Episode 5: Immersive Fitness Experiences through Technology

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to the Daily Edge, where we bring our stride,
and today we are going to kindof focus back on fitness.
We're going to talk aboutgadgets and gamification and
wearables and applications andall the different things that we
use.
Obviously, when you dosomething every day, which all

(00:43):
of us have for this year, thingscan get stale.
Right, we've talked aboutcommunity being a big part of
that, but there's so many othercool things out there that
people have developed, and wethought it would be a good idea
to share some of the stuff thatwe're using and how it's
impacting us, and TJ is going tobe the expert in this area.
He is our gadget, our guy thatspends a lot of time researching

(01:07):
things, and we buy a lot of thestuff that he recommends.
So why don't you kick us offand pick a place to start?
I don't know which area you'dlike to start in, but I'm going
to turn it over to you.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Sure, I think a cool area to start is let's start,
because we're in the middle ofwinter, let's start around
running indoors.
So one of the things we'resurrounded by people.
I actually have a couple ofreally good friends.
One of my best friends has a ohmy goodness, 10-year no
treadmill streak and for a lotof people that's you know, they

(01:44):
may be daunted if they're aroundsomeone like that who runs
outside all the time.
And we talked a little bitearlier about not being an early
person and I've always, youknow, I've always looked at it
like I need at least one or twothings to be at my favor.
If I'm going to get up in themorning, it has to like, in the
summer, at least it's warm out.
If it's pitch black and it's430 in the morning, at least

(02:04):
it's warm out.
If it's pitch black and it's4.30 in the morning, at least
it's warm right.
In the winter, there has to besomething there for me.
So normally like, okay, it'sfreezing cold, but at least you
know I'm starting at 7 am whenthe sun's about to come up, or
something like that.
But for a lot of people that'sjust not something they enjoy.
So it's important to find yourultimate treadmill setup and I

(02:32):
see we mentioned in the firstepisode the application Strava,
and we can jump in and dive intoStrava a little bit later in
depth.
But one thing Strava allows youto do is kind of share your
reaction to the activity youjust completed.
And more often than not whensomebody has to run on a
treadmill you see a throw upsign next to it oh, tread four
miles.
You know, it got so bad for methat I was going online and I

(02:57):
found a guy by the name ofHussain Abdallah.
If you don't know who HussainAbdallah is, he just finished
third or fourth in the nation indivision one cross country and
I was so stressed that I wasn'tgetting.
Everybody had such a negativeconnotation towards treadmills
that I thought me doing my workon a treadmill was hindering my

(03:18):
fitness.
And I went and searched and Ifound this video on YouTube and
it was a video of him trainingon a treadmill, saying, hey, you
can get the same effect runningon a treadmill that you can.
And then you've started to seethat you can running outside and
you started to see that mostelite athletes in the world
Jakob Ingebrigtsen is a namethat comes to mind he is
probably, without a doubt, themost gifted endurance runner in

(03:39):
the world at this point in time,and he spends a ton of his time
on a treadmill.
But so many people get so boredso quickly they get pulled into
just staring at the numbers onthe display.
Um, people used to get by thatby throwing a towel over the top
of it.
Now there are so many otherways that you can configure your
treadmill experience to really,um cater towards what you enjoy

(04:04):
doing.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Does that have a is the type of treadmill or, um,
are they using a treadmillbecause they're trying to to be
easier on their bodies?
Like, what's the talk about?
Both those?

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Sure, so I think there are two pieces to the
puzzle with that.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
I think for them.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
The two things are convenience you know he's in
Norway so it gets cold and it'ssuper convenient to be on a
treadmill.
It is easier on your body and,with the training approach that
a lot of people have, it's aneffort you can control.
Now, will the inside pace andeffort match the outside pace

(04:53):
and effort?
Maybe not always Six minutesFor some people.
I have a good friend on hertreadmill.
She feels that her efforts onher treadmill are harder than
outside.
I think not the treadmill thatI have now, but the one you had
prior to that you felt like thetreadmill efforts were harder
than they were outside.
So then that may not alwaystranslate equally, but it is
going to be easier on your legs.
Um, because you're not poundingon and most treadmills nowadays

(05:15):
curate their surface in a waythat it is a little bit more
flexible Some more than others,if you've ever been to again an
orange theory, fitness we talkedabout this at the beginning.
You want to talk about aflexible deck.
Those are extraordinarilyflexible.
Most home treadmills aren'tthat flexible, but they do
provide those advantages.
So, controlled effort, easieron the joints and convenience

(05:35):
those are three big ones.
But back to curating yourexperience on your treadmill and
what you enjoy doing.
If you're somebody who likes todo a lot of their easy mileage
on a treadmill, set up a TV.
Now, some people can't do that.
They feel like watching a TVshow.
They're too far into whateverzone of endurance they're into
to really enjoy what they'rewatching.

(05:57):
It almost seems like you'refighting a battle.
What I found worked for me was Isubscribed to a service back in
the day I've since curated thisoff of YouTube, but back in the
day called Quello and it waslive concerts.
I could watch concerts all daylong.
It does, it's mindless, youknow, but you watch your
favorite band up there andyou're getting the, the
excitement you get while out ona run outdoors listening to that

(06:20):
on your headphones.
Well, now you're watching itand I, and then over time, um,
have added some other componentsto that on your headphones.
Well, now you're watching it,and then, over time, have added
some other components to that.
We can talk about some of thoselater, like Zwift and some of
the other testing elements.
But really spending time beingintentional and curating your
experience so that it isenjoyable can really help you
get through this time of year,that late December, january,

(06:41):
february timeframe if you do itthe right way.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
So if you have somebody that just doesn't like
to run on a treadmill or wantsan experience of being outside
when you look at treadmills, soasking for advice here I don't
know how many you've tried anddifferent things and, todd,
maybe you jump in.
I know you have the PelotonTread Plus.
Talk to me about the type oftreadmill and what type of

(07:05):
services or things you shouldlook for in a treadmill.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
I think, to start with me, and then we can pass it
to Todd.
If you're on a budget, thereare treadmills out there that
are less than a thousand dollars.
Horizon is a company I'mactually on Horizon 7.4 AT, I
think, right now, which is alittle more expensive, but I
also run a hundred K a week andin this time of year, three of
those or four of those runs so30 to 40 miles a week are inside

(07:29):
on my treadmill.
So I need something that's alittle bit more resilient.
But I spent gosh, a decaderunning on a treadmill from like
Sears, which doesn't even existanymore for all intents and
purposes.
Um, it was a pro form treadmillthat I bought for $500 back in
the day for Christmas in 2012, Ithink and that worked for me
for yeah, again really close toa decade.

(07:50):
So you buy a $400, $500, $600,$800 treadmill.
Zwift is something I mentionedearlier that absolutely gamifies
it.
So Zwift is a virtual platformthat was originally developed
for cycling, but you can use.
It works on Apple TV, so youcan set a TV up in front of your
treadmill and, again, go buy aTV at your local Walmart for

(08:12):
$200 for a 55 inch flat screenand whatever.
Get an Apple TV, it works on aniPad.
If you just want to set an iPadon the display, you can do it
on your phone, but essentiallywhat it does is whether it be
the treadmill itself and theones that I just mentioned, the
Horizon ones connected directlyto Zwift through Bluetooth, or
you can get a foot pod or youcan use there's a couple other

(08:35):
methods we can talk about laterbut they connect to Zwift and it
loads you into a virtualenvironment and you can watch
your avatar running on differentcourses across the world.
There's a course that Zwift hascurated called Watopia, which

(08:56):
is not a real place, but you cansee other runners and you can
try to pursue them and you cansee all your stats visualized
what's my pace, what's my heartrate, what's my cadence if you
have a foot pod connected.
So it's much more immersive.
Now it's not um an environmentthat's photorealistic, but it's

(09:17):
definitely more engaging, andespecially since they've added
things like they have a tracknow that you can run on and that
that's cool, because that isZwift.
Is is again, if you're a runnerin Zwift, you're in the
minority.
Thousands and thousands andthousands of people use it for
cycling, for running, not a tonof people, but when you jump on
the track, even if there's fivepeople, there's still something
to chase.

(09:37):
You know, even if somebody'srunning 10 minute miles, you can
make it your goal to lap them acouple of a number of times
during an interval.
But that's another thing.
So a cheap treadmill setup,like you get a TV down there,
you implement Zwift or youimplement your music videos or
you implement watching like that, that right there, figuring
that out over a couple of weeks,you know that's a great entry

(10:00):
level and then you can talkabout, kind of the next step up
I would just say, from atreadmill perspective, it does
certainly matter what you'relooking to do with it.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
So a lot of people might be looking to do walk runs
or incline walks or that sortof thing, and I think, as tj
said, there are plenty of veryaffordable treadmills out there
now if you're getting intointervals still a lot of very
affordable treadmills now,depending on what kind of speed
you're running those intervalsat and how often you're doing
like if you're running thoseintervals north of 10 miles per
hour and or you're going to beputting on some heavier hills,

(10:31):
inclines, some treadmills haveincline limitations.
So I think the first questionis what are you looking for it
to do?
And, um, that is a is a bigfactor in terms of what you
might want to invest in.
Certain treadmills haveBluetooth connectivity If you do
want to connect it toheadphones or certain
experiences and things.
I would say for me I do havethe Peloton, and the Peloton

(10:55):
instructors in those classes aresuper engaging and they mix it
up and there's different classes.
You can join live classes.
I generally do most of mine ondemand, like after the fact,
just recorded classes.
It keeps track of what rankingyou are, either at that time or
all time that's completed.
That class, it's kind of fun.
Can you get in the top Xpercent of all the runners who

(11:17):
have done this?
Again, gamification, admittedly,probably feeding the ego a
little bit.
Take what you can get, um, Iwould say yeah, I would say that
that's huge for me.
Um, even if you don't want towatch TV, I've got a playlist on
Amazon music that when I'mdoing a workout, a hard workout,
it's kind of like a marathonplaylist sort of thing, where

(11:39):
I've got to dial myself up andneed some of that external
motivation or or uh, energy, um,motivation or energy, I will
put that on, kind of likewatching a concert.
In a sense, that's a big leverfor me.
I will say, if I'm doing easyruns, that's where I can do
audio books or podcasts or evenhave a conversation or things.

(12:01):
So, depending on what you'redoing, I think there's different
things that work better thanothers.
Again, easy workouts where I'mnot expending a lot of energy or
whatever, I have a little moremental capacity to engage in the
content.
And then I will say we'vetalked about this in one of the
earlier episodes but some of theboutique fitness going into a
place like an Orange TheoryFitness and being a part of a
community.

(12:21):
That in and of itself ismotivating, energizing, and they
do a great job of gamification.
So one of the things they do atOrange Theory is they track
where your heart rate is.
You've got a green zone.
Well, you've got a gray and ablue zone, which are kind of
your warm-up zones.
You've got a green zone, whichis your base zone.
Then you've got a yellow zone,which is your push zone, and
then a red zone which is kind ofyour all out zone.
So they track your, your pointsin each of these zones and so

(12:45):
you're competing with yourselfto try and get a number of
points.
And I was looking you know it'sfun to look back at the all time
statistics, or even you knowyour statistics for the year
things, how many they call themsplat points that you've gotten,
and even just in the class,kind of seeing how hard you're
working.
It's a as a measure ofaccountability.
There are some days where youfeel really good and you can
push it, and there are otherswhere you feel like you're

(13:07):
exerting a lot of energy butyou're still in the green and
you push yourself a little bitbecause you know what your heart
rate's capable of.
So I would say those are someof the primary levers that I've
used.
But to go back to the treadmilland I would say for Peloton,
you don't have to have a Pelotontreadmill to participate in the
Peloton classes.
You can do that on anytreadmill with an iPad.

(13:28):
I believe there is asubscription that's associated
with that, depending on how manytimes a week you're doing it,
you know, may or may not beworth it, and maybe there's
someone else in the householdthat you can share a
subscription with, sometimesjust to alleviate cost purposes.
But those are some of the waysI get through the winter.
I'm one who hates running outin the cold.

(13:49):
I absolutely hate it.
So I do a lot of my workindoors, for sure.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
I think to wrap up the treadmill discussion I think
there's a couple more.
You mentioned some reallyimportant elements as it relates
to the different types oftreadmills.
So you know, if you're somebodywho's looking to explore a lot
of incline work, NordicTrackmakes some phenomenal, high-end
work or high-elevation-capabletreadmills where you can get, I

(14:20):
think, north of 20, 25, 30%incline.
So if you're somebody who likesto hike and likes to climb,
nordictrack is a good solutionthere.
And then I think you know froman upper end, wahoo has just
released a treadmill that isphenomenal and you want to talk
about something that is veryakin to an outdoor experience.
So one of the things thattreadmills over the years have

(14:44):
not evolved on is theengineering around their motors.
So if you wanted a treadmill togo faster, typically your max
on most treadmills is going tobe 12 miles an hour, but if you
wanted it to go faster, you justadded a higher horsepower motor
.
Wahoo went and re-engineeredthe entire thing.
So in their motor I believethey're up to 15 miles an hour

(15:05):
thing.
So in their motor I believethey're up to 15 miles an hour.
And then not only that, if youconnect it to something like
Zwift, there is the ability forthe treadmill itself to adjust
based on the terrain.
You're running in the virtualenvironment.
So if you're coming around acurve, the treadmill will
actually tilt and rise inparallel with that experience on
the road.
So you can really recreate it.

(15:28):
And another good thing about alot of these applications again
with Zwift is you can alsoprogram your workouts and
intervals.
So on screen you can see okay,right here I need to set the
treadmill to 10 miles an hourand I'm going to do it for three
minutes and it's going to tellyou when to set it.
When to set it down, it canautomatically adjust the incline
.
What they've done with thatparticular treadmill In that

(15:49):
engineering redesign.
One of the things that's alwaysa struggle if you're running
especially short intervals ishow long does it take for the
treadmill to get to speed?
How long does it take for thetreadmill to drop back?
With this particular treadmillit's almost instantaneous.
And they have also implementedsomething called free run on
this particular treadmill where,based on where you are
physically on the tread itselffront, middle or back it adjusts

(16:16):
how fast the treadmill ismoving.
So if you're staying steady,it's at whatever pace you've set
it at.
If you want it to go faster,you get up towards the front of
it.
If you want to slow down, likeif you're just finishing an
interval, you get towards theback of the treadmill and it
automatically slows down.
So once you've figured out howto navigate that movement,
you're not slamming buttons upand down trying to get your
intervals right.
And then at the very top end ofthe treadmill world is woodway.

(16:39):
If you're looking to passsomething on to your children, I
think woodways are expected tohave 100,000-mile lifetimes, but
they're also $20,000, $30,000,$40,000 treadmills.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Like a grand piano.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, so that's kind of your soup to nuts of an
indoor treadmill experience.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, I can say I'm one of those that doesn't love
to run indoors never have been,I'd rather be in the cold and
the dark as long as I had abuddy with me, and Zwift was one
of the applications thatsingle-handedly got me through
one of those winters.
I think we even actually rantogether.
We did.
We figured out how to find eachother inside the application

(17:31):
and then set our treadmills.
I think we were on thetelephone too, so we could
communicate but set our treadsat the same speed and we're able
to actually run the sameterrain together.
So do you guys know, is Zwift?
Is that a one?
I know I bought a little like areader device, but I can't
remember if that's asubscription base or not.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
The device isn't a subscription base.
I think Zwift does have sometype of subscription.
I know the device you'retalking about.
It goes on the very back ofyour treadmill.
You can buy it actually off oftheir website.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
I think it's made by north pole okay um, and it just
uses infrared sensors but it'sprobably one of those two, three
, four dollar a month thingsit's oh yeah, it's not like
peloton which is probably morein your 30, and that thing
you're talking about is lessthan 100, so you buy a treadmill
for 600 bucks.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
You throw that on the back and all of a sudden you're
good and that's with nobluetooth capability on your
treadmill and, frankly, peopleare getting rid of treadmills
for free all the time.
Yeah, you look on any facebookmarketplace.
Just come pick it up, get itout of my house, I don't care
and most, more often than not,unless it's a walking treadmill,
those will suffice.
you may need to learn how toadjust the tension of the belt.

(18:25):
You may need to lube the belt,but even if you have to replace
a belt there, it's only a couplehundred dollars, so that's
another way to go about findingsomething.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
So we've talked about the treadmill and some of the
things that you would use or theways to set those up or some of
the best ones.
Talk to us about some of thethose up or some of the best
ones.
Talk to us about some of theother applications or some of
the other gadgets that you swearby and that either one of you
use on a regular basis.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
I think the big one we have to talk about.
I think we can all talk aboutthis because we've all had
experiences Strava I would go asfar as to say it's probably the
most positive social mediaplatform out there and I think
it is absolutely a social mediaplatform.
I don't think you can sell itshort.
I don't think it'shalf-stepping.
There's a lot of people that Iknow that that's their only form

(19:16):
of engagement over social mediais through Strava, obviously,
and they know who they are.
You can tell who they arebecause they're extremely active
on the platform, commenting andkudos and everything, because
all of that social energy goesinto Strava.
But you know, for anybody outthere that's looking for a
community, that's looking formotivation, you know, however

(19:37):
you find it, that's the perfectplatform to start.
There's so many features andbenefits built into Strava.
I mean we could talk for twohours on just its benefits, but
instead of me going deep intothose elements and it can kind
of flow back to me you've bothhad a lot of engagement with
that platform.
I'd love to hear from either ofyou your favorite things about

(20:01):
it or even some of the thingsyou don't like about it.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, I'll jump in.
I was on Strava when I firststarted cycling I think before I
did.
I got into it from from arunning standpoint, but probably
one of the most positiveplatforms there are.
I mean you could join groups.
Everyone is, you know, really.
I think that's one thing I loveabout the running community.
Even at the high school level,it's like everyone wants to just

(20:24):
beat their best, right.
It's just a very encouragingsport in general.
So a lot of the times you'reusing it for motivation and when
you see other people's runsit's even more like there's.
You know, one of our goodfriends had his PR on the
marathon and it was just like tosee them get out there and get
after it.
It gets you motivated to getout there and get after it.

(20:44):
But the ability to like andcomment, the ability to add
pictures and capture specialmoments or certain sceneries I
normally don't have my phonewith me, but occasionally I'll
do.
I've used that feature.
And then I like the ability tojoin challenges, right.
So they have these monthlychallenges that are sponsored by
generally pretty large brands.
It's like join the Brooks 5K,run a 5K in November, right, and

(21:07):
you join all these challengesand then sometimes you get
discount coupons and otherthings, but it's just done a
really good job and then, fromthe overall, it does a great
recap at the end of the year.
It keeps all your stats,mileage, vertical fee and things
like that.
So it's a pretty all-inclusiveplatform.
That um from if you're callingit social media, it doesn't have

(21:29):
a lot of the uh negativity thatkind of goes on.
It's very positive.
It's very encouraging and very,very easy to use.
Frankly, yeah, and it syncsyeah, it is very easy to use it
syncs.
You don't have to uploadanything, it just automatically
works with watches and thingswhich maybe we can hit on next,
um, I would say for me uh, yeah,you guys hit on a lot of this.

(21:51):
What's cool about it is it's abunch of like-minded people who
have that specific thing, so youdon't feel like you're bragging
when you post your runs, justlike.
Again, it's automaticallysynced and it uploads where.
If you were to upload your runsto facebook or something,
everyone would be like oh lookat you, you think you're better
than everybody else, or whateverthat happens to be.
I think it's a safe space,honestly to kind of share what

(22:15):
you're doing from a fitnessperspective.
So I really appreciated that.
I mean you hit on some of thefeatures that I would call out
too.
I think the challenges are fun,keeps it competitive.
There's certainly we've talkeda lot about the competitiveness
and in a sense, you aresurrounding yourself with those
people in a certain way.
You see other people doingthings.
If you're more competitive,there are things called segments

(22:35):
, where it's crowns that you cango out and run this part of the
road, try and run it as fast asyou possibly can and see how
you stack up to others who haverun it fast.
You could be competing againstthem.
You could be competing againstyourself in prior time.
So that's a really fun elementof the platform.
Yeah, I think just overall,it's a.

(22:56):
It's a positive place tocelebrate fitness, um with, with
like-minded individuals yeah,yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
So, and you know for my input to add a little bit
more.
I do really like the segmentaspect of it.
I don't do as much of itanymore, but to kind of drill
down on exactly how that works,because it is kind of fun.
So imagine you have aneighborhood and you run in your
neighborhood, you run thiscircle right, you have a half
mile loop around yourneighborhood and you just run it
over and over and over again.
And we have a friend in Marionwho does this.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Shout out.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah Right, and you want to see if anybody has ever
run that part of the road fasterthan you, provided they have
the platform.
So you go out and you run yourhalf mile loop and then you can
go in the app Once that'scomplete.
You go to that run and youcreate a segment, and you create
a start and an end point onthat loop and it will go back
historically and find anybodywho's ever uploaded to Strava,

(23:50):
who's run that particular partof the road, and you can see how
you stack up, which is reallycool.
And then, of course, once thesegment's established, you can
then go in the app and browsedifferent segments and be like,
oh, I've run that or I run thatarea, they've run that fast.
Oh, I think I can beat them.
And then, of course, like youwould, it does segment it by
gender and it segments it by ageand it segments it by weight.

(24:11):
So you have those threedifferent things.
And then there's also somethingcalled local legends, which is
cool because it doesn't takespeed into it at all.
It's just how much you've run asegment over the last 90 days.
So that's something that peoplecan compete with and have fun.
But you did talk about syncingand for that to work.
Of course, with all of theseapps Strava, mapmyrun, runna,

(24:38):
there's Nike Plus you can trackyour runs using your phone.
None of us run with our phones,typically because that's our
time to kind of get away fromthe noise and the chaos, and
we're experienced enough at thispoint that it's not something
that we feel necessary to carry.

(24:59):
I think females, especially ifthey run early at morning, late
at night, they'll run with theirphones at all time, and I
completely understand why theywould do that.
And I think it's especially ifthey run early at morning, late
at night, they'll run with theirphones at all time, and I
completely understand why theywould do that and I think it's a
good idea, especially having a10-year-old daughter and a wife
who's going to get back intorunning soon.
But anyways, I think one of thebig things there is watches, so
that's the other way you cantrack these runs If you're not

(25:19):
using your phone.
In your app you have a watch andthere's a couple of different
brands or brands that have madetheir names in the watch space
over the years.
Some have started out in thehardware game and faded.
So you know Garmin has alwaysbeen a player.
Polar was a big player early on.
Nike actually played in thehardware space for a little bit,

(25:40):
and even Motorola with the MotoActive back in 2011, something
to that effect and then, asthings have evolved, nike's
gotten out of the hardware game.
Motorola only had one device.
Garmin has continued to innovate.
Polar has has stayed in thespace, but isn't necessarily
dominant.
They're probably third orfourth right now.

(26:01):
And then you have Suunto, whohad a peak probably third or
fourth right now.
And then you have Suunto, whohad a peak six or seven years
ago and I don't think has put asmuch time and effort into that
part of their business.
And then Coros has probablymoved definitively into the
number two spot, with Garminleading the way in terms of
wearable devices.
Now we can get real detailed onthese devices and what their

(26:28):
capabilities are and how you canuse them.
I don't know.
You know both of you guys haveGarmin watches.
I don't know if you want toexpound on your experiences with
them or you want me to dive inopen to whatever.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
I think it's important to kind of I think the
watch depends on what you'redoing, right?
I think we've all talked aboutthat.
There are ones that I wouldprobably recommend as entry
level, like the 235, the 225.
There's certain ones, like forkids, I think there's the 40 or
something.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
They have a new one out that's specifically for kids
.
I can't remember.
The thing is, though, it usesthe Garmin kids app.
Okay, so like that data.
I don't believe transfers.
So if you have this, this kid'swatch, when you're seven, eight
, nine, 10, and then you decideto switch to the, it doesn't
mesh, doesn't mesh.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah.
So I think, like when I used tohave, I think, a two 35 and it
did everything I wanted to atthe time.
And then the 945 came out theGarmin 945, and that had music.
Now, I could sync my Spotifyplaylist and so I'd have my
watch and I have my headphones,which is another one we want to
cover.

(27:37):
I had my headphones and I couldsync it to my watch and then I
could literally play songs frommy watch, which was awesome, uh,
and so I used the nine 45 for awhile.
That was one of the firstfeatures.
And then I got into the Phoenixseries, which I would say is
probably their Cadillac, theirflagship model, and that's
probably.
It does everything from youknow, deep diving and aviation

(28:00):
and you know, um, but it's a,it's a thousand dollar watch,
yeah, right.
So, um, all the garmin productsare very reliable.
I mean, we all I run withpeople that have garmin's that
are from all different phasesand all different ages, and we
always end up within half atenth of each other for the most
part, even over a six, seven,eight, eight mile stretch.
So, uh, they're all pretty good.

(28:22):
I think some of the, the nicerones, maybe catch a little
quicker from a GPS standpoint.
But depending on whether youwant music when you run or
podcasts that you want to beable to actually load on your
watch, battery life could besomething that's important.
Again, I think the Phoenix willlast a week or more, where some
of the other watches will maybelast a couple of days.

(28:44):
So battery life functionalitybut really any of the Garmin
lineup can, if you're just wantto record runs and sync to
Strava just to kind of trackprogress right, cause that's the
gamification, it's how am Idoing, am I making incremental
progress, and so forth, and soon.
I don't think you can really gowrong.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
I think, one thing that I want to.
I forgot to mention a company,and you've had experience here,
so I want to take it and twistit Apple.
Obviously, apple came into thegame, started implementing in
collaboration with Nike Early on.
They've since released a coupleof watches that are a little
bit more fitness focused, withthe Ultra and the Ultra 2.
I know you haven't worn theUltra stuff, but there for a

(29:25):
while you were.
You experienced both sides ofthings.
So you know, I think there arepositives and negatives to both,
and I'd love to hear thatassessment from you.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, I would say, you know Apple was great and if
you have an Apple watch, thatworked very, very well.
Also, I think you know, from aprecision perspective and when I
say precision we're talkingabout a hundredth give or take
in a mile, which seems a littlebit ridiculous.
That's where I found a littlemore reliability in the Garmin.

(29:56):
But for 99% of use cases outthere, the Apple is very
sufficient.
I would say the Apple is asmuch similarly reliable and, as
Apple is just in general verygood with experience, that's
kind of a usually very intuitiveexperience.
Some of the things that I foundthere were things that

(30:17):
connected with the Apple Watchthat I could use that were even
a little easier to do thanGarmin, like, for example,
intervals.
You kind of do more live versushaving to like pre-program it
into the watch.
Um, so you know, I've gone backto the Garmin since having the
Apple watch on, but I also, um,you know, I think what's what's
interesting is they both kind ofconverged over time.

(30:39):
Uh, you know, for for a whileyour, your Garmin watch was you
only had that available in avery sporty kind of look and it
was, you know, more functionalbased, and I think you had your
Apple, which was experiencebased and had some function with
it.
I think Apple has done a greatjob kind of closing the gap on
the functionality side, and Ithink Garmin has actually done a

(31:01):
really good job on the fashionand experience side.
I think it's the Garmin Venuemaybe that's one of their new
ones that looks very much like awatch, a nicer watch that you
would wear, but has all the samecapabilities.
So I think Apple is also a realplayer.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
I think one of the big things talking about
wearables in general a realplayer.
I think one of the big thingsyou know talking about wearables
in general that everybody'sadopted is measuring your health
overall right and all of thesedifferent bodily metrics.
You know, one of the thingsthat Garmin does to
differentiate their watches.

(31:41):
A lot of these watches, likeyou've seen with Apple phones,
are very incremental from ahardware perspective.
They're just changing littlethings, like from the Garmin
Fenix 7 to the 8, there was ascreen change that went from the
traditional MIPS display to anOLED display, but the big change
was the heart rate sensor, theoptical heart rate sensor that
you wear on your wrist.

(32:02):
There has been a lot ofdiscussion, especially early on.
With heart rate sensors theinaccuracy could be wild.
Whether this is years ago,whether it was Apple or Garmin,
it has gotten better.
You know I used to wear a heartrate strap exclusively with
this particular watch.
I haven't over the last coupleof months.
But one of the main reasons forthem wanting to improve the

(32:24):
accuracy of the heart ratesensor is they want to measure
all of these things.
Now that does require you wearyour watch 24 seven with with
Garmin.
That's great If you're notrunning every day.
If you're running every day,you'll get about a week,
especially if you're using musichere and there.
If you're not, you can get amonth where with Apple even with
the Ultra 2, you might get twodays.
So you're recharging itconstantly but you have to wear

(32:48):
this to sleep.
Garmin has features like bodybattery and I think most of
these, the top-end watches, haveall of that feature set.
Like you said, with some of theentry-level Garmin stuff, it's
going to track your run.
It might allow you to dosimplified intervals where
they're very fixed.
You can do 400 repeats orthousand meter repeats, but you
can't do like 400.
You can't do a ladder two, four, six, eight, 10.

(33:10):
Um, they're not necessarilyprogrammable.
They don't have music, butanyways, back to it.
They want to measure yourresting heart rate at night.
They want to measure your heartrate variability, which is a
measurement of how recovered youare.
They want to measure your O2saturation to make sure that
your oxygen levels are at theright level.
They want to measure that to beable to deliver you predictions

(33:32):
on your readiness for thatparticular day.
How ready are you to take on aparticular type of workout?
What is the strenuousness levelof that particular workout for
the day?
Does it align with where youare physiologically?
And then, once you've executedagainst the workout, taking into
account all of thesemeasurements, after the workout,
how quickly are you recovering?

(33:52):
When can you hit the next one?
So this is all interwoven intothis, like, ultimately, what
will be AI powered predictionfor what you should do to
achieve the goals that you kindof input in there?

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Imagine, for a lot of people that can be very
overwhelming Talk about.
I think those of us who havedone it for a long time have our
kind of opinions on theimportance of a lot of that and
or the accuracy of that.
So maybe talk that through withsome people who might be
overwhelmed by all of the thingsthat they're getting.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, I think that they try to make it as simple as
possible and it's notnecessarily they try to just
give you a score.
I think what we found, what Ifound is that, while these might
not be extremely accurate soexample being, if you have a
particular HRV, first of allthat's a.

(34:45):
That is a really interestingmetric in and of itself, because
your HRV average is waydifferent from your HRV peak and
it just varies so drasticallyfrom person to person that you
can't necessarily, you know,just because I'm 45, a 45 year
old male that weighs 160 pounds,and this guy's a 40, you know,
and we're the same level offitness our HRVs could be wildly

(35:08):
different.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
There's a genetic element to it.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah absolutely, and you don't want to go Google and
say, oh, my HRV is 65.
And it's like, oh, it should be118.
Just so you know, hrv is ameasure of the variability
between the beats of your heart,so it's measured in
milliseconds, and the morerecovered you are, the higher
that variability should be.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
Isn't it somewhat of a?
Explain this a little bit.
My understanding is there's alittle bit of a measure of that
as kind of your reaction time ina sense to like.
Is that like, if your?

Speaker 2 (35:42):
body's fatigued, it's not going to be able to
appropriately react from a heartpumping perspective.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Right, your, your energy is focused on rebuilding
the, the, the damaged musclecells or whatever, versus when
you are recovered, your, yourbody is.
There's going to be a higherrate of variability, again,
based on kind of what you'redoing.
So there, yeah, that'sabsolutely true.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
And the higher the better the higher, the better.
So you've kind of so.
The watch now has all that, butyou're spending a lot of time
talking about recovery.
Might be a great pivot.
So there's recovery is a bigthing now, right, everyone was
all about let's run, let's getour exercise and let's do as
much as we can.
A lot of the newer science it'sabout recovery and there's all

(36:31):
these wearables for recovery.
So we both have the Oura Ring,which does a lot of the stuff
that you just talked about, andyou have the Whoop Band, and I
actually had the Whoop Band forseveral years as well, and so
these devices are mainly justrecovery devices.
So either one of you talk aboutyou know your experience and

(36:53):
how important recovery is andand how you've kind of
integrated that into the wholecycle of how you take take care
of yourself.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
I think for me the benefit has become again.
You know, I wouldn't say thatanything is perfectly accurate,
I don't think anything, Iwouldn't rely on anything as
medical grade.
I think some of these are veryclose.
There's a guy on YouTube who isa scientist who tests the
efficacy of these and hasactually done a pretty good job
at identifying which ones arecloser to medical grade versus

(37:24):
not.
But anyways, for me I thinkit's interesting because I think
you can unfortunately make it aself-fulfilling prophecy.
Like, for instance, if you werenone the wiser and you had a
rough night, you just didn'tsleep well, you could probably
wake up and get through the day.
But if you wake up and you seethat your recovery score is 40,

(37:45):
that might negatively reinforceyour behavior.
Be like oh I'm tired, myrecovery score was 40.
Whereas if you didn't know.
On the flip side, though, Ifind that it helps me diagnose
myself to the best of my ability.
So I was having so for me whenI experienced COVID.

(38:08):
I get crazy body aches and I wasexperiencing something that
felt really systemic a couple ofweeks ago.
Oddly enough, it had kind ofcrossed over, so I was having
some joint pain and then it gotreally severe for a couple of
days and I didn't know what itwas it could.

(38:29):
It was it my workload?
Was I just doing too much?
Was I not moving enough andgetting good blood flow?
Well, my ring.
What I noticed was that myresting heart rate was elevated.
Seven beats a minute was upthat way for like 10 days.
Well, if it's that elevated forthat long a period of time, my
body is obviously fightingsomething systemic.
It's not just a joint flare upor something like that.

(38:50):
So it helps in that regard.
And then it does I think itdoes for me.
Help me to focus on.
I want to get that good score,so help me to focus on getting
good sleep and waking uprefreshed.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Gamification.
I love the gamification of it.
I'm also a what gets measuredgets managed.
I enjoy data, as you'll findover the episodes, so it's been
wonderful for me.
I've been wearing the whoopband for probably four years now
, I would guess Prettyreligiously.
Just wear it all the time andthere's a little thing.

(39:30):
You clip on the top to rechargethe battery.
You don't even have to take itoff.
I'm really debating going tothe aura ring because I'm
starting to get like having bothwrists and I've got a silicone
ring anyway.
To go to something like that, Ithink what's interesting, tj.
I wanted to point out what yousaid.
Not necessarily medical grade,but I think the value of these
things are.
Not necessarily is my hrv 65,but what days are?

(39:52):
Is it it lower and is it higher?

Speaker 2 (39:53):
And it's the trend.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
So, as long as there's a consistent baseline
and you're measuring whetherit's better or worse, a lot of
times I'll notice very muchnotice patterns in my behavior
in the evenings and what myscore is in the in the morning.
So sleep a huge indicator Ifyou have a drink of alcohol or
two, if you eat late at night,another one that's really

(40:15):
interesting.
So what's cool about it isbeing able to just observe.
And then the depth of yoursleep.
How much are you getting deepand REM sleep, which is true
kind of recovery type sleep,versus light sleep, and those
two things, two different things.
Light sleep is more for memory.
Deep and REM, if I'mremembering correctly, deep and
REM is more kind of true kind ofrecovery and I think even

(40:39):
within deep and REM there'sdifferent purposes of those and
so there's just a lot offascinating things in there.
That I think the awareness forme I've absolutely loved.
And again, with a consistentbaseline, you can, to the extent
that you have interest in doingso, continue to optimize your
routines, to be at your best andyou've said this in prior
episodes maximize your energyunits each day.

(41:02):
I had the Whoop initially andwhat I really loved about that
was the journaling and thequestions, so you can set that
particular app up.
And it really did help with thepatterns, right, it was like it
asked me a question, you know,did I have alcohol tonight?
And like, for me, sugar, andand I mean you can, you can set
it up to ask you any questions.
So, um, you could be like, didI have sex that night?
Like you can figure out whatthings are driving and then at

(41:25):
the end you would see, okay,well, here's what my scores were
and here's how I answered thesequestions and there was a
general kind of catch-all.
So for me, wearing the whoopreally helped me identify those
patterns and over time I kind ofknow it's like, yeah, if I
drink alcohol or I, you know, ifI have some sugar late at night
, of course that's going toimpact me, Like we all know that
, but to what extent it wasprobably it was very dramatic

(41:47):
and and so I really enjoyed thewhoop.
My, my whole thing for switchingis the same thing you talk
about.
I don't even have my watch on.
Like I don't like wearing stuff, Um, and so that that was the
main reason why I switched, butI think it's it's important to
know we all have a focus onrecovery.
We're all monitoring recovery.
We're all responding to ourbodies.
We don't although we have a lotgoing on, we don't operate in

(42:08):
that let's sleep four hours anight and just go.
Now there are nights that thathappens, but for for the most
part, we're very dialed in onour recovery.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
I think.
I think what you both said isimportant.
It also allows you.
You know, we talked, I said Imentioned out of sight, out of
mind, right, had I not known, myrecovery was 40, maybe I would
have of of operated better.
But I think, conversely, youcan't run away from the bullshit
anymore, meaning that you can't.
You know, if you have four orfive drinks in a night, your HRV

(42:40):
is going to be through thefloor and your heart rate is
going to be through the roof andit validates, like you know, I
think at times, if you have anissue and we can do an episode
on food, which I think a lot ofus have struggled with, I will
say I have in a major way, youtry to ignore the impact.
Oh, you know, cause, whenyou're in your teens and your
twenties and your thirties, youcan kind of eat whatever you

(43:01):
want and and I, and, and notnecessarily you can't
necessarily avoid weight gain.
My weight's always fluctuateddrastically, but you don't
necessarily feel the physicalimpact the next day.
You know, if you have five orsix drinks when you're 23, if
you've built up a tolerance,those first two, three, four
years, four drinks is not goingto affect a senior in college,

(43:23):
like you know.
That's like you know, having alight breakfast.
Same thing with eating food atmidnight and snacking on Cheetos
.
You're not going to feel thatin the morning when you're 27.
But and I think we try toignore that as adults Like you
try to block it out and man toyour point, like if I eat after

(43:46):
6.30 and I go to bed, my heartrate is going to be four or five
beats higher, resting becausemy body's digesting that food.
And if your body's digesting itfood, what isn't it doing?
It's not repairing itself.
Same thing with alcohol, butit's multiplied, it's way worse
and it's trying to, you know,process that alcohol through
your system instead of doingwhat it's supposed to do and

(44:06):
helping your body recover andget back to that stasis.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
And I find what's interesting.
It's nothing that's likerevolutionary that you haven't
heard before.
I mean, this may be news tosome people, but like yeah,
you've heard alcohol's not greatfor your body, or eating late
at night you kind of hear thesethings, but it makes it so real
and so obvious that, to yourpoint, you can't ignore it.
It's not like, eh, you can'tsweep it under the rug when you
see that, like okay, I'm eatinglate and my body is not able to

(44:34):
get into a deep sleep becauseit's digesting this food and
it's not recovering.
For me, it just changes theaccountability.
So I was going to ask aboutanother app City Strides.
You didn't talk at all aboutthat.
That's been something thatyou've used a lot to gamify and

(44:55):
keep things fun.
I think you mentioned it, maybein a prior episode, but talk
about that a little bit.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Oh, absolutely.
I think City Strides isphenomenal and you both have a
lot of extensive experience withCity Strides.
So this is back in July of 2021, maybe A buddy of mine, the
Unicorn, maybe a buddy in mybuddy of mine, the unicorn um,
he's lived in a particular citymost of his life, or at least
his adult life carmel, indiana,and he would always take me on
these unique routes and we'djust be running random places in

(45:21):
carmel.
He has a very unique internalcompass, so he always knows
where he is and he can go offand complete random tangents and
always end up back where hestarted, whereas if I went off
on a tangent I'd end up in adifferent country.
Um, but he's really good atthat and so for a while I'm like
why don't we just run everystreet in the in the city?
And we found this app calledcity strides, and what it does

(45:41):
is it takes GPS data, um fromall of your prior runs.
So whatever platform you're onStrava, garmin, you know all the
ones I just mentioned we justtalked about and it imports it
into this application and thenit creates a map for you and it
shows you on the map what youhave run and what you haven't
run.
And then there's also and acouple other elements, so

(46:02):
there's also a list in thatparticular city of the streets
that you've run in the streetsyou haven't run.
And then what you can do is ithas a route creator so you can
bring up your map of completedstreets and you can draw a route
of the streets that you haven'tcompleted yet.
Then you can export that andimport it into your watch and
you can go out and run thosestreets.
So you know what a phenomenalway to keep things fun and

(46:27):
interesting.
But both of you have each donea city.
You've done three or four um,and you've done Westfield.
I think I'd love to hear youguys kind of talk through what
you loved about those, becauseyou had wildly different
experiences in the two differentcities that you ran.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Yeah, I, uh, it's it was.
It took me through anotherwinter.
You know Zwift had one winter.
This was another winter.
Um, and it was great, like Iwould get down and you'd create
a five, six-mile route and you'dhave to do some backtracking,
but you got those segments andyou just kind of worked your way
across the city.
It was great, it actually madepurpose and it showed progress

(47:06):
and I was excited.
I've hit a bunch of small townsand actually when we did a I
think we're doing the GA 5K, meand my buddy Beal we did two
towns back to back.
We had one that was like 15miles, another one was like 13
and we went back to back onthose.
But it is a phenomenal app thefact that you can draw your

(47:26):
route out, you can export it,you load it into your watch and
then I go to my watch, we get to, you know, we drive to the
starting point.
I hit start, it recognizedwhere I'm at and it says, okay,
go.
And then it'll say turn right.
And you'll turn right and thenturn left, like it literally
beeps at you and directs you andI don't know which watch that
that you need in order for thatto work, but, um, it just makes

(47:47):
it a lot of fun.
And then you have your.
You know this, I've done thismany cities and I've done this
many roads and, um, where I'm at, one of the challenges was
there was just a lot of dogs.
So we uh, um, we had that to tokind of deal with.
But I got to see some amazingplaces.
I grew up in this town of25,000 and there were roads I've

(48:08):
never been down and there werelike brick roads from a hundred
years old.
Again, that exploration of aplace I've been my whole life
was really, really cool.
Yeah, wonderful gamification.
And I think it's 1,338 streetswas I remember our latest.
And, what's cool, theWestfield's growing a lot, and

(48:32):
so every couple of months youcheck back in, there's more
streets to do, and so you kindof keep up with it.
But, gosh, we would go out andI feel like it made the miles go
faster.
Right, it would be.
You know we go out, run seven,eight miles and it would just,
you know, we're thinking, okay,how many streets is it?
And it's just a fun, again, afun thing to occupy your mind,
so you're not just going outthere and putting one foot in

(48:54):
front of the other for 10,000steps, right, and that's kind of
the monotony you're trying tobreak up and it just did a
fantastic job of doing that.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
It is kind of fun in those cities that are growing,
because it doesn't always keepup.
So there is and I forget thesystem I have to remember
there's a particular systemonline where new roads are
entered into this governmentdatabase and then individuals
can go and this is all done it'sa kind of a labor of love

(49:22):
through the community that'sbehind City Strides.
They can go and they can makesure these roads populate on the
application itself and eventogether.
I know we took Trent once.
Trent was down at Westfieldlike oh, oh, let's go hit these
roads, and it's a neighborhoodthat's not even up yet, it's
just dirt.
So we're running like these,you know, cleared dirt, mud pits

(49:42):
, um, that will be roads one day.
Um, and we have to makedecisions.
Todd and I at times will show upplaces and like 70 of it's
paved and it's kind of like gosh, we're nine miles in, but we're
here.
We might as well get theseother four miles, because are we
really going to drive?
That is the one that gets to bekind of after a while.
A little bit daunting is as youget towards the ends of these

(50:05):
cities.
You're driving like 20, 30minutes each way to get to your
starting point and we try tokeep it authentic or honest.
You know you could go out andpark and run a cul-de-sac for a
half mile and then stop your run, but the way we do it, you know
it's typically a five or sixmile run and we're doing
backtracking.
We want to get a little bitmore out of it than that.

(50:26):
So, really, one of my favoriteapps, one of the other ones that
we've been using, especiallythis year you want to talk about
gamification is Smash Run.
I don't think a lot of peopleuse that, but it's a really cool
platform and I don't know,trent, if you've used that a lot

(50:47):
this year for the streak.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, you got it for me for Christmas one year, and
that was probably three yearsago.
So yet another system thatimports data from all the other
systems and you get badges.
And you get badges for runningon different continents and
badges for running before thesun's up and badges for streaks,

(51:10):
and it tells you every time youlog in you're on streak 350
days, and so I generally hitthat one once a week.
It talks about all time, soit's easy for me to see how many
miles that I run in 2024, 23,22.
So it's a really easy way tonavigate all your data.
It has your PRs for all thedifferent distances, but I think

(51:32):
the badge system is super coolit's pretty.
Why don't you tell them aboutyour favorite badge on smash run
?
You were talking about it formultiple years and we finally
got that badge.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
It was solstice.
Yes, yes, we finally got thesolstice badge.
Um, I've I've gotten most ofthe badges on there and they're
really cool.
You want to talk about againgamification and making it fun,
like if you go and you gatherall these badges, it's pretty
wild, but solstice is reallycool because you have to run.
You have to start your runbefore sunrise on the day of

(52:05):
summer solstice and you have torun after sundown same day, and
you also can do winter solstice,which I think is coming up
really soon.
Yeah, um, where it's?
It's very similar and you haveto run like in those same
windows.
So todd and I this last summer.
That one, yeah, the summer oneyeah, ran um on both sides of it

(52:28):
and got the solstice badge, sonow I'm gonna have to see when
winter solstice is coming up youguys continue your conversation
so, um, those are some, someapps that you can download, I
think most of those.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
I believe city strides is a like a 499 app, and
I think smash run is like youcan do it for free, but it's
like 60 a year.
Yeah it's like 60 a year.
So, as you can see, there'sjust I want to get on a
treadmill and I'm just going torun, or I'm going to go out and
run.
There's a lot of different waysto make things interesting, to
just continue to keep thingsexciting, and we just keep

(53:06):
trying to find new ways to dothat.
What about headphones?
Oh yeah, you guys have.
I believe you guys wear thesame headphones, a little bit
different than what I do, butwhy don't you talk about that?
And then I'd also like to talkbefore we leave is about shoe
technology too I think, that's adifferent element.
So I have the uh, the shocks, um, that go over the ear, um, they

(53:27):
have been fantastic.
I I love them.
I've tried a lot of differentthings.
I have little ears, so the onesthat go in and turn and you put
actually in your ears neverhave stayed in my entire life
I've had ones that cover theears.
The shocks are just incrediblebecause they sit outside and
they use like vibration of thebones and so you can hear

(53:49):
everything around you.
But they have really goodquality.
They have really good quality,they have great battery life.
I can't say enough good thingsand, frankly, there's been some
races where they're the onlytype of headphones you can wear,
depending on what the race is.
I think that was Hood to Coastwas that way.
So love, love, love my Shox.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
I would agree and if you guys remember, I wore the
very first pair of Shox for that100 miler.
They were corded um back then,yeah, yeah and and uh, yeah,
that was a technology that waswhen the company was in its
infancy.
I'm wearing the shocks open air, open air fit now.
So they've had, they've gonefrom around the back of the head

(54:28):
to the bone.
Conduction um, true wireless tonow.
Open air is the newest truewireless technology where it
kind of is a speaker sittingover your ear.
So it's a little bit different.
Those just came out a couple ofmonths ago and I've been
wearing those.
But same same.
They stay where they'resupposed to stay.
They allow you to hear yourexternal environment.

(54:49):
They're plenty loud enough.
You know, watches are changing alittle bit.
This is a pet peeve of mine,but today we were running and we
had, you know, had it we've.
We had a conversation and wehad kind of paused for a little
bit and these newer watches thisone in particular, the new
Phoenix, has a speaker on it soI was able to play music through

(55:11):
it.
What I do like is that I can dothat in a pinch if I do want to
listen to music.
I don't have my headphones.
I also like that it's not loudbecause, contrary to your
opinion, runners, no one wantsto hear your music when you're
running.
So those of you wearing likeloud wearable speakers, if
you're on a remote trail byyourself or with your buddies
and you guys have agreed on themusic, totally cool, um, but
please not on busy trailsblasting as loud as you possibly

(55:34):
can.
But yeah, I love the shocks,open air stuff for sure.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
I've worn the Powerbeat Pros that are kind of
over the ear.
They kind of go around.
I've had those for a few yearsnow and just worked really well.
I haven't had any issues thefirst generation some battery
life issues after a couple ofyears, which I think is pretty
common with tech these days.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
but uh, the most recent ones I've got, maybe a
year ago, have been really solid, very reliable, good quality
audio and I know there's a a tonof options out there yeah, I
think, um, you know the onlyother real area of tech before
we jump into shoes, which couldbe quite the rabbit hole with
the innovation over the lastcouple of years.

(56:15):
There's two other elements thatwe haven't really talked about
it, and I think those relate tothe approach to training.
So we've talked a lot abouttime metrics, right Seconds and
minutes and intervals anddistance and things like that,
and this speed for this duration, you that, and this speed for
this duration, you know, or thispace for this duration.

(56:35):
That's one way to approachtraining.
There are three other typicalmethods right.
One is RPE, which is rate ofperceived exertion, and it's
basically it comes with practice, but it's kind of knowing where
you are based on how you feel.
That's something that is reallyhard to.
It's like perfect pitch.
It's really hard to get off thejump, but once you've run for a
period of time, you kind ofknow.

(56:56):
The other two ways to measureyour running is one, heart rate
zones, which is a big thing youhear a lot about now.
Zone two is back in vogue andtraining in that particular zone
.
So heart rate zones areestablished a number of
different ways, but typicallyit's your max heart rate.
So figuring that out, and theneach zone is a percentage of

(57:19):
that maximum heart rate, and soheart rate straps are the most
efficacious way to measure heartrate and a lot of the higher
end ones, like the Garmin HRMPro, those also measure other
metrics.
Most of the metrics aren'tgoing to be utilized by normal
people Vertical oscillation,left-right balance.

(57:41):
So which are you favoring?
A foot Stride rate?
Stride rate can help they useit.
There's an accelerometer in theactual heart rate monitor
around the chest strap itself,so that also adds some metrics.
So that's one thing.
If you're into heart ratetraining, your coach is into
heart rate training, or if youdo, if you are interested and
you want to understand.

(58:02):
You know Trent mentioned itvery, very briefly in the first
episode as it relates to stridelength and cadence.
You know you want to improveyour cadence first and then, as
you get stronger and as you getfaster, you want to improve your
cadence first and then, as youget stronger and as you get
faster, you want to take thatcadence and lengthen your stride
out.
But you know, if you don't havesomething that allows you to
measure that cadence accurately,accurately, you can't

(58:23):
necessarily address that problem.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
So talk about just heart, the heart rate training
for a second before you jumpinto the last scenario, you're
going to go.
There are some benefits to thatright, because you do find
yourself in differentenvironments.
You're running, maybe,different undulations, you're
running on different terrains,you're running in different
temperatures.
Talk about the benefits ofdoing a heart rate-based.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Yeah, I mean, it really is keeping yourself
honest, and I think it's superbeneficial for runners just
beginning, even though it seemslike it's a little bit more
difficult.
You know, one of the thingsthat I think you know we talked
about kind of literally walkingbefore you run and working your
way into it slowly.
I think our egos push us toexert more effort than we
probably should be exerting, andone of the things that I think

(59:09):
puts people in a position tofail right away with running is
the only type of running they'veever experienced was on the
playground when they were infourth grade.
Run as hard as you can becausewe're playing chase, we're
playing hide and seek, andthat's just not it.
You know, if you, if you gobasic, it's really people still
call out the 80 20 rule, youknow, and, and as it relates if
you get nuanced about it, as itrelates to that effort of

(59:32):
running, that should probably beabout 5% of what you do every
week, and so what the heart ratetraining does is it keeps you
honest.
If you get to a point of fitnesswhere, let's say, an
eight-minute mile is zone four,so we'll call it like a high
anaerobic or tempo work, well,that's great if you're running

(59:56):
on a flat surface.
But again to your point, ifyou're running up a seven
percent grade, you're way overyour skis if you're running an
eight minute mile, so it helpskeep you honest and keep you
where you should be, because thegoal is that you want to get
the most efficient work you canwe've talked a lot about
recovery in this episode right,and you want to get the most
efficient work you can We'vetalked a lot about recovery in
this episode right, and you wantto get the biggest bang for

(01:00:18):
your buck.
If you can get the same aerobicadaptation running at 70% effort
that you can running at 90%effort, why would you ever run
at 90% effort?
It's just an ego thing at thatpoint.
Now, that's oversimplified,right?
You're going to get differentadaptations at 90% that you are
going to get at 70, but let'ssay it's a difference between 70

(01:00:38):
and 73.
You're still in the same zone,but it's going to take longer.
It just is how it is, and theolder you get, or the higher
level you get, the moreintentional you have to be about
that, because if you're running110 miles a week, you have to
be very specific with yourrecovery.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
I would say.
The other thing I would add toois you may not all be.
You know, everyone may not begoing for kind of aerobic
efficiencies or gains, right.
So I know, with different zones, your body reacts differently
to those different zones.
So some people may be moreinterested in what they I think
is.
Zone two is called the fatburning zone.
Is that zone two?

(01:01:17):
So where, if you're reallytrying to burn fat off, that is
going to be a better place foryou to do incline walking, that
sort of thing, and you may neverneed to get into zone three,
four, five, because when you getinto some of those upper end
zones, your body has to I think,if I, and correct me on this

(01:01:39):
has to start using muscle andother types of things to you
know, keep your body fullyfueled for those things.
So that could becounterproductive for someone
that's trying to build muscleand lose fat.
You may want to just hang outin zone two.
So that is another thing Iwould add about the.
You know why you might do theheart rate training if that's.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
No, that's absolutely , that's particularly, it's
really accurate.
I mean, if you look atbodybuilders and you go look at
a bodybuilder doing cardio, it'salways inclined walking because
they don't want to burn thatmuscle.
Obviously, the higher you getinto the heart rate zones, your
body's scrambling to findanything it can to use for fuel.
It doesn't have the cycles tobreak down fat and use it for
fuel.
When you're running, you knowfull-blown VO2 stuff or high in

(01:02:16):
anaerobic, it's just trying tostay afloat.
So yeah, that's super, spot on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
And you were going to go into, I think, the next.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Yeah, and the final one.
This is again kind of a nuancedthing.
It's kind of new, but as acyclist which I'm not, but most
cyclists out there their mainmetric is power, and so they use
power meters on their bikes todetermine it plays very heavily
into their training differentlevels of power.
Well, stride is an organizationthat I think came out with the

(01:02:47):
first Stride back in 2016 or2017.
I remember I took the firstversion when I went to boss, I
think Boston and 17,.
They had their booth at theBoston expo for the first time
and I just purchased theirproduct and had some
conversations with them.
Um, but stride is another pieceof technology that's continued
to get more and more accurate.
You're seeing a lot of theprofessionals using it and

(01:03:08):
really what it does is it's it'sDepending on the way you're
looking at it maybe even a moreaccurate representation of
effort and heart rate.
Again, there's a lot of nuanceto that, because your heart rate
can be affected by other things.
Stride is a number or strides.
Power number takes into accountif you're running into the wind

(01:03:29):
, takes into account if you'rerunning up hills a number of
different things.
So it's another different wayto measure your output.
A lot of people are starting todevelop training programs where
they're using running power.
Garmin has added thatfunctionality to their watches,
but it's not necessarily asaccurate.
What is it?

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
Is it like a pod you put on your shoe?

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
It's a little shoe pod They've recently introduced
I think last year theyintroduced Stride duo.
So you wear one on either footand it actually measures your um
foot strike patterns.
So if you're having issuesimbalance issues, or our friend
cory and cory is about, you knowas deep as you can get into
running culture and trainingculture and all of these other

(01:04:12):
things cory got the stride duo.
He was having imbalance issuesand he was able to share that
data with a physical therapistand they were like, oh my God,
you know, like his imbalance wasinsane.
I mean, if you guys look atyour running balances, it's
normally 49 and 51 or 49 and ahalf and 50 and a half.
His was like 37 and 63 or justlike something completely out of

(01:04:35):
control.
But there ended up being somecredence to that and so he found
out through the use of thattechnology that he had some
things that he needed to workthrough.
So that's another.
I guess probably you know,without getting into things that
are, you know, more gearrelated, like we can talk about

(01:04:55):
these at some other time but thetypes of headlamps or the types
of clothing we could spendprobably an entire another
episode on how to dressappropriately for 10 degrees and
30 degrees and 50 degrees and70 or whatever.
But I think, from a hardcoretechnology perspective, I think
we've covered a lot of it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
Yep, I believe Peloton tracks output and I'm
not sure if it's the exact sameoutput, as I'd be interested in
comparing that, but therethere's an output there that
they track as well.
I was going to ask you aboutone other, and I know this is
probably for more relevant forthe elite level who are
interested in training, but thelactate stuff like just maybe

(01:05:39):
briefly cover the fact.
I mean, some might beinterested that some actually do
this and use this.
Sure, yeah, because that'sanother.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
I think this, for me, is like the ultimate in
gamification, and I say thatbecause, no matter what method
you use, you don't know for surewhether or not you're where
you're supposed to be whenyou're training.

(01:06:06):
And everybody, at the end ofthe day, 99% of people are going
to be over their skis.
In some regard, they're goingto be training a little harder
than they should.
Everybody wants to go out andrun an effort and call it a
tempo when it was nowhere near atempo right.

(01:06:29):
Or you know, there's a guy Ithink he goes by Jack Harrell on
Instagram and he's hilariousbecause he pokes fun at this.
He'll be like, you know, zoneone effort 21 miles at 430 pace,
heart rate 115, just beingcompletely facetious and kind of
poking fun at the people thatwant to call.

(01:06:50):
And it's funny because I thinkif there's one element of
running culture that peoplereally get into, it's like
there's no way that was a temporun or there's no way that guy
did that at that effort orwhatever.
For some reason, that reallystrikes people viscerally and
they react.
But to get back to the lactatepiece of the puzzle, so what it

(01:07:10):
is, there's a meter that you canbuy and this has been around
for years but really popularized.
I mentioned Jakob Ingebrigtsenearlier.
The Norwegian training methodright now is gaining a lot of
traction because it allows youto pack a bunch of quality work
into a condensed period of time.
And again to the point I madeearlier, the only way you can do
that is to ensure that you'reexactly where you need to be

(01:07:33):
from an effort perspective.
So what this is is this is ameter and you have strips that
come along with it and you prickyour finger like you would to
do a blood glucose test and youmeasure the lactate level in
millimoles of your blood on thismachine, so you can see
specifically where you need tobe.

(01:07:55):
So I'll give an example of thisin real world application.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
How about?
I give the example when Ishowed up to a run with you guys
, so if you haven't figured out,they're a little more intense
than I am.
Like the way I would describerunning is you go out and you
run.
You know 60, 70% of the timeyou just run easy so you can
work on distance, and then yourun hard, you do intervals.

(01:08:19):
The other side time they'relike hey, we got this new thing,
we're gonna do this lactatethreshold.
Let's meet out at the track.
And I'm like, oh, this soundsgood.
And I'm like, so I meet mybrothers out and and we get out
there and they, they get a tableout, they get these, they line
all this stuff up and I'm likeit looks like a pharmacy and
like, okay, we're're going torun a couple of laps and then
you're going to come around,you're going to prick your
finger and you're going to checkyour blood and and then this is
going to tell you what you needand this will tell you whether

(01:08:41):
you need to, you know, slow downor speed up.
And so then you prick it andthen you know, based off of that
, you would run the next lap,kind of knowing where you're at
until you knew you were in thesegment, but you know we were.
We have all those blood thingsin the trash, can I mean it was.
It was quite the experience,but it was really interesting to

(01:09:02):
kind of figure out where, wherethat zone was.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
The game, the gamification of it, and this is
like the example.
So I'm coming back kind of offof a break with some injuries
that I was dealing with and Idon't really know where I'm at
from a physical fitnessperspective.
And so the number for kind ofan aerobic threshold in
millimoles for lactate is, let'scall it, two, the number's two.
So I would do a particularinterval, I would test my blood

(01:09:28):
and if I'm around two that meansI'm where I should be Two.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
What I was going to try and explain this a little
bit.
So there there's a you knowwhen you're talking about the
certain levels and help meexplain this, but basically
there's a certain point, uh,where your body struggles to
clear the lactic acid from yourbloodstream.
The lactic acid builds up andthat's where the numbers go up

(01:09:52):
and that's where you're kind ofa ticking time bomb.
If the lactic acid is buildingup, you are basically on your
way to a long recovery yesthere's going to be a point in
time where you're not going tobe able to continue.
So these numbers are measuringat what speed, at what level?
And again, given all theconditions, is that lactic acid

(01:10:14):
starting to build up versus yourbody's able to continually
clear it?
So I just wanted to set thatfoundation.

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
No, I think that's thank you for articulating it
that way.
So like, it's so cool, you geton a treadmill and for me it was
.
I'm going to run 12 minute longintervals and I'm going to run
them.
I think it was at 620 pace andI want to be at two, because two
is for me, what I can hold fora marathon.
Most people go for a marathonthat are well-trained, so I ran
it.
I pricked my finger, it's 2.1.

(01:10:40):
After my first interval, aftermy third interval, it was 1.7.
So I know I can go out nexttime and instead of 9.5, I can
try 9.6 and then I can gomeasure again and if I'm not,

(01:11:03):
then I need to do a couple ofweeks of nine, six.
And so it's this really coolway from a statistical
perspective to see your progress.
Wow, my body is getting moreefficient, um, at performing
this, this process, and I'mseeing actual, real represent,
especially in a controlledenvironment like the treadmill,
real representation of progress.
And that's one of the very fewways with running outside of
having a good day, um, causeeven when you complete a hard
workout, you don't know how muchyou had to put into complete

(01:11:24):
that hard workout.
You can't quantify it.
Yeah, I finished it, but I mayyou know, be way deeper in the
well than I think I am, um.
So that's something that Ireally like about that and
something I'm really lookingforward to coming back over
these next couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
Interesting.
Should we close with shoes?

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
Let's get it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
We might as well do gear too.
Shoes and gear, I mean we got-.

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
I guess we're here.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Well, let's hit shoes .
I mean, I think just obvious,the obvious thing here, and I
think most people have maybeheard this, but it was maybe
what five years ago now, when,right around bq2, when was that?

Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
uh, 17, 2017 yeah, it would have been because we ran
18.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
They uh four percenters yeah, the four, the
four percenters which nike cameout with with this premise that
our hypothesis that you wouldbasically, if you wore these
shoes, you would be four percentmore efficient, and so there
was a carbon fiber plate thatwas inserted into the shoe that
essentially propelled your footforward in a sense that helped

(01:12:26):
you.
So that motion you weren'thaving to fully do manually, but
you had a little help.
And so obviously since thenthere's been all kinds of
enhancements and differentevolutions or versions of that
technology.
But, tj, why don't you share?
And then, trent, you chime inbecause we've all worn them and
it would just be interesting toget everybody's opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
You can go first, because I can wax on this
forever.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Yeah, so I started my running journey in Adidas.
I was wearing the.
They're kind of ultra boostyeah, these are more like what
you would see people wear, youknow, just not to run it.
I mean they're, they'reprobably a pound each, they're
very heavy shoes yeah, they'rekind of casual lifestyle shoes.
That's where I started and thenover the years I've worn.

(01:13:12):
I think it's important to know.
Probably the most importantthing is to find a running store
where they can have some typeof measurement, some type of
footprint.
Um, I know there's some peoplein the indie area, the athletic
yep, luke and those guys andJake uh, jake, and so they've.
They've got a great place, butgoing somewhere where they can
actually do some testing rightTo kind of figure out is your

(01:13:34):
foot wide, is your arch high?
You know there's all differenttypes of, there's several
different brands that we couldarguably like.
You've run in more shoes thanall of us, but I've tried
Saucony, I've tried New Balance,hoka Ons, and for me I did see

(01:14:00):
some pickup.
So, going back to your question, the four percenters make a
pretty significant differencethere.
They are a race shoe that youdon't get a lot of miles out of
them, but they are super lightand they're super bouncy and
they definitely make adifference.
But I've kind of settled intolike a little bit of a harder
shoe and I've I seem to alwaysbe going back to the Boston 12s.
Those have been kind of mystaple.

(01:14:21):
But I also think it's good andyou taught me this is to just
rotate other shoes in.
So I do have two or threedifferent pairs of shoes that
I'm wearing.
You know you can get three to400 miles out of a pair of shoes
, which you know if you have acycle of three.
You know you're running.
I don't know.
I'm probably doing 120, 130miles a month, so I can get a
couple months out of all those.

(01:14:41):
But I think it's important tonote that there's not like
here's the best shoe, go buythis shoe.
A lot of it just depends on themakeup.
Well, and the landscape'schanged a lot in the last five
years too, so brands have caughtup.
That's one thing we didn't Idon't know that we mentioned
about Strava is with Strava youcan track the mileage you're
putting on your shoes, whichvirtually, unless you're keeping

(01:15:02):
a spreadsheet somewhere, isextremely difficult.
But when you go on a run, youcan.
You can have those shoes thatyou basically put into Strava
and then you can select whichshoe you ran with.
So even if you're running withone pair of shoes, it's hard to
know exactly unless you'rekeeping track of dates or
whatever.
Certainly, when you getmultiple pairs, it's nice to
know when you're hitting that250, 300, 350-mile mark, because

(01:15:23):
it can compound injuries ifyou're running in shoes that
don't have enough miles left.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
I wouldn't, yeah, and I track mine on Garmin.
It has the same functionality.
I would not.
I know people at a time tookthat kind of as a badge of honor
how many miles could they getout of their shoes?
Now there are some shoes outthere, like Mount Coast, that
are designed specifically tolast for 600, 700, 800 miles and
they actually advertise that.
But I was running with a buddythe other day and he made the
comment he'd gotten a new pairof Asics Nova Blast and he's

(01:15:52):
like man putting the differencebetween putting on a pair that's
fresh and a pair that's got 350miles on.
It is night and day and whatthey'll tell you is that those
shoes only compress a couple ofmillimeters but it does make a
pretty massive difference andthe longer you've run, your body
will tell you you'll get thesedifferent pains and different
things that you weren't gettingbefore when your shoes get to

(01:16:12):
that point.
You know, another innovationthat came along with the carbon
plate was obviously P-backs andthese different foams, and
they're continuing to innovatein the foam space.
Nitrogen infused EVA issomething that people are
exploring right now.
Different stack heights youknow what happened was because

(01:16:32):
the shoes themselves were wereessentially you would show up to
a major marathon after Nikereleased the four percenters and
then after vapor flies came outand alpha flies came out, you
showed up to a major marathonand everybody in the first
thousand people in the corralhad these shoes on and there
there was a heavy discussionaround whether or not it was
technological doping, um, and sothere were restrictions put in

(01:16:57):
place on the stack height ofshoes.
You can't be over 41millimeters, I think.
You can only have a singlecarbon fiber plate.
You can't have multiple.
Now there are companies outthere that have continued to
release shoes that are illegal,but in reality, if you're not
winning prize money or breakingworld records or Olympic records

(01:17:18):
, you can kind of run inwhatever you want.
Yeah, I mean from a brand'sperspective, the landscape has
changed drastically.
There are probably three orfour brands right now that are
really I think you know Hokareally made a comeback this year
.
They were really big, obviouslyearly on in the ultra scene
back in the early 2010s.

(01:17:39):
Then they kind of had theirlull where they were seen as the
senior citizen walking shoethere for a while.
But they really came back thisyear with some great performance
shoes.
Saucony has continued to doreally well with their endorphin
line shoes.
Saucony has continued to doreally well with their endorphin

(01:18:00):
line.
Adidas has had a lot of successfrom an elite marathon
perspective with their Adios Pro3s.
The Pro Evo 1 is kind of thepinnacle of ridiculousness for a
shoe.
So this is taking the conceptsthat we were talking about
earlier.
It's a shoe that has no sockliner, that has a painted on
sole that costs $500, and thatis supposed to last for 30 miles

(01:18:23):
, so you get a warmup and a raceout of them.
However, they have won a numberof marathons and at one point
had world records, at least onthe female side.
I don't know if they still do,but they're still winning a ton
of marathons.
Nike still has a couple of goodshoes out there, and then New

(01:18:44):
Balance has released some greattop of the line trainers, but I
think the number one racing shoeright now in my mind is
probably the Metaspeed Sky andthe Metaspeed Edge from Asics.
Those are probably the two mostutilized shoe right now in my
mind is probably the metaspeedsky and the metaspeed edge from
asics.
Those are probably the two mostutilized, at least in the us.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
So when you say that, you mean and obviously nike,
who's kind of started some ofthe they call them super shoes
right, you're saying these asicshave caught up to, and
potentially so I mean clearlythe, the adidas.
Uh, you said evo audio.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Well, the evo evos, but the Adios Pro 3s.
The elites are still wearingthose.

Speaker 1 (01:19:19):
Okay, but for, like the common, the Asics have
caught up from an efficiencyperspective and are every bit as
effective as the next.
Yeah, I would say that they'reright there.

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):
I mean, you're seeing some of the best people in the
world wear them.
Unfortunately, you know, whenyou get to that level, the
difference in these shoes isprobably a half a percent, and
some of these individuals are,you know sponsorships and things
come into play.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
Yeah, I mean asics does not have a lot of east
african sponsorships and that'sjust an entirely different level
of of so, for the everyeveryday joe or jill, it's
really more about comfort andkind of exploring and being
willing to try different shoesand, um, if they're not, you

(01:20:04):
know, if you're not trying toget out there and you're really
a competitive racer, it's reallyjust about finding the right
place.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
Find it.
Yeah, find the right place, man.
I mean, that's the mostimportant thing.
People that really care aboutyou because there's so many
gimmicks right Like the shoesyou're wearing On would try to
sell you that those were runningshoes at one point in time.
They are not.
That technology if you hear thefounder of the brand explain it
is hilarious Makes no sense atall.
Now On has gone a different way.

(01:20:31):
They've made great lifestyleshoes like that and they've
actually changed.
If you look at their top endracers, they don't look anything
like that anymore becausethey've realized that it doesn't
work.
So really go in and talk tosomebody Don't trust.
There are some reviewers on theinternet, but I would
definitely start with somebodyat a local running store.
You know, ask, ask your localrunners, get referred to your

(01:20:54):
local running store, start thereand then, once you've
established your own baseline,then start to explore the
different reviewers and thingsonline.
But don't just go out there andand uh, because it's not.
It's not all created equal, forsure.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
So why don't we finish with uh, your favorite
running gear, whether that's ashirt or a jacket or tights,
something that, if you had topick one or two things, or like
a perfect outfit, you couldn'tlive without?
What would that be?
Just go right around, gosh, aperfect outfit.

(01:21:31):
Well, I'm going to steal thisfrom you guys, because I know we
all wear these, because I hatethe cold so much.
I think I've got it on rightnow.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
Brighton.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
The Tracksmith Brighton base layer no.
Tracksmith.
They've got this little redribbon thing on the back.
Tracksmith base layer is reallyincredible at not only keeping
you warm but also, if you maybeare overdressed a little bit,
it's got a way of almost coolingyou down too.
It's phenomenal From a glovesperspective.

(01:22:09):
I think I've got Salomon gloves.
I've got Raynaud's syndrome,where my circulation, my fingers
, my hands are cold all the time, and so I'm that guy out there
and it's 50 degrees and I've gotgloves on because my hands are
always cold, so the Solomongloves have been great.
I'm a big mittens fan.
I find when I'm in gloves thatdoesn't work for me, so I'm big

(01:22:34):
on mittens.
Yeah, I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
Uh, on your shorts underwear or liners underwear
yeah, big 100 yeah yeah, big uhunder armor boxer jocks and then
shorts on top of that all daysee you know, it's funny because
, like in in the runningcommunity, tracksmith can be

(01:22:59):
looked at as kind of clichebecause it's expensive and it's
that brand that associates withrunners that are kind of right
on the cusp of elite and so,like there, there was a period
of time where Tracksmith waslooked at as like this brand,
that people who you know, theguy you guys will remember this,
the guy that showed up to ourcruise run when what we call

(01:23:20):
full gear, and there are memeslike this all over the internet
where the guy shows up to theturkey trot 5k in his boston
jacket and has his iron mantattoo on his calf and you know,
um.
And so I think there werecertain people that looked at
tracksmith like that a littlebit like, you know they were
trying hard.
Think there were certain peoplethat looked at Tracksmith like
that a little bit like, and theywere trying hard.
But I will say this and luckilyTrent has made this a Christmas

(01:23:41):
gift a couple of times over thelast couple of years but that
Brighton base layer, you'reabsolutely right, and people
hate it because every time I runin the winter I talk about how
good it is.
It's unbelievable, it'sunbelievable I, it's
unbelievable.
I really like their tights.
They're one of the few pairs oftights that do have the briefs
built in, so they're like acorduroy type, not material but

(01:24:04):
pattern.
And so for me I'm that guy Ishow up to winter runs in my
Tracksmith tights with myTracksmith base layer.
I have two Tracksmith secondlayers.
So what you'll find is I thinkthis is important to call out
for running in the winter isthat it's layering, it's all

(01:24:25):
layers.
It's not wearing this heavyNorth Face jacket, it's all
layers.
So one or two of my Tracksmithtop layers.
I have Tracksmith mittens thatI wear over gloves if it's
really cold out, and then I'm anNjinji socks guy, which are the
toe socks.
I love those.
So that's typically, you know,my ultimate outfit for running

(01:24:46):
in the winter, and then, youknow, summer, half tights in a
tank or just shirtless.

Speaker 1 (01:24:52):
I put a quick vote in on the Njinji socks as well,
just from a blister perspective.
When I've got the NGG toe sockson, my blisters are down
considerably.
And you are a liner orunderwear guy, I'm a liner guy.
Joke is with TJ like if youcan't see what religion he is by
his shorts, they're so short.
I mean it's all out there,that's right.
They are tight there.

(01:25:13):
No, no doubt about that.
Um, two inch inseam, yeah,that's right.
Gotta have the slit all the wayup the side.
It's good stuff.
Um, yeah, so there's about threeyears ago I think I bought all
tracksmith entire catalog and,um, I have every piece that
they've probably ever made andand we've shared in all of that

(01:25:35):
the gloves, the hats, the baselayers.
I have the pants, the tightsand the shorts.
And it was really weird becauseI remember the exact time that
TJ's like you need to switch toliners and moving from a liner,
from underwear, to liner wasvery, very odd for me, but I
wouldn't go back.
I've enjoyed the liners but Ihaven't had to buy.

(01:25:57):
So one thing is the quality ofit.
You know there's some wool init, so if you're allergic to
wool it's not a good fit.
I bought my daughter one andshe wore it to a game and came
and she was all red all over.
But the quality.
I haven't bought anything fromTracksmith in probably two and a
half years and like I did makethis big old purchase but I've
been able to maintain, um, I'vewashed them dozens of time at

(01:26:21):
times and so the quality isthere.
It's like sometimes you getwhat you pay for.
I know there's a lot of othergood brands that have a lot of
other good stuff out there, but,uh, definitely a high quality,
good, good product.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
One other thing I'll mention on the gear front that's
important for this time of year.
Because One other thing I'llmention on the gear front that's
important for this time of year, because it's dark so often is
Ultra Aspire waist lamps.
So if you're running in the dark.
Yeah, you can buy differentheadlamps on Amazon that are
pretty good, but investing in awaist light from Ultra Aspire,
it's expensive, but you guyshave run with me with those it
lights up an entire road.
They can last for hours andhours and hours on end.

(01:26:53):
They make very good gear whenit comes to longer events.
So, whether that's vests, waistpacks, things like that, that's
a brand that I'd throw outthere that makes really good
gear in that regard.
So I think that closes it outfor me.

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
Awesome, good.
Well, thank you guys forlistening in.
Hopefully you learned aboutsome really cool things.
There's a lot of stuff thatpeople have developed out there.
There's just a lot of creativepeople.
There's a lot of ways to gamify, running, exercise in general,
and so just encourage you tolook into some of this stuff.

(01:27:32):
We'll put a lot of the linksthat we talked about and some of
those things within the postand you'll be able to get some
of that stuff.
We'll put a lot of the linksthat we talked about and some of
those things within the postand you'll be able to get some
of that gear and check it out.
We'll see you next time.

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