to be your,
your glycogen or your glucose,bloodstream glucose, um.
And so you know, having a fullketone store and a full uh you
know glycogen store plus bloodglucose is going to give you the
best results when it comes to afuel, but on the on the food

(23:25):
side of things.
So David Roche is an ultraathlete.
He's an ultra coach and one ofthe most successful of all time.
Broke a record maybe a year agonow for the Leadville 100.
And it was one of the mostdifficult ultra records ever
created.
It was, or ever achieved, andit was a Matt Carpenter record,

(23:46):
who is one of the most um elites, elite sky athletes.
Sky athletes means you race ataltitude that has ever lived.
He had a VO two max of almost ahundred Um.
Anyways, david beat this recordthat has been on the books since
1994 or something like that,and one of the ways he did that
was by doing extreme guttraining.

(24:08):
He was able to, for 100 miles,to process 500 calories an hour.
That would be like taking a gelevery 10 minutes, but he never
had an issue where he wasdepleted.
So what that's showing is thatthere are ways, whether it's
through liquid calories and orgel calories, to consume way

(24:31):
more than we think.
So, like my plan, I'm going todo a longer effort tomorrow.
I'm going to try gels, and I'vedone this in the past every 20
minutes, so that's 300 caloriesan hour versus um 500, but you
know, it could prove to bereally beneficial, and I have
been doing a hand bottle of uhtailwind at 300 calories per

(24:57):
bottle during some of my moreintense training sessions.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
So one of the biggest things I think let's get the
elephant in the room is likerestroom.
Like one of your biggest fearsI think let's get the elephant
in the room is like restroom.
Like one of your biggest fearsis like I got to go to the
restroom in the middle of therace.
Like how do you guys navigatethat?
Hold it off as long as youpossibly can.
But is that common Like haveyou found?
Are you finding that you stopat least once to use the
restroom?

Speaker 2 (25:21):
I would say I stop at least once in about half of the
marathons.
So let's see here half of themarathons.
So let's see here, uh, 2000,.
When was it?
Boston 22,?
Maybe, I can't remember,whenever I ran with Chad.
This is kind of a funny story,but we use the same port-a-pot
at the same time, so it was likemile 17.
We both had to use the restroomand it was one that had a
urinal and a toilet.

(25:41):
We jumped in there and you know, I had, I think, the year I ran
it by myself in 23, I had usedthe restroom at mile 18 and it
was probably here's what peopleget, and this is easier for guys
because we don't have someother.
You know, but like, you normallywill make up at least 50% of
the time, especially if it'sjust peeing, speeding back up,

(26:09):
like you're going to get thatburst of speed that you normally
do when you start back up.
So you're, you might lose 15seconds.
Um, it was the year that I ranlike two, 50, 19 or something.
I would have been furious had Inot already broken two, 50, but
like, I went to the bathroom,mile 18.
And I again, I think I probablylost 13 or 14 seconds, so it's
happened.
Sometimes, though, it's worthholding on for a bit.
I've had races where, likeright away, I feel like I have

(26:30):
to go, and then by mile seven oreight it disappears.
So I have had those points intime.
But when we ran Boston in 18, Ihad to stop once or twice and
catch up with you guys.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Which was no problem because I was in the group.
Yeah, I've only had to use therestroom a couple of times, but
it absolutely happens and youjust hold on as long as you can,
and if you can't hold on, youcan't hold on.
What about caffeine?
Yeah, I mean, here's the thing.
We haven't said this yet, butthe number one rule of race day
that is above any other rule onrace day is don't do anything

(27:03):
you haven't done before.
That's the trick, right?
You wake up on race day andyou're like, ooh, and you get
this great idea and you're like,ooh, I'm going to try this.
I haven't, I haven't eaten this.
You know, I bet this would bereally good calories or you know
something, cause you're, you'rethere and you see something
that all the supplements at therace.
So, like you get the, a stingerwaffle, and you have never seen

(27:25):
those or something else, you'relike, ooh, I bet this would be
really good.
Don't do anything that you havenever done before.
That applies to what you'reeating, what gels and when you
said caffeine, I made themistake Sometimes.
Look at the gels.
I don't drink caffeine and Iaccidentally grabbed two gels
that were caffeine.
One, one marathon.
I was grabbing differentflavors, but some of the flavors
are only in caffeine and somearen't.

(27:45):
It was like, oh, that soundsgood.
And then I you know stomachwise that burned for several
miles, um, after I ate those.
But I had no, no option, I hadto, I had to do that.
So, um, caffeine, I think itjust depends on whether or not
you consume it regularly.
If you do, I think that's okay.
If you don't, don't do anythingyou haven't done on race day
before.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
They do say that caffeine is a performance
enhancer.
But again, I would to his point.
You know, for me I'll use itlater in the race, so, cause I
normally have coffee in themorning anyways, uh, so I'm
riding off of that and then youknow, the first couple of gels,
you know, or I'll swap it in andout, because the last thing I
want is 300 milligrams ofcaffeine on top of the 100 I've

(28:27):
already had and have an adversereaction on my stomach.
So at most I'll do half calfand then half not.
But yeah, I do think it'sreally important to practice
your fueling and find if youdon't like the consistency of
whatever it is you're using.
If you're a gel person, thereare so many options out there.

(28:49):
A lot of people don't like theconsistency of, say, a goo it's
way too thick, and so they'rejust like I'm not going to take
it.
Well, there's SIS, there'sMorton, there's I can't remember
, there's another one we used touse.
But like, there are multipleoptions out there.
So there's something for you, Iknow.
You know, no matter howridiculously talented you know,

(29:13):
someone may think they are.
Fuel is such an importantstrategy and you see that with
the professional athletes it'ssuch a like if a pro athlete
misses a bottle, it's somethingthat announcers will call out or
that they'll call out in apost-interview press conference
Like, oh, I missed a bottle atmile whatever, because it's so,
you know, acutely dialed totheir physiology and ensuring

(29:34):
they have a good performance.
You know, I guess we could go alittle bit deeper here.
You know, I think this is alsoapplicable, you know, I mean, to
game day mindset too.
You know and I'd like to kindof throw this your direction

(29:58):
because I think you know mepersonally at times I struggle
to race as much as I should.
I just kind of opened up aboutthat in terms of not really
racing over the last year.
Much Goodness.
I think the last actual race ofany distance was potentially
when we ran the Mini, and thatwas almost a year ago and that
was a half marathon.
So I haven't really doneanything since last May from a

(30:22):
length perspective, anythingsince last May from a length
perspective.
So I have trouble like lookingforward and embracing and
wanting to race and wanting totest myself.
But I know you've been involvedin so many sports over the
years and seem to rise to theoccasion more often than not, so
like from a mental perspective.
You know, when it comes tosoccer or basketball or whatever
it is you're playing, what kindof got you fired up and got you

(30:46):
in the right mindset to tacklethose types of things?

Speaker 1 (30:53):
I would say preparation.
There was a confidence, therewas experience.
Those are the.
I think the things inbasketball it was, there was
just, I guess also I wasn'tafraid to fail in those realms.
I think the things inbasketball it was, there was
just, I guess also I wasn'tafraid to fail in those realms.
I think that's really good whatyou guys talk about from a
failure standpoint.
When I went out there, you know, especially in basketball, like

(31:14):
you always had the butterfliesuntil the first tip went up and
then you settled in, you knewwhat you were going to do, you
knew your role.
It probably repetitions, therunning things are interesting
for me because I don't feel likeI've ever figured it out.
I've always feel like I eitherit was caffeine I was like this
and then I took a dive or I wasat a calorie deficit, I didn't
have the energy.
I'm not willing to admit thatI'm not mentally tough enough

(31:37):
and that I've actually falteredbecause I couldn't mentally get
through the wall versus actualfatigue.
But the way I've approached anyother sport in my life is I
just showed up and I went ashard as I could, as long as I
could, and I was able to make animpact in running.
There's so much at play andit's for such a long period of
time.
I have never, I believe,reached my potential on race day

(32:01):
because of some type of fuelissue.
Talk, too, about injuries.
I mean race day injuries are abig thing.
We alluded to them very brieflyearlier, but you have had some
issues with that.
Um, I know in Phoenix, uhPhoenix I couldn't get out of
the car, like all of a sudden myright side was paralyzed.
I was in a in a weird spot LikeI couldn't run.
Um, yeah, I've I've had a fairshare of of injuries, just like

(32:22):
I think everyone run.
Yeah, I've had a fair share ofinjuries, just like I think
everyone else, and we try to runthrough them.
I think it's a lack of kind ofcore strength, so I've focused
on doing more core stuff.
But there's been a couple timesin my life where I felt like I
was in good enough shape to makea run at three hours and, for

(32:43):
whatever reason, I never gotanywhere close to it.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Well, you did break your ankle.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
What are you about race day injuries?
I mean, I think that's kind ofa tough thing.
You have things that I thinkcertainly over a training block
usually there's one or twonagging things that are relevant
that you have to work through.
And I know we have used TempleSports Rehab and some guys at St
Vincent Sports Performance andI know we have used um tempo
sports rehab and some guys at uh, st Vincent sports performance
and I work with John Grant andthose guys to to help through

(33:10):
those.
I think injuries in generalbeing ready for that and cause
those things build over thecourse of a training cycle right
Like they compound and they alot of times people find they
start to to to manifest shortlybefore the marathon and then
you're put in a really toughposition.
So obviously there's someimportance to being prepared and

(33:31):
tending to those throughout thetraining block.
But what's your rule fordealing with injuries on race
day?
How have you handled that?

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Well, you do bring up a point that's probably good to
address, and that's the taperinjuries.
Because when you start, to taper, typically the week before
injuries, because when you startto taper, typically the week
before, things are going tostart to pop up, and a lot of
that is is little, little tweaksthat have been masked because
of just more more broad reachingpain across the body or
soreness.
Those I typically try to ignore.

(33:58):
Um, but you know, one thing tokeep in mind is and more often
than not you see peoplestretching their calves at
marathons that's what you hadproblems with, if I don't
remember right, was your calves,and I think what happens there
is in training.

(34:19):
Typically you have your faststuff and then you have your
long runs, and I knowtraditionally it's a little
different now.
People just used to go run long, it didn't matter 8.30, 9
minute, 9.30, 10, 10, whatever.
It's kind of an easier pace andwhatever.
Well then you're like oh, I'mgoing to jump in and run this
race and it's 26 miles and I dida 20 at nine minute pace and

(34:40):
I'm expecting to run seven.
That is tension that you'venever put on that muscle and I
remember experiencing it for thefirst time myself in probably
2014 or 15, I had done that.
All of my long runs had been830 pace, nine pace, and I was
trying to break three or atleast go under seven minutes a
mile for average, and I rememberat like mile 18, my calves just

(35:01):
just felt like rocks and it wasbecause.
And so afterwards I got onforums like what's going on, is
it an electrolyte thing?
Am I cramping because I'm nothydrated enough or my
electrolyte balance isn't right?
And they're like overwhelminglythe response was and this was
the advanced running forum,reddit on Reddit, which is a lot
of times like anything onReddit, it's got its issues but

(35:24):
like a really good resource forpeople that are really
experienced and they're like no,this is an overloading issue.
So it kind of goes back to don'tdo things you haven't done.
Maybe do your long runs alittle bit harder.
But yeah, I mean during prep,for sure, tend to things,
especially again back to therule of thumb from a couple
episodes ago if it gets worsewhile you're running, you need

(35:46):
to get it looked at right away.
You'd be surprised how quicklyyou can work through certain
things.
I think people have injuriespop up and they don't want to
deal with them because they'reafraid that they've put nine
weeks or 12 weeks in on a planand that somebody's going to
tell them to stop, and there arepeople out there who will do
everything but that because theydo understand what it means to

(36:09):
somebody to accomplish amarathon and or, uh, a goal
within that you know realm thatthey want to achieve.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
And it's expensive to like to go to some of these.
You know you might pay a hundreddollars an hour to get someone,
um, and so I would just sayexpectations, set aside250, $300
for, you know, the second halfof the training block, being
able to go see somebody to workthrough some of these things.
They're brilliant, brilliantpeople.

(36:36):
They know the body so well andeveryone that goes is blown away
by how quickly they're able topinpoint the issue and work
through some things to keeppeople running.
Pinpoint the issue and workthrough some things to keep
people running.
So I just that was.
You know, the first two times Itried to do it on my own and
then the third time I actuallyengaged some help and that's how

(36:56):
I ultimately got to the startline the first time.
What about shoes?
Cause you brought up outside ofthe fatigue.
I did have a lot of cramping inthat race in Arizona a couple
of Januaries ago.
But you train in certain shoesand then all of a sudden, most
of us put on the race shoes, weput on the 4%ers or whatever

(37:20):
they're called now, and theyhave a different pitch and
they're faster, and I wasconvinced that maybe those had
they caused, cuz I wasn't usedto running and something of that
.
So how do you approach?
You know race shoes, that whatthey.
You get a hundred miles out ofthem depends on the shoe.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah, um, for me, I, how I train, I do do my hard
training runs in race shoes.
Because of exactly that, rightnow I'm going through a very
interesting time with racingshoes.
I've raced traditionally, youknow.
We were lucky enough to bearound when the original Nike

(38:02):
4%ers came out, which was 2018,17, 18, somewhere in there.
Four percenters came out, whichwas 2018, 17, 18, somewhere in
there, and so I've run, I think,just about every single race in
a version of the Vaporfly.
So four percenters, nextpercenters Vaporfly it's all the
same line.
And I think one time I've runin the Alpha Flies, but I've
always raced in Nike shoes, saveone 10K.

(38:24):
And over the last year I'dtrain more in the Adios Pro 3,
which is Adidas racing shoe, andthen most recently, started
training in the Asics MetaspeedSky and the Metaspeed Edge,
depending on the type of workoutI was doing.
And last week this kind of goesto Todd's point about not trying
something new I've been havingbecause of these injuries.

(38:46):
I've been having to do a littlebit more treadmill work and a
little bit more hiking than I'mtypically used to, and most of
that treadmill work has been inthese Metaspeed Sky shoes and I
felt really good.
Well, I went and ran in thosein the workout I referenced
earlier two Fridays ago and Ifelt terrible.
And of course I go right tothat's the shoes.

(39:08):
Man, I gotta get differentshoes, you know it's, they're
not cut out.
So I go and I get the newSaucony Endorphin Elite 2 and
I've never run in those and so Ido the same thing.
I go out and I run, uh, four bytwo, and I have blisters all
over my right foot and I havedifferent areas of soreness that
I'm not used to.
And then I go in and I try themon the treadmill, the new
Endorphin Elites, and that's notworking.
I feel unstable, I feel like myfoot strikes weird.

(39:30):
And so now I'm on pair three,which is the Adios Pro 4s.
But I'll probably eventually,if I can, because the new next
percents are really hard to getI would say for me.
I know this is a long way toget there, but doing the harder
workouts in the shoes, and onceyou find a pair of race shoes
that you know you can perform inat all costs, unless they're

(39:54):
paying, you really spend time inthe alternatives Don't just.
Like you know, I regret nowjumping between three pairs of
shoes, but I got you know, andso that would be my
recommendation from a ratioperspective.
Um, find what you you like and,if you can afford it, do all of

(40:16):
your hard workouts in them.
It's it's, it's very expensiveendeavor, but that's what the
pros do, because it does saveyour legs.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Can we talk a little bit about supplements?
There's a lot of places outthere now that do these IV bags
or put testosterone in yourpacks or shots.
What do you guys take on that?
Have you ever tried any of thatstuff?
Does it help with recovery?
I would say no.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
No, you haven't tried it or no, you don't believe in
it.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, I'm sorry.
Thanks for clarifying.
Yeah, I have not tried any ofthat.
You know in terms of certainlylike a liquid IV or different
things like that, which is notthat's just a.
For those that don't know, it'sjust like a mix that has high
electrolytes and salt in it.
But I have not done reallyanything on the supplement side,

(41:12):
although I know there are somethings that have been proven to
increase, increase performancepretty meaningfully.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah, I mean, if you are tackling all of the majors
sleep, clean nutrition, properfueling from a calorie
perspective, calorie in, calorieout, gut training for food,
like all of those major things,hydration, electrolyte balance
if you've got all those naileddown, you know, I've, I've seen

(41:37):
people you know like especiallymen our age, doing trt right
where they what's that?
uh, testosterone.
So you know whether that's youknow um, slow dissolving pellets
or you know other other formsof ingesting that particular
hormone, and I've I've heard Ifeel like a million bucks, but

(42:01):
I've never heard anybody say, ohyeah, my marathon time went
through the roof.
There are some things that arestarting to gain traction that
people are saying are providingsignificant benefits, like
sodium bicarb.
But that's a touchy one becauseone of the like it can have

(42:22):
catastrophic effects on yourstomach.
So if you get your dosing wrongyou'll lose any benefit in the
toilet Like it's just everybodythat I've heard this tried it.
There are some people thatspeak its praises.
It's kind of like altitudetraining in a sense that some
people are high responders, somearen't.
But it helps your body bufferlactate.
But I've heard people I had abuddy who's tried it he's like

(42:42):
it's amazing.
But the first time you use it,be close to a restroom until you
figure out your dosing.
So sodium bicarb is somethingyou know.
I know some people.
I know we both know people thathave done like like those IV
drips and gotten all of thoseextra vitamins, minerals,
supplements intravenously.
But I think those same peoplehave more recently, like it was

(43:07):
a fad.
You know they did it for acouple of times but, like in
terms of doing it before runninga race, didn't really make much
of an impact or performing justas well without things like
that.
So you know there are somethings.
We're doing some research rightnow.
Beetroot extract is somethingthat promotes blood flow.
There's other things out therethat are supposed to increase

(43:32):
blood plasma volume andhemoglobin mass.
So you know there are thingsout there but, like most people
aren't tackling those big thingswe talked about off the jump.
You know they need to tacklethose first and then, you know,
if you're at the absolute peak,then start worrying about sodium
bicarb.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
What other tactics have you guys used to get
through the walls?
On race day we talked a littlebit about the mental tapering
and certainly the physicaltapering and kind of managing
that threshold and trying to winthat moment.
But what other tactics have youused to try and get through
those walls?
I mean it can be debilitatingin that moment.

(44:13):
Music, prayer, music's animportant one.
I mean to the point where Ithink we've all discussed this,
where you will time certainsongs to come up at certain
times of the race.
That's what else I was saying.
Even prayer or having somethinglike it was like pray for

(44:35):
someone different each mile, orsomething like that.
Like I've done a few timeswhich, again, I've never really
just shattered the wall, um, butwhen I get to those moments I
have to stop thinking aboutrunning and how much, because
the problem with the wall is ithappens with 10 miles left.
If you hit the wall with threemiles left, like I'm at that
point where you can do anythingfor three miles, but with 10

(44:56):
miles left it seems like aneternity away.
So trying to, you know, chunkthrough that.
And then the times that I'vebeen with you guys, you've
psychologically confused meenough to drag me along to where
I don't even know what's goingon.
So I would say those would bethe big ones for me.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Compartmentalization.
I mean the mantra right, I thinkit's Ali's run the mile you're
in.
Compartmentalization is big kindof knowing where you're at,
being able to Normally normallyI keep my mind busy enough that
I'm always thinking aboutsomething, so you know, when it
gets harder at the end I'm justlike, okay, five minutes is the

(45:37):
next gel, and then that gets meokay.
Then the next mile is in aminute and a half and normally
for me, as crazy as this sounds,if I'm paying attention to it,
you know your watch gets offfrom the actual clock mile.
So you're like, okay, my watchmile ends in a quarter and then
the next mile marker on thecourse is a quarter mile after
that, and then my next gel isfive minutes after that.

(45:58):
So there's all of these like,okay, just look forward to this.
And all of a sudden you'rebreaking it up into two minute
increments, five minuteincrements, 10 minute increments
, and it's.
It's more chunkable anddigestible that way versus oh.
And I made a mistake once wewere running Chicago and I
looked over at Chad and I'm like, dude, only an hour left and he

(46:20):
wasn't in the spot right thento hear that I felt great at the
time.
I mean, mean, and the crazything was I separated from him
and he was.
I turn around at the finishline.
He was like 20 seconds behindme so he held on in his white
cotton t-shirt dude's amazing,just finished the six stars, but
uh, so he and christy are oursix star finishers.

(46:40):
But yeah, I would takecompartmentalization as big and
I use music like you guys do.
Um, I'll put on a chillplaylist for the first half of
the race until that moment hits,whether that's 15, 18 miles,
and then I turn on like, okay,now it's race time and I know a
lot of guys that do that.
The other thing I want to callout that addresses this, but I

(47:02):
think is a much bigger help, iswhat is your purpose?
So I know you guys have heardthis story, but I'll kind of
tell it to our listeners.
So last year, going into Bostonwas kind of similar.
I had a decent build, but itwas going to be hot and I just

(47:24):
didn't know where I was and itwas kind of a good thing, right,
I wasn't putting a lot ofpressure on myself.
Um, I had run this race sixtimes before.
Five times before.
It was kind of like you know,my C goal I'd be fine with.
And I knew a friend of mine wasout there and he and I'm like,

(47:46):
but he's, he was running a lotof miles at the time, like a
hundred miles a week, and he wasconsiderably faster than I was.
And I'm like, well, I just hopeI don't run into him, because I
don't want to run with this guybecause he's going to destroy
me and whatever.
Well, we're checking in and outof the 30,000 people of Boston.
I'm going to get my packet andthe guy next to me in line is
this guy Shout out ChrisGalloway.

(48:07):
And I'm like you're kidding.
And he's like, oh yeah, what doyou want to run tomorrow?
I'm like I don't know we shouldrun together.
And I'm thinking in my headlike, no, oh, my God, I'm going
to get.
You know, I'm going to go outtoo hot, like you talked about
bank, all this and by 15 milesI'm gonna be walking.
And I'm like, yeah, sure, dude,will I catch up?

(48:29):
I'll see you tomorrow.
Well, I don't ever carry myphone with me, so I'm like
there's no way.
Like there's 30 000 people atthis race, um, you know, 20 000
of which we're going to be inthe in the waiting area with.
There's no way.
So we get there last minutebecause we've got this thing
down to a science, having doneit a number of times and we get

(48:50):
to, basically, the waiting areais two football fields
essentially, and they call ourwave wave one.
And we're walking over and Ijust hear TJ and I got my.
I'm like, oh no, and I'm like,you know, I convinced myself.
Convinced myself.
I'm like, if by happenstance Irun into him, I I know that I

(49:12):
can hold the pace he wants tohold for the half, I I can do
that, I know I can do that.
So if you know we can run, hewanted to run 630s or something
like I can hold that for thehalf, that's fine.
And so we end up talking.
We have have a greatconversation, we walk to the
start line and I'm just like notsure it's right.
So we start off and he's likelet's just run it blind for the

(49:33):
first couple of miles.
So we're running it blind and Ilooked out at my watch at one
point and we're like running640s, something like that.
I'm like okay, and we get six,seven miles in and and then we
get a little further in and he'she's starting to have some
issues.
And I noticed like he's quiet.

(49:53):
This is strange, okay.
And so my mindset at this timeis shifting, like huh, well, I
didn't have a purpose, I'm hererunning this just to run it
again.
You know, I started this racein a mindset that was completely
negative, that I was going toblow up.
But something's not right withhim today.
And so he's like yeah, I'vebeen having some GI issues, I'll

(50:14):
get through it.
And then we get to Heartbreak.
Well, the hills, the NewtonHills For those of you who
aren't familiar, there's fourhills towards the end of the
Boston Marathon that areexcruciating and they run for
about four miles and they'relegendary just because they've
had such a profound effect oncertain, you know professional
races, you know up front of themarathon.

(50:36):
And so we get there and at thispoint he's really quiet and,
having run numerous races, Iknow what's going on, like I
know he's in pain on, like Iknow he's in pain.
And for me that gave me purposeand it was like, okay, let's
lock in.
And I'm like.
I looked over at him and I'mlike we got this, I'm not
leaving you, we're going to getthere.

(50:56):
And we ended up running 255 orsomething like that.
Um, you know, and Chris knowsthis, you know Chris is head and
shoulders above me as itrelates to the most race
distances that we run, becausehe puts in more work.
And we had a conversation afterthe finish line.
He's like, well, what do youthink you could have run?
And like he felt like he heldme back.

(51:18):
But what he didn't realize ishe gave a race that didn't have
any purpose at all.
Massive purpose, and it's oneof the races I look back on the
most fondly.
Massive purpose, and it's oneof the races I look back on the
most fondly because you know itwas something where I was
questioning, you know, andlooking for a why, and I found
one.
So I say all that to say ifyou're going into a race and

(51:41):
you're nervous, look for adifferent purpose, and I'd like
to pitch that to you because wewere talking the other day.
The FOMO is coming up in aboutseven weeks and you made the
comment that potentially, whatyou want to do is look for a
couple of people who've neverrun 50K and run it with them,

(52:01):
and I think that that is abrilliant approach to this race.
So maybe you can talk moreabout your mindset as it relates
to that.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
I can say some of my favorite marathons have been
ones that haven't been driven ona personal goal.
Disney was fun, we did.
Disney.
Shout out to John Faust.
He wanted to run his firstmarathon.
We ran and he wanted to breakfive hours and he broke it.
And then the next year hewanted to run his first marathon
.
We ran and he wanted to breakfive hours and he broke it.
And then the next year hewanted to run and break four

(52:30):
hours and we broke it.
We had to lie to him for thefirst, the last four miles.
We're like just one more, justone more.
Uh.
So shout out to John but um,yeah, I, I have my, my marathons
where I've been able to take ita little bit easier and and
help someone else achieve theirgoal have definitely been more

(52:52):
meaningful, and maybe I say thata little bit out of fear of
trying to chase my own Um, but I, I know for the full mo.
I'm having a really hard timetransitioning back into the
mileage.
I'm really tired and I'm tryingto get in the 40 and 50 miles
and crank back up and stayhealthy and then even to do it

(53:14):
and to be willing to sacrifice.
I was running down on thetreadmill the other night.
My son wanted to have a friendover and we called him and his
dad was bringing him over.
His dad's a good friend of mineand they were both coming over
to play and I'm just like thisis more important.
So I shut her down after mymile and I went upstairs.
So I'm going through somemental battles to get there.

(53:34):
And what I love of what you saidis I think when you have a
better, you have a differentpurpose.
It makes it different.
I have no purpose at this pointin time to run it outside of.
I said I would Supporting youin the race and there's no other
meaningful goal.
I don't feel like training torun it fast or anything else.
It's more about the experience.
It's been a long time for mesince I put myself out there to

(53:58):
actually compete in running.
I don't think I've ran a racesince Mom's Race.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
That was November of 20.
Well outside of Arizona.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
Well, I mean yeah I'm sorry, mom's race.
Yes, 23, okay yeah, january of23.
So arguably I haven't run arace in 26 months and this run
every day thing has taken towhere I would never go out and
run less than six miles, and sixmiles is is just like I
wouldn't even get get out of bedfor three.
Well, now I've been runningshorter distances.
I'm finding to get myself torun four miles is like mentally

(54:34):
a lot right.
So I'm in a completelydifferent shift right now of
trying to get myself back andhow hard it is to mentally
prepare.
I'm not wanting.
I'm fighting everything in mybeing to make myself go through
with this next seven or eightweeks training.
It'll be interesting to see howthat evolves closer to the race
and if I can find someonethat's willing to put in the

(54:54):
work with me, it's going to begreat.
I do have a good running buddy.
A shout out to Kyle Beal thatis training for a 50 miler, so
he's putting in some longerdistances and we're going to
continue to meet up a couple oftimes a week.
But I love what you said aboutpurpose.
I do think being the coach onthe field with someone is a

(55:14):
definitely a great way to kindof stay distracted or stay
motivated to to help in someoneachieve their goal.
There have been studies thatshow that you are able to dig
deeper for others than you areable to your for your own gain.
Like to for your own gain.
That's a very common.
I mean, you've even talked insome of your ultras, At least
one.
I remember the story of likeyou're, like, I'm not going to
quit because my kids are goingto see me.

(55:36):
You almost died.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
Yeah, knob on 50 miler.
Yeah, knob on 50 miler.
May of 16.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
I think there is merit to when you're hitting
those walls, making sure you'revery clear on your why, your
purpose and whether or notyou're actually running with
somebody or you're feeling likeyou have an opportunity to
inspire somebody else or set anexample.
I think a lot of times thosecan help you get through those
walls.
Use what you can, but those canhelp you get through those
walls more than look at me.

(56:03):
I'm going to be this hero if Ican push through this wall.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
That's a very fleeting motivation you know
what I think would be fun totalk about.
I think we've got some timeleft in the episode.
I think we've said this a lotand we've lived this a lot.
You have no idea what your bodyis capable of, and I'd love to
talk about when we were inTennessee.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
It's a bigger race.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
It's a bigger race, it's a longer race, but that is
for me, I think, what defined.
So, just to be clear, it tookme seven years to break three
hours in the marathon and thiswas part of that process.
I think I broke it two yearsafter this or three, I don't

(56:48):
remember.
But you know, in July of 2015,we ran across the state of
Tennessee.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
We.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Well.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
I helped drive across the state of Tennessee.
You and the mouse in yourpocket ran across the state of
Tennessee.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
And it's a six day race and it was filled with a
lot of challenges.
But you know, for me, thatreally gave me insight into what
the body is capable of doing ifyou listen to it and if you
believe in it.
You know there was a lot ofchallenges faced in that race

(57:36):
and again, this is a macro viewright, because this is a, as it
relates to finding a differentwhy or finding a different
motivator, and, for one of thevery few times in my life, I

(57:59):
would say, every day was metwith a pretty significant issue
that we ended up solving for.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Were you down there for any of it.
All right, I'm taking over thestory.
So TJ signs up for a 500K.
That's 310 miles, 314.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Yeah, 311, whatever.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Okay so 314 miles.
He signs up for a 500K and weall I would say you didn't.
I don't know how you preparefor that, but I would say you
weren't as prepared as, and sothis is in.
We live in Indiana, this isflat Indiana and we're going to
the Rolling Hills of Tennessee,so mom was down there the first
couple of days and you guysstart the race and cross this

(58:46):
bridge and it's like what?

Speaker 2 (58:49):
80 degrees outside.
Oh, it's like 180, it wasprobably.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
It was probably somewhere between 95 and 105 so
at some point and you can tellme what, when it was you guys
transitioned to running nightsand sleeping days.
When was that?
Was that?

Speaker 2 (59:02):
after the first day yeah, day one, it was mom and it
was Todd 11.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
They were there day one.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
And Todd had come down from Detroit.
Mom had driven down with me.
She could only stay for one dayand 20 miles in at that bridge
and the bridge it's actuallyrenowned in this race because it
smells like pure sewage I hadrun with the leaders.

(59:30):
At this point I was nowhere inshape to run with the leaders.
Johan Steen was one of theleaders, greg Armstrong was one
of the leaders and they're twoof the best ultra runners in the
history of the sport.
My body locked up completelybecause I didn't know how to
hydrate and I didn't know how to.
And I remember, because mycaves, my calves, were caved in
and my, my abs were flexed andthey had to pick me up and put

(59:55):
me in the car because I couldn'tmove anymore.
Um, and I remember I was intears because I felt so bad that
these people had come down towatch me race and to help me for
six days.
And here I am, 20 miles 290miles to go yeah 280 miles to go
and I'm in the car and I'm justin tears and I'm crying to mom

(01:00:16):
and I was, I don't know I was 15.
So I was 35 years old at thetime.
So at that point we went backto the hotel.
Just for future reference,whenever I leave the course, I
can go to the hotel, just justfor future reference.
Whenever I leave the course, Ican go to the hotel, but they
have to drop me off where I leftoff.
You go back to the hotel.
I rehydrate, ate a, I ate acouple subway sandwiches and
then that's when we beganrunning at night, because it was

(01:00:37):
100 degrees and it was just toohot during the day I show up
day three.
You showed up super late on daytwo, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
So I'm flying down, I'm like I've seen TJ do the
hundred miler by this point andhe needs a crew and for whatever
reason I was able to get awayand I come down and there's a
couple of points that I'm goingto hit and you can add in.
So, like, the first thing wekind of dealt with was chafing.
We, we looked for everysolution of chafing.

(01:01:13):
We had the.
There is like duct tape thathas like a sticky side you can
put it on either side of yourlegs to keep with chafing.
We had tried all kinds of lubefor chafing and we finally
realized, after we thought aboutit a little bit, chafing
happens when you're sweating andthen all of a sudden you stop

(01:01:34):
sweating and it gets dry.
So, like, what we found out ishe would start running at like
four and he would sweat betweenfour and maybe six or seven,
which was when it was still hotout, and then if you switched
shorts, you're fine.
So those of you that strugglewith chafing, as long as you
stay, like if you're sweatingprofusely and you stay wet the

(01:01:55):
whole time, you're not going tochafe.
It's when you dry out and don'tchange your shorts, that's when
it starts to cause a problem.
So that was a big one, cause Imean again, you're a couple
hundred miles out and your legsare raw.
Like how in the world are youlike?
Oh yeah, I got some chafing, Igot a few miles left, I have 200
miles left, you know.
I mean so that, like those inthose long races, those little
minute nuances can becomemassive problems.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Well, that was what was so cool for me, right?
Because you know the first.
So day two, the first thingthat got to me was my feet.
And what they tell you in raceslike that is it takes your body
about three days to realizeit's not going to end.
So, like the first three days,your body's fighting you.
It's like I don't want to dothis.
This isn't normal.
But about three days in yourbody's like, okay, you're going

(01:02:39):
to do this every day.
We're going to adapt.
And I remember my feet were onfire.
I had asked you to bring downother shoes for me, um, cause I
was running an ultra boosts andthis these are the fashion ultra
boosts that you see today, butback then they were, like you
know, good running shoes.
I had you bring them, I hope is, down Cause my feet hurt so bad
from these rolling Hills andbeing on pavement for a hundred

(01:03:00):
miles.
I remember seeing you, um, Iremember the curve on the road
and it was.
It was probably 45 miles intothe day.
I think we did 56 and westopped because of chafing.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, it was waterproof ducttape because it was metal on one
side, it's sticky on the other.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
It was awful so we go through that and then we get to
, I want to say, the 150 range,170 range, and he's been running
these hills and for those ofyou that don't run hills, you
realize that amount of mileage.
And that was it.
You had shin splints I hadperineal tendonitis.

(01:03:41):
There it is yeah, okay, perinealtendonitis, and he's like I
think the same emotions werecoming back of like everyone's
come down here, I can't move,you're excruciating,
excruciating, I mean.
And so you know what we decidedto solve this problem we shut
her down and we went to aorthopedic place the next

(01:04:02):
morning.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
We went to the walk-in clinic.
First Walk-in clinic you guyshad found the walk-in clinic.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
first Walk-in clinic.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
You guys had found a walk-in clinic, because that
night I remember we had gone out.
I think we did 30 miles thatday and I remember at the end I
was walking backwards, I wassidestepping, I'm like and I
think part of it was I switchedfrom those ultra boost to the
hokas and and the thing is,you're running on a camber, you
think about running on the sideof the road, it's tilted, so

(01:04:27):
you're running on the side ofthe road and you're putting
pressure and stress on theoutside Perineal tendon runs on
the outside of your ankle andyou're putting pressure and
stress.
And I remember all of that andlike just, and yeah, you were
like, well, let's shut it down.
I saw a walk-in clinic and sothen yeah, you were like, well,

(01:04:47):
let's shut it down.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
I saw a walk-in clinic and so then so I went to
the walk-in clinic.
They really I think they toldus to shut it down.
We're like, no, we're not doingthat.
So then we went to anorthopedic specialist, got in
and he gave us good news, butprobably not the best news he
goes.
Well, he goes.
I can give you some pills forsome of the pain he goes.
I can give you some pills forsome of the pain he goes.
The truth is is it's you're notgoing to damage yourself

(01:05:08):
long-term and it's not going toget any worse, but it's going to
be painful, and so you got tostomach it.
This may help with some of thepain, but it's really well yeah
he kind of said it's up to you.
But he knew, like on a scale ofone to 10, it's like an eight
Right, and we're sitting.
So think about this perinataltendinitis.
You're at an eight in pain, youhave 150 miles left, 150.

(01:05:32):
So, like I'm going to have this, what if you're in a marathon
and you had five miles left?
We're talking 150 miles left.
So he gives us that diagnosis.
And that was during the day,and we decided to start going
again that night, right, andthat's when you met.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Well, we were in the parking lot of the hotel and I
remember trying to convincemyself that I could run in the
parking lot Cause I had taken.
It was it was this dose pack ofprednisone or steroids or
something you know, where youtake like 10 the first day and
then nine and so on and so forthor how whatever it is five,
four, three, two, one and um.
I remember starting walking,two, one and um.
I remember starting walking.
I was listening to a podcast,um, and I just I think that was

(01:06:20):
the day I was furious.
Um, I think you met me this isanother, like getting through it
.
You met me in the parking lot ofa seven 11 because you, you
weren't allowed to pace thisrace.
Um, you could crew but youweren't allowed to pace this
race.
You could crew, but you weren'tallowed to pace it and I was so
mad.
I remember calling you and thisis tough because when you're in
races like this and you're onthat edge, I was taking it out
on everybody else.
I didn't come here to effingwalk this thing.
Anybody can walk this thing.

(01:06:40):
I was just furious and Iremember you coming down and
being like you know, we believein you.
You got this Like let's justtake it easy.
I think we hung out for alittle bit and then the next
thing I remember is we got tothis road and it was like 20
miles in.
I remember back then we hadthose Best Buy Bluetooth around

(01:07:06):
the here headsets and I remembercalling you because it hurt so
bad.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
And.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
I'm like I just need to talk to you while I do this,
because and then for miles.
And then we decided it was toobad.
I was going to shut it down at26 that day and at 25, I started
running and all of a sudden thepain went away.
It was the weirdest thing.
And then, that's when I raninto Thomas, thomas Alm, the
pain went away.
It was the weirdest thing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
And then that's when I ran into Thomas.
Thomas Alm shout out.
And so, yeah, I remember thatlike super frustrated, talking
to him, coaching him through,just trying to keep him
motivated and positive, justkeep moving forward.
And when he caught, when himand Thomas met up, it was like
it was like Jesus, they cametogether.
At this point in time I'msupposed to be catching a flight

(01:07:52):
to Vegas to be with my wife forsome birthday party for friends
and I call her.
I said, honey, I can't fly hometo fly out with you, I will see
you there.
Like I've got to see thisthrough and TJ and Thomas run
back to back double marathons.
It was one of the mostincredible, inspiring.

(01:08:13):
I just I can't even.
I still think about it.
It gives me chills.
They went 52, 56, and it wasjust like I just couldn't even
believe it was happening.
I remember when going back tothe, I did like I had to pick
you up and set you in an icebath that night.
I mean, you were completelydestroyed.
But what an incredibleexperience about what the body

(01:08:35):
can do.
And seeing that and the 100miler are reasons to why
sometimes, when I startedrunning marathons, I'm like
surely I can do that if you cando that.
So I think it does set not onlyfor yourself that it set a
level of dedication and paintolerance.
It also does it in other peopleas well.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
Well, it gave us.
It gave us, you know, it gaveme reasons and you guys did a
great job at architecting.
You know, motivation, like whenyou know you waited till the
second to last day to show meFacebook, right, and you're like
, check this out, and there werelike 150 comments.
I'm like let's go, let's go,let's go, and out.

(01:09:17):
And they're like 150 commentson like let's go, let's go,
let's go, and so seeing all ofthat support externally, and
then you know, I remembersitting in the the last hotel
room, and it was it was awful,and you were, and my foot.
We hadn't made it yet my footwas a mess, yeah and todd had
flown back to detroit for a uh,an appointment for his son and
back to Tennessee and I rememberhim walking in the door and you
were behind me and you told meafter the fact you were telling

(01:09:38):
him don't say anything about thefoot.
Like because it was black andblue, but I remember seeing you
guys, man, you and Thomas andhis crew at the time I can't
remember her name and we came inafter that second double
marathon or the first one, andThomas was like this isn't sweat
, it's tears, but it was coolbecause there were so many.

(01:10:02):
You don't realize how manydifferent mechanisms there are
to keep yourself motivated andto help digest something that
you think is impossible.
And yeah, there are to keepyourself motivated and to help
digest something that you thinkis impossible.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
And, yeah, the context that that sets from a
pain perspective, from acapability perspective, it just
opens up a whole newstratosphere.
And if you could developsomething that could, like when
I was going to quit my streakwhen I was in Vail a few weeks
ago quit my streak when I was inVail a few weeks ago, I was
just so tired and everything.
And once I got TJ's textmessage, I'm like I can't stop,
like there could be somethinginvented to pump you with those

(01:10:40):
real-time messages as you'rerunning, because when you think
about the people that believe inyou or that are encouraging you
or your family, or because it'sone thing, again, to do it for
yourself, but having thatsupport in those moments are
10xers, in my opinion, and younormally don't get them until
like, oh, you did a good job atthe end.
But like there's been timeswhere I've been watching people
and I'm like, come on, you gotthis, you got this.

(01:11:02):
Like our buddy tim was, hebroke his pr and I saw him going
and I'm like I'm on the otherend, just like, come on, you can
do it.
You know, just super excitedfor them and to be able to hit
them in real time with?
That be unbelievable.
Why don't you grab that BostonTJ just mentioned?
We're in very close proximity toBoston and while we're telling
race stories, I feel like thisis one that we maybe set it on

(01:11:25):
that pillow there between thetwo of you.
This was an unbelievable story.
Probably has to be my favoriterace.
I'd love to go around and eachperson kind of mentioned their
favorite race or race daystories, but this, this is up
there.
So we had all agreed we weregoing to try and qualify for

(01:11:47):
Boston together.
Trent was riding a dirt bikeand broke his ankle but somehow
still got in through the YMCA,so we were able to run Boston
together, but we were getting tothe start line in different
ways.
So I was riding, you were withEric, I was with Eric, who's my

(01:12:07):
brother-in-law.
Shout out to Eric, as TJmentioned, the science before
the Boston Marathon, allarchitected by Eric.
He and Amy and their son Camdennow are great hosts and have
been since.
We've qualified for that.
But I was riding with Eric.
He dropped me off and you guysrode a bus, maybe from somewhere

(01:12:29):
else, and we in.

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
We're in runner's village marathon by the way,
this is the legendary 2018marathon, which is the worst
weather in history of bostonhorrible.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
I hopefully we can find the picture of you running.
It was, it was a headwind 20some mile an hour headwind, if
you know boston it's a point topoint.
You run from hopkingtonbasically straight east into
boston, uh, with some curves,and so we were running into a
headwind, 20 plus miles an hour,it was in the 30s and it was
raining.
Uh, it was absolutely nightmare.

(01:13:01):
So we get to um, was itmarathon village?
or yeah, yeah, it's called yeahthere's 20, some thousand people
, and I don't know why.
We thought it was going to beeasy to find each other, but
somehow we went in differententrances.

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
We didn't realize because there are two fields
there's one field and thenthere's a secondary field.
We didn't realize there weretwo fields because I in my first
year in 17, I'd never gone tothat second field and I think
you were in the other field.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
Yeah, so I mean, realize the six months building
up to this.
The only reason we're doingthis is to run this race
together, right?
I mean all this anticipation Meand TJ are literally screaming
for Todd down at our field.
We're like Todd Todd, I mean,and we're standing.
Mind you, it's been raining allday.
Our feet were frozen up to ourankles.
We're standing in a bud pool.

(01:13:48):
We're standing in a bud pool.
We are literally completelyfrozen from the ankle down.
I couldn't feel my feet beforethe race started.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
It felt like blocks of wood for probably the first
four or five miles.
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
I'm frantically looking around trying to find
you guys, because the idea ofrunning this Boston alone was
just incomprehensible.
So I'm thinking to myself okay,well, what if I head to the
start line?
I mean, obviously, obviously,this is extended periods of time
.
We're talking half hour hour.
We're kind of trying to findeach other before they start to
call people.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
And we're, but it's the last wave.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
at this point, Me and TJ are waiting for everyone to
clear out, because we were like,okay, they clear out, we're
going to find them, like we'rewaiting for, like the F wave.
So I'm like psychologically areally good thing for us F wave
so.
I'm like, logically, a reallygood thing for us.
Yeah, I'm thinking, okay, uh,I'm going to go to the start
line and then if I can get therequickly, then I'll just look as
people are going past and see,like people passing, and I was

(01:14:41):
up there probably for I want tosay 30 minutes and like I you
don't want to talk aboutmentally depleting yourself Like
I'm trying to scan the crowd,like in this way to like
recognize faces, and you knowI'm looking and looking and
looking.
I mean this goes on for 30minutes.
And then I could tell I wasn'tgoing to find you guys because
it started to get super sparse,like it was packed right, people

(01:15:02):
were, it was wall to wall andthen just kind of there were
stragglers and this was, I don'tknow, again last wave getting
ready to start and I think itwas maybe Trent said like Todd,
and I look, I think maybe it wasover to my left and you guys
were coming up to the start line.
Oh, my goodness, talk about us.

(01:15:23):
I mean, hands down, the moststressful pre-race experience in
the midst of the weather.
And then we, then we that wasright at the start line and we
went.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
We got a lot of weird looks from people like what are
you doing back here?
You know, because I meantypically in Boston the last
wave is reserved for charityrunners, walkers and walkers,
and people were like what isgoing on?
And as we're flying, trying toget back up to the front, I mean
we were in that weather for sixor seven hours.
You think about it, all thewaiting we did out there.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
It was a disaster.
I mean, we were hypothermic.
I remember finishing that raceand you and I went up to a taxi
and we're like how much to getto this hotel?
And he's like, oh, it's just aquarter mile right down the way.
And I'm like you don'tunderstand, I'll give you a
hundred dollars, how much to goto that hotel it was.

(01:16:23):
I remember at the end of thatmarathon I sat, we got back to
the hotel room and I sat on the.
It was one of those that wasshowers.
You just stood up and I sat onthe floor of the shower for
probably 20 to 25 minutes.
I was so cold.
But I mean the memories fromthat race I will never forget.
I mean, trent, I was talkingabout one of.
I mean, I would think from aperformance perspective, this
had to be one of your best races.

(01:16:44):
Tj and I played somepsychological games with you a
little bit towards the end,which you alluded to, but I
think you ran a sub 330 in thatmarathon and you had no business
running a sub three 30.
I think I broke my ankle 10weeks prior to that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
Yeah, we were, we were trying to come up with
something to get you ready, butit just wasn't going to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
You were kind of.
You kept asking about splitsand I think we were giving you
different times of what we weremiling.
One would up one would come backkind of check on me, but it was
something about like thatwasn't unbelievable.
It was the only time I did.
I did run boston with you guysand it was.
It was incredible.
The weather was I mean the windand the rain and that, I think

(01:17:24):
what I was most impressed.
You always hear about bostonand it kind of being the super
bowl.
In that weather it was stillpacked, people were cheering you
on and there was like just thislevel of emotion of like people
were going and we were doingthis together.
And then our whole team saw uson TV and we're holding hands
coming across and and just tojust to be part of that, when I

(01:17:45):
got back to the hotel, I tookthat shower for like 20 minutes,
got in bed and I remember likestill going into convulsions
because I was just mom and dadwere there and the wind was like
broke their umbrellas.
It was so windy and some of ourkids were there.
Yeah, this is by far probablyone of my favorite races, as
well as probably the mostadversity.
Like again.
Like you start with frozen feet, they start warming up and we

(01:18:07):
were able to pass a lot ofpeople because we started at the
back, but overall, anexperience that I'll never
forget.
A lot of people because westarted at the back, but overall
, an experience that I'll neverforget.

Speaker 2 (01:18:12):
A lot of purpose in that race.
Running it with you guys, thatwas really cool.
I think the only other racethat I would highlight was the
50-miler.
That was pretty special.
We raised $50,000 for MSA orsomething like that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
I think at least $65,000.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
$65,000.
That was really cool.
Again back to purpose.
You know, obviously for mom,but like there's so much of that
out there If you look for it,your body's capable of so much
If you listen to it.
There are so many people outthere that probably want to help
you.
So, like you know, there areways to get through it that

(01:18:51):
don't require just your ownstubbornness and your own um,
you know, there there are timeswhen you need other people, and
so I would say that you knowthat's something to keep in mind
as you pursue the journey onrace day.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
Yeah, I would also say the relay races.
I mean, gosh the Ragnars, thoseare so fun to the relay races.
Oh yeah, Gosh the Ragnars.
Those are so fun to do incommunity.
If you're struggling to show upon race day for yourself, do a
Ragnar, Do some of the relayraces.
Some of the marathons have donea great job of making them
relays.
Does Carmel still have that?

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
option.
I think they still do.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
They've gone on and off, but I think it potentially
they they kept it the lastcouple of years.
Those are great opportunitiesto to more naturally position
yourself to run for others onthe team.
Um, those are.
Those were some fun races.
So those ragnars?
For those that don't know, it'sa 12-man team, two vans,
six-man vans.
You have six runners that run.
There's like 20, 36 segments.
Each person has three segmentssomewhere in the four to six
mile range and you just kind ofkeep going until you get there.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
Those are really, really fun races and you can
make them as competitive as youwant, but a lot of great
memories, yeah, but if you wantto get faster I mean, you know,
if that's one of your goals thenput together a competitive team
and go do it.
You will get so much more outof yourselves than you would
ever imagine.
I mean our race in minnesota.
So in 20, oh boy, hell my god,28, 2019, I think some, I don't

(01:20:24):
know.
It's whenever I turn 40.
You guys had surprised me andthat was kind of a 40th birthday
present was the minnesotaragnar and we put together a
group of 12 guys that we had onethat I would consider an elite
runner out of 12 people, andthey were just a random
hodgepodge of guys that went tohigh school together from the
same county or related orwhatever.
And you want to talk aboutdoing it for other people?

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
not just race day, but training.
Oh yeah, you're training andyou know 11 other people are
counting on you to be able torun a good time.
That that will give you someextra juice.
It's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
Well, we ended up winning it, but by 20 seconds,
which is crazy, but that bringsup.
I was telling the story theother day again about doing it
for other people.
You want to talk, you don't?
I don't think you realize itwhen you're in it, but I realize
it retrospectively.
Ga 5K first year.
You know it's one thing totrain, but to get 24 people to

(01:21:24):
run an hour a day as hard asthey can for two weeks straight,
as they can for two weeksstraight, that's what shows you
how much people will lay downfor their community, and we saw
it at Prairie.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
You were in the hospital there for a minute.
Yep, you had ran.

Speaker 2 (01:21:48):
Just my GI system shut down.
It was brutal.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
You had a kid during one, just my GI system shut down
.
It was brutal, but like you hada kid during one of them and
you still ran, was it the firstone?
I think it, I think it.
Gosh, I don't remember it wouldhave been, it would have been,
it would have been.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
Let's see.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
Grant would have been .
It would have been Grant 2020.
Yeah, june of 2020.
Yeah it 2020.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
Yeah, it was in the midst of the pandemic.
Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.
So it was todd ran his hour prelabor or during labor.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
Yeah, I was sitting up in the in the doctor, uh had
come in and you know like Ithink she had already had her um
, uh, what's the the epidural?
no, not the epidural but no, notthe epidural, but the something
tosin pitocin yes and then youdo the pitocin, you're trying to

(01:22:41):
figure out how quickly itdilates and whatever.
And so I think it was she hadcome in and she said the doctor
had said you're still whatevertwo millimeters or something.
You know, you should probablyjust get some rest.
And I said, well, you know,since you get some rest, I'll
let you.
You know, just relax, I'll getout of your hair here and I'll

(01:23:02):
go run.
And she kind of gave me thislook like I think she was.
She was under enough influenceof some sort of chemicals that
she kind of was like okay, and Iwent out and I ran my mile and
I don't know shortly I mean itwas shortly after I got back
that he came.
I'm glad, because that stuffhappens fast, right.
It takes like forever to get tolike three, and then all of a
sudden it's like 10 and it'sthere.

(01:23:25):
I probably got back I don't know, maybe 20 or 30 minutes before
he was born, so it was closecall.
It was a close call, but we gotit in for the community, for
the team.
Yeah, that's great, yeah, reallygood stuff.
So a lot on race day.
I would just add a couple morethings.
Um, you know, I think you'reright on a race day with

(01:23:47):
training with uh, the shoes andhaving enough, because those,
especially those race shoes, puta lot of stress on your calves.
I will say, though, for me, acouple of race day tricks.
I try to train without some ofthose things.
I train without music and I tryand train in regular shoes
because it just gives me a booston race day when I'm running
out in those training runs andI'm able to achieve a certain

(01:24:08):
level of fitness and trainingwithout some of the boosts.
Then, when I get on race dayand I can put those headphones
in or maybe it's halfway throughI'll put the headphones in.
That gives me a whole notherlevel of motivation and things
to tap into.
And the same with the raceshoes.
If I'm running, you know usuallythe race shoes you can get
somewhere between, I would say,15 seconds give or take per mile

(01:24:32):
.
So if I'm doing a lot of mytraining and race shoes and I'm,
you know, training to run at acertain time and I put on those
race shoes race day, I wouldn'trecommend this.
If you've never worn race shoes, you should always kind of test
that out.
They do put a lot more stresson your calves but you know, I
try and use them minimallyallyand then when I get to race day
it's just a bonus, it's an, it'san added boost.
So I think sometimes trainingin more adverse conditions, um,

(01:24:56):
and then race day, adding someof those things in, can be
really helpful yeah, I would,you did.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
Uh, that'll be my last comment is you said
training in adverse conditions,and I know people to do the same
thing you do, and and so ifagain, if you've raced in these
shoes before and it didn't havea huge detriment, then by all
means, if that works better foryou, but I would also this isn't
necessarily a race day thing,but it's a leading up to race
day thing Train in adverseconditions.
Don't run all of your workoutsdownhill, downwind, and I know

(01:25:24):
people that do it.
Yes, you know.
Make sure you face thoseadverse conditions, because you
might face them at the race andif you don't, bonus.
So I would encourage you to dothat as well.

Speaker 1 (01:25:41):
Favorite training song or favorite song to come on
during that wall.
Favorite I shouldn't saytraining song, but favorite kind
of pump-up song.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
I know what your guys' is.
Well, we had talked about theRudy one, but it's like favorite
kind of pump-up song.
I know what your guys' is.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
Well, we had talked about the Rudy one, but it's
like a minute and 30 secondslong.
I don't know some Jimmy EatWorld, just something that's a
little bit more upbeat.
You could even go with 80s,your Def Leppards, your
Metallica it's just somethingthat's a little bit harder.
I don't really have a go-toplaylist that could get me

(01:26:14):
through a long period of time.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
Mine was originally the Pretender by Foo Fighters
years ago.
Um, I have different songs fordifferent intensities.
If I'm full throttle it'sprobably Kickstart my Heart by
Motley Crue.
That's not necessarily a get methrough it song, that's more of
a, um, like let's rip it song.
But those are two that come tomind.

Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
Everyone knows mine's eye of the tiger.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
Uh, but I would say, um 10 feet tall by Afrojack is a
good one.
Hadaway life Um.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
I can't, don't you worry.
Yeah, flex pavilion, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
So hopefully those are some helpful.
Uh, if you're trying to curatea playlist for a spring race
here, anything that you guyswould add on shorter races.
We spent a ton of time onmarathons today and covered a
little bit of ultras butanything on 5Ks, 10ks I know a
lot of people run those Anythingthat you might add for those
races that might be a little bitdifferent.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):
I mean those races.
I think there's so many morevariants and so much more
variants in terms of goals, likea marathon is typically either
to finish or to pr.
From a time perspective, thoseare kind of the two things.
Every now and then it'll berunning with the friend and the
social aspect of it.
But like with the 5k, you know,there there are just so many

(01:27:29):
more in my opinion like nuanced,different things and there's a
lot.
There's a there's so many morein my opinion like nuanced,
different things and there's alot.
There's so many more differentfacets of a 5K that could be
social and casual because ofthem, just by nature.
But I would say for me a bigrace day thing for a 5K and this
even kind of applies to themarathon.
But warm up.

(01:27:50):
If you are especially older, 35plus, you know I used to.
You know warm up for 20 minutes.
You know the best 5ks and 10ks.
I've ever run 20 minute warm-up.
25 minute warm.
Do strides get your legsturning over.
The more you prep your body forthat, the more mechanically

(01:28:13):
sound you're going to feel outthe gate and it's going to
benefit you tremendously.
Don't feel like if I go do a 20minute warmup before a 5k or a
10k.
I'm going to blow my energy.
You're not.

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
That's so counterintuitive and it's so
true and I always fought that.
It's like I don't want to wastemy legs going out and warming
up, but to warm up yourcardiovascular system.
I'll never forget the firsttime I did a real warmup and
those of you who wear Garminwatches a lot of times at the
start of the race or start of arun, it'll tell you like plus
two, minus two, like you know,based on the temperature and the
weather and your condition.

(01:28:47):
I remember I did like a 20minute warmup with you guys on a
half marathon and I got like amile in and it said plus 10
because my heart rate was so lowrelative to what I was running,
because I did such a solidwarmup.
And ever since that happened Idon't know, it's probably a few,
several, maybe four or fiveyears ago Um, I've been all in
on that, but it seemscounterintuitive and it's more

(01:29:09):
important in the shorter races.
Not so much in the marathon,because you're naturally just
going to rev up the engine, buton the shorter races you have
got to warm up, some cases twomiles three miles especially for
people our age.
If you're 20, maybe not as much, but yeah and get those strides
and get.

Speaker 2 (01:29:22):
You can get your legs turning over.
Do five, 10 second strides inthe parking lot.
Uh, for those faster races.
It makes all the difference inthe world, no doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
Absolutely Well.
Race season is upon us, thespring is here.
Hopefully you found some reallygood insights.
There's been incredible insight.
I've learned a ton today as Istill believe I haven't figured
out race day.
So thank you guys for jumpingin and we'll look forward to
seeing you next time.

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Episode 16: From Preparation to Finish Line: Mastering Race Day Psychology and Performance

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