Zach Bitter: The Art of Running 100 Miles

Ultrarunning legend Zach Bitter joins us for an inspiring conversation about his relationship with the 100 mile distance. Reflecting on Zach's incredible accomplishments, including his world and American records, we delve into how his perseverance motivated personal running goals. We talk about the nuances of adapting to new environments like heat and incline training as well as the mental power it takes to push yourself to the max.

Zach's transition from collegiate running to the grueling world of ultramarathons was unlikely but it has been a fruitful pursuit that's shown him he's capable of a lot more than he ever expected. Discover the delicate balance between training volume and speed workouts, and unpack the strategies necessary for conquering a 100-mile race. I ask him to break down for me in laymen's terms how to go about pacing, staying in the zone on track courses, and what to do when things don’t go as planned—(or like how a simple extension cord can save a treadmill record attempt).

The conversation also opens up about the crucial elements of nutrition and recovery, highlighting personal experiences from races and the adaptable nature of dietary strategies like a modified keto diet. We discuss how to manage hydration and nutrition effectively during grueling events, and the importance of strength training and injury prevention. From the potential of negative splitting to the thrill of setting personal records, this episode captures the essence of pushing boundaries in ultrarunning, with inspiration drawn from iconic figures like Alexander Sorokin and Camille Heron.

More Zach Bitter: Website

MUSEUM OF DISTANCE RUNNING: USE OFFER CODE LUCIE10 for 10% off your order at MODR 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Lucy Beatrix podcast.
Thanks for tuning.
In.
Today's episode is myconversation with Zach Bitter.
He is an ultramarathoninglegend who shattered the world
and American record for 100miles run in 11 hours and 19
minutes.
He held this record from 2019until 2022.

(00:20):
In today's episode we're goingto talk about his unique dietary
strategies, his coaching andwhat's next for him in
ultramarathoning adventures.
So stay tuned for a great show.
Welcome to the show.

(00:46):
Thanks for having me, lucy.
I have to start by saying you'rea huge inspiration to me.
Part of why I attempted anultramarathon on the track
during the pandemic four yearsago was I was listening to you
on Rogan and I was sitting inNew York City with nothing to do
.
It was the pandemic, so likeeverything was shut down and I

(01:08):
was like I'm going to go try torun 100 miles on a track and I
had like three days of prep.
But I had been running a lotLike I had been doing the like
random, like long distance andstuff over like weekends, like
spontaneous, like 50K andwhatever.
But I had been listening to youon the podcast, on his podcast,
and I was like I'm just goingto go try to do this Like I want

(01:31):
to.
So I was like it's just so coolbecause, like you're definitely
one of like the heroes thatlike put planted the seed in my
head that like this is possible.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
And not only is it possible, it's possible to do it
fast, because like there are somany people who do ultras and
it's just like time on feet,just sure get like 100 miles
walking is like amazing, but todo it fast that's like a whole
other level and it's superinspiring.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
So thanks yeah, no, I appreciate it.
It's always fun.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
It's nothing like a pandemic to make a track look
inviting exactly yeah, and likeit was so weird in new york
because everything was shut downand it was very like taboo to
even be running.
Like they were like basicallyacting like don't even run, and
so what was allowed was to be onthe track with like social
distancing etiquette, and I waslike, ok, I'm going to go be on
this track the entire day and Ididn't make it to 100.

(02:17):
I only made it to 76 miles.
But I definitely felt like it'slike that thing of like, if you
see it somebody else doing it,you're like maybe I can do it
and it normalizes it.
So that was huge for me,especially as someone who, like
didn't know ultramarathoners.
Really it's just like listeningto somebody you know in a
totally different place.
But so yeah, so what broughtyou to Austin, texas, that's

(02:43):
where we are right now.
It's a gloomy day in Austin,but what brought you to Austin,
texas, that's where we are rightnow.
It's a gloomy day in.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Austin.
But what brought you here?
Yeah, so Austin was probably aspot that I would have liked to
gone to, maybe even earlier, ormy wife and I would have liked
to.
Anyway, we ended up when we gotmarried I was in Sacramento and
she was in Dallas, and wepicked Phoenix to move to.
And Phoenix made a lot of senseat the time because we needed a
big airport that could getplaces directly easily.
We were both traveling a lotmore than um.

(03:08):
I mean, phoenix from a runningstandpoint is about as perfect
as you're going to get, becauseyou have access to just about
everything.
You have mountains, you can getto flagstaff in a couple hours,
you have like these canal pathswhere you can just run straight
, flat, underpass doingcrossroads and um, so it was
like a really good fit for usthen.
Then the pandemic happened.
We both were 100 remote afterthat and we were just like, do

(03:30):
you know, do we really want tobe in phoenix forever?
And we're like, ah, maybe not,but I had actually ended up
coming to austin, I think fivetimes that year for just
different stuff between, likecoaching, podcasting and all
that stuff and and I justfloated the idea to her and,
like I didn't even get thesentence halfway on my model,
she was like yeah, let's do it,I was like
okay, oh, that's awesome.
Yeah, and she, she, when shewas in Dallas she had prior, she

(03:52):
got her lottery from Baylor, soshe had a lot of friends that
ended up in Austin.
One of her college teammateswas in Austin at the time too,
so it was just like kind of likewell, let's check it out.
And you know, austin waspopping off so much at that
point too, we kind of thoughtlike if we don't act now, it
won't be an option.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
So we moved pretty quick actually, but that was
almost.
I guess that was three yearsago, in January, so Okay, cool.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, we love it here , so we don't phone anywhere.
You run the town Lake trailloop and the dirt.
I love that, Like when I movedfrom New York to Texas.
I'm kind of back and forth alot like both places, but I
always love when I get back toTexas and I can go run on the
dirt.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Just have, like you know, a nice 10 mile loop on
dirt.
Um, so, yeah, so the heat inArizona is something that you're
used to, and so you obviouslyhave that here too.
Um, do you?

Speaker 2 (04:47):
you prefer running in the heat to train for these big
races?
Or like yeah, uh, I I probably,nicole and I, my wife, we
debate about this all the timewhere it's like is it worse to
have the phoenix dry heat or theaustin humid heat in the summer
?
yeah, so it gets pretty brutalhere in the summer it's horrible
, yeah, and she likes thehumidity better, at least she
likes the whole package of it,because, like here in austin,
it's like you'll get thatoppressive heat in the summer,
but then you'll get like a stormthat comes through and it'll be

(05:09):
nice for a couple days.
So it's not like this likedrawn out, we're in it for three
, four months type of thing,whereas in phoenix, like you hit
april, may and it startsgetting up to that 100 degree
temperature is like okay, nowwe're in this until probably
October.
Um, yeah, so I mean, I, I likeit because I think it, it it's,
it doesn't deter performance on,it actually probably enhances

(05:31):
performance on even cooler races, uh, but it also prepares you
well if you're going to do ahotter weather race too.
So, um, you know the race youwere mentioned in the intro.
When I was training for thatone, I was doing it through the
summer in Phoenix and the raceitself was on an indoor track,
so they had a temperature,climate controlled.
Uh, actually, very optimallytemperature controlled, because

(05:51):
it's a speed skating rink andthey build the track around and
that's in Wisconsin, inMilwaukee yeah, it's a little
bit training facility there forthe Pettit Center.
So I went from like doing runsthat would end in like 100, 110
degrees to racing in 55 yearsfair, amazing, yeah, so that's
optimal.
Yeah, I probably had enhancedblood volume just from like the
adaptations from that, but thenI didn't need it necessarily

(06:12):
from a cooling standpoint.
But you can still use that,yeah yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
I noticed that when I trained through the pandemic,
actually that first 2020, like,I kind of had a breakthrough
with running because of so muchmileage in the heat that I just
been building base, base, base,and then when I finally raced in
the fall, uh, all these PRShappened because of the cool
suddenly you're like oh okay,it's almost like altitude
training, um, poor man'saltitude, um.
So so, yeah, um, when you firststarted, like 14 years ago, is

(06:41):
when you became ultra marathon,zach right about.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
I did my first one end of 2010 okay, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
So you, when you transitioned from like just
regular distance runner to ultra, you didn't really do like a
marathon.
You weren't like in betweengoing from like 5k, 10k to
marathon, you just went straightto 100, correct?

Speaker 2 (07:01):
uh, not straight to 100, but I did kind of bypass
the marathon.
Mostly what ended up happeningto me is I kind of got into
running.
I got into running early but Ididn't really get into it
seriously until college.
I started really getting intoit as like I'm going to do
things.
So I'm going to prioritize this.
I'm not going to, like you know, do other sports or you know

(07:22):
I'm going to eat and sleep theway I want to do to perform for
running and really learn likewhat workouts specifically do
and all that stuff.
So I had a little bit of catchup, maybe for my peers at the
collegiate level in terms ofjust like where I was at and
where I wanted to be, Um, but Ilearned a ton and I learned that
I really liked the long stuff.
So, after college I was a littleburnt out on speed work.
I was kind of a little bittired of the whole, like

(07:44):
Tuesday's short intervals,thursday tempo, saturday race,
sunday long run, vibe.
So I just started kind ofbuilding miles and I started
kind of consistently runninglike 100 mile weeks but not a
whole lot of workouts so I'dlike jump in some marathons, uh,
based off of just kind of likevolume for the most part, and
then, uh, I was just kind ofdoing like random races for the

(08:05):
fun of it, not any real strategybehind it, until maybe, I think
, 2011,.
I actually went back to collegeto get more or to get my uh
specialized certification.
I was teaching at the time, sothat's right.
I had like a little bit of akind of a goofy schedule, but it
was conducive for trainingstill and I did some actually

(08:26):
indoor track races that year,but then I did actually train
fairly specifically for amarathon.
I think it was the end of 2011.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Was that the two 31?

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Uh, yes, yeah, that was great, I mean, that's like.
So that was that your debutmarathon technically that you
trained for that I actually didlike a reasonable approach for
yeah, yeah, unfortunately therewas like I think it was like
almost at the 40 mile a windgust that day, so I was like not
in optimal condition, but yeah,so that was.
I had a pretty good performancethere for where I was at at the

(08:56):
time, um and but so that wasactually after my first ultra,
but so my first ultra was kindof like spontaneous to some
degree.
I was actually just looking atkind of the race calendar for
the end of 2010.
I didn't really know there wereultra marathons in wisconsin at
the time and I came across onewhere I was just looking at just
a race list yeah and I thoughtI had read some books about

(09:20):
ultra marathoning.
So I kind of had in the back ofmy mind was sort of this like
thought of like, well you know,when I'm like thoroughly
exhausted with everything thatnormal runners would do, maybe
I'll do an ultra marathon in mythirties or something like that.
But then I just thought tomyself well, maybe I'll try this
one and see how it goes andjust probably go back to running
normal stuff again.
Um, but at least it'd be kindof a fun experience, a little

(09:41):
change of pace.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
So when you entered that one, you had already, like,
logged consistent hundred mileweeks.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
So you were like okay , I've got a base, Let me just
see what I can do in a racesetting that's an ultra distance
.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
I see.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
And so did you think from the start, like I want to,
like go after a time goal, orjust was it just to finish in
the very beginning?

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, you know, just was it just to finish in the
very beginning.
Yeah, you know, I'm trying tothink back what I think I looked
at what the course record wasand thought, like I just looked
at the paces, like this is likethe like typical, like ignorant
runner coming ultra, mindset oflike oh, I know what my paces
are on a road, and then, likeyou get out on a trail and you
think like, oh well, I'm gonnabe running way faster yeah.
I mean, this was a very runnabletrail so I I thought like I

(10:24):
think I can run like prettyclose to the fastest times there
.
So it's like something in thelow six hours was sort of where
I was loosely targeting 50 miler, it was yeah yeah, it was the
the north face 50 mile midwestregional championships.
the north face used to put onthis like regional championship
series and then they had theirbig national championship in san
francisco, which for a whilewas one of the more competitive
50 milers in the US, before thatseries kind of got canceled.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
So how did you?
How did you do that first ultra?

Speaker 2 (10:51):
I won it.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Oh OK, so yeah, so that that's the thing, so you go
into it kind of naive, like Ihave a time goal, whatever, and
then you win.
Do you think that that winningthat very first ultra made you
go like I think I have a knackfor this.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
like this is going to be the next chapter yeah, it
piqued my interest for sure,because historically, like I was
a good runner, like I couldmake state and cross country.
As a senior in high school Iwas able to make the cross
country and track team at ahighly competitive d3 school.
But like there were competitorsand teammates that were better
than me and it was clear, so Iwasn't like anticipating that I

(11:22):
was going to win like these bigmeets and big races and things
like that.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
So then winning a race was kind of like yeah, yes,
I totally relate to that.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah.
So and and I sort of had theseed planted, probably earlier,
because I just loved the longrun, like that was my favorite
workout in college.
That was where I kind of putmost of my energy in post
collegiate training for a while.
I did get back to doing speedworkouts After a while.
I did get back to doing speedworkouts After a while.
It took maybe a year, maybe notquite a year but a year off of
any real structured speed workbefore kind of phasing that back

(11:51):
in into training too.
But it was still always kind ofbased on that high volume.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Like you just love, like just locking into a pace
and going for hours at a time.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, that's zone two .

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Relatable.
Yeah, intensity, I totally getthat.
I feel like that's kind of howI was, or that was how I was for
so long I was running so muchvolume.
And so when you made thatswitch and you run your first
ultra and you win it, did yourpeers and people around you?
Were they like wow, what isthis?
How was the response of yougetting into ultra stuff from
your close family and friends?

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, you know, they thought it was crazy to some
degree, but they were alsopretty open to like they.
At that point I was likeinvested enough in running that
it sort of kind of fit what theexpectation was going to be.
Uh, you know, my collegeteammates thought it was pretty
crazy Cause they were all likeyou know 5k guys and like some
of them would maybe test themarathon.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, it's like it's it's like a funny thing I've
noticed with collegiate athletes, because I didn't ever go to
college or know any.
But like I started to trainwith some and then like the
marathon is even a crazydistance to those people.
So go to like ultra or 50 milesand then ultimately 100 seems
like a lot.
So people thought you were likea little nuts when you first
started, but then did you likenow that, then, when that became

(13:04):
more of your identity, was itmore of an accepted thing, like
okay, zach's just an ultra guynow.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, yeah, it yeah more or less.
And then you start kind offinding the ultra running
community then.
So I did that race.
Um, I also discovered, oh,there's like a pretty cool like
ultra running community inWisconsin, so those people would
reach out to me then and I havea question about that.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
So when I first got into running I was like when I
was meeting some of these ultrapeople, I I always in my head
wanted to be fast with any kindof running, not like too fast,
but like competitive.
And I noticed with the ultracommunity when I first started,
everyone was like you need toslow down, like 12 minute miles,
and like you're going to burnyourself out and whatever.
And I was like maybe, but likeI kind of want to push it.

(13:46):
And so I I wonder did you havethat kind of reaction of like
well, if you're going to do this, you're going to have to like
slow yourself down, or do youjust not have any of that?

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Um, I definitely, you know, Iguess maybe it was.
Maybe I just assumed like kindof like the zone two type
intensity would be like therecipe for a longer race like
that, and just sort of sat onthat and then kind of learned
the hard way, sometimes likeokay, that was a little too fast
.
I did some races where I wentto the JK JFK 50 mile which was

(14:16):
probably the first big ultra Iwent to like highly recognizable
, like one of the oldest races,ultra races on in the U S and
and then, like you know, wentout way too aggressively and
paid dearly for it.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
It's like, okay, so you can't do that, yeah, cause
once you blow yourself out afterlike a couple of miles and
you're like I still have 50something miles or however many,
um, yeah, so you learn yourlesson with the like pacing
yourself, but you didn't neverfall into the like okay.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Ultra means like 14 minute miles, no trap and I
started out on, although Istarted on a very runnable
courses for the most part.
So some of that was just youknow you're going to do more
running in those versus like, myfirst 100 mile was west of
states 100 and that was onewhere I think my average pace is
like maybe 10 minute mile ofthe course.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
But you've got, you know canyon climbs in there
where you're going up for, youknow, beyond a mile, so you have
to have the slow ones and youhave some 20 minute miles in
there, so you get a little bitmore of that perspective there.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
But even those races where you look at your average
time or your pace after that andyou're like I feel like I was
doing more running than thatsuggests.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
I see that your mind remembers the running and
forgets the hiking and walkingpretty quickly.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah, when I did my 76 mile track, ultra
self-supported I the first 50, Iwas running, and then from 50
to 76, I was crawling and sickand stuff and I kept my time
like still logging and I wish Ikind of had just stopped my
watch Cause I was like I wouldhave been able to, like my pace
was so embarrassing by the endof it Cause I had so many slow
miles in there.
But um so, speaking of the ahundred mile, uh, like getting

(15:46):
yourself ready for a 100 miler.
So say you're you or you'retraining someone who's like I'm
going to do this in acompetitive way with a time goal
.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
And the race is a couple months out.
How do you like start Like, sayyou have the base, like I've,
I've got, like you know, sayI've got like months of a
hundred mile weeks or whatever,and I'm, I've got the base.
What, like?
What do key workouts look like?
Like, how does that look likeas a overarching?
You know, is it like twoworkouts a week?
Is there a track?

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, it's a good question.
I would say like the perfectscenario there would be if
someone was a marathon runnerand then they decide, okay, I'm
gonna do this ultra in likeeight to 12 weeks or something
like that.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Because the way I look at it is like step one is
just becoming a very good runnerand then, after you've gotten
that, then you can sort of usethe rest of the time to prepare
specifically for what you'regoing to do, so kind of raising
the ceiling on everything,essentially through just your
typical training and then likegetting into like what you want
to do on race day.

(16:43):
So when they have a time goal,that makes it a lot easier
because then we can kind of justreverse engineer what that
means.
So you know, someone has a timegoal of, say, 20, I want to run
100 miles in 24 hours.
We can look at that's, you know, like I think a 14, 20 second
pace or something like that.
So then the question becomeswell, do you want to just like

(17:04):
lock in?
Cause?
You know, marathon mindset islike, okay, my pace is going to
be, let's say, seven minute milepace, I'm just going to lock in
sevens and sit there as long asI can.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
With the a hundred mile.
I think a lot of people look atthat and they're like well, 14,
20 feels really slow.
But if that's what I'm going toaverage, like you don't want to
get out so fast that now all ofa sudden you're, you're, you're
fading at the end and it's likea death March to the finish
line.
Yeah, but you also don'tnecessarily want to be in this
kind of gray area pacing whereyou feel like you're going a
little faster than what walkingwould be comfortable, but way

(17:34):
slower than what you're easyaround would even be on a on a
recovery day.
So my strategy for folks likethat is what you want to do is
you want to run the comfortablepace that just kind of comes
natural to you, but you want toinject walking breaks early so
that you bring that average pacecloser to that goal pace so you
don't have this like hugedisparity of the first half and
the second half.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
I see.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
So it almost becomes this really long low intensity
interval session.
Okay, where maybe you run 20minutes at a pace that's quite a
bit aggressive towards theaverage pace, but then you spend
a couple minutes walking, whichkind of brings it back, and
that also gives you time tofocus on things like fueling and
hydration during the walkingbreaks.
If you have to take a bathroombreak or stop for whatever
reason, you can kind of borrowfrom those walking breaks and

(18:16):
you don't feel quite as much ofthat pressure to kind of keep
moving, even when you need tostop for something.
That strategy works well.
It gets a little more.
The faster the person gets, themore complicated it gets to
some degree, because then youget to a point where, like when
I ran 11, 19, that's six, 48.
So I'm not doing walking breaks.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, I was going to say there's no walking with that
, so so the faster someone gets,the less there's room for that
stuff.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
So what did you do?

Speaker 2 (18:41):
So, thankfully for that one, I'd had a fair bit of
experience doing 100 milers andspecifically track ones too.
So for that specific one, whatI did was I did like my long run
development phase, which is thephase that would come after
just getting fit as a runner,and you know, for that I was
doing like weekend trainingsessions where I'd maybe do like
a couple of three hour runs onsaturday and sunday and just

(19:01):
collecting data, like three hour, three hour, you in the long
run yeah, yeah.
So I mean I would.
I was getting to, like you know, upwards to 30 mile long runs
and where I would get like apace that I would produce for
that and I'm just kind of doingthis at race pace pretty much,
or even a little faster at times.
So usually what I'm doing withthose is I'm like what is the
most aggressive I would thinkwould be on the table for me,

(19:23):
and for that that particularrace it was like six and a half
minute pace.
So a lot of my long runs areright around that like six and a
half minute mile pace.
Um, then it's like you get intoit when I get into the race
itself.
If I have kind of like a pacingstrategy I'm going to target,
then I'll look at like what'sthe fastest I should ever be
going.
So for that one it was like sixand a half and what's the

(19:44):
slowest I should be going.
And I can't remember what I hadfor the, for the slow and for
that one.
But they give it, gives me likea seven, 10 or something.
I think it was a little fasterthan that, At least at the
beginning I think it might'vebeen.
It was maybe just inside ofsevens.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Okay already, so okay so you knew you had that, so
you're just trying to push alittle bit more.
Yep, did you leave that racethinking you could have gone
harder?

Speaker 2 (20:10):
or did you leave it all, like let it all out yeah, I
mean I negative split it so Iwas running my fastest miles at
the very end.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
So like that puts you in a position where you kind of
think, well, if I was goingfaster at the end, maybe I had
more to push it, yeah, because Ialways ask that because I feel
like as a runner, like I feellike I always, no matter how I
feel during a race like as soonas I'm done, I'm like I could
have gone faster, but that'sjust.
That's just a thing.
Um, so when you were gettingready for that, um, did you so?

(20:38):
You did your long runs on theweekend that were three hours at
around goal, 100 mile base andgo goal marathon.
Goal 100, 100 mile, race space.
Um, and then were you doingtrack ever?
Like I was like, did you do?
Like mile repeats and like whatwere those at?

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, I was definitely on a track, I think
that's.
I think it's fairly importantto try to get race specific
stuff in the end.
I think people sometimesoveremphasize how important that
is in it.
If it's a super technicalcourse, then it gets important
because that's a skill set.
But then you get the other endof the spectrum where it's like
these tight little loops.
There's just like weird littlestabilizer muscles and

(21:13):
imbalances that you're going tomaybe create over the course of
the day running around thosethat you do want to kind of
expose yourself to that kind ofyeah, like the loops yeah.
So I was doing all my long runsin that last like four to six
weeks on a track.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
That's awesome.
Oh my God, I love that so much.
I feel like in New York there'sa track have you ever been to
New York city?
Like okay.
So in Brooklyn there's aMcCarran park, there's a
McCarran track, that'sWilliamsburg and that's that's
the track.
I do a lot of my ultra stuff onit.

(21:43):
Like I'm also like reallyobsessed with a treadmill and um
, I'm I'm assuming you love thetreadmill cause you've been on
it a lot.
Um, cause you set your recordon for fastest hundred mile on
the treadmill.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, that was a pandemic thing too.
I was actually supposed to do arace over in London, a hundred
miler over there, for thecenturion hundred which is on a
track.
So, I was probably, I think,like at least three-fourths, if
not further, into that trainingplan when everything shut down.
Yeah.
So then I was like, okay, I'vedone enough of the work, that I
kind of want to do somethingthat's at least relatively close
to this.
Yeah, but there weren't reallyany options.

(22:16):
Yeah, so my original goal isI'm just gonna like live stream
on youtube and just set it upand then, like once I like
pitched that to a few of mysponsors, they wanted to get
involved.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Did they sanction it to make it a world record?

Speaker 2 (22:29):
So we sanctioned everything other than there's
one rule Guinness is really theonly one that's really going.
There may be some new governingbodies coming in on this.
World Athletics might Probablynot for the 100 mile, at least
not right away, but Guinness isreally the only one out there
right now.
That's looking at it throughthat lens, and there was one
criteria that I just couldn'tmeet, which was having it open

(22:50):
to public and doing due to thefact that I was doing the
pandemic right, I couldn't haveit open to the public, yeah so
it was just like it became thatpart doesn't count, yeah oh well
, but I mean the treadmills.
We had mechanics in there andthey calibrated and they
certified it?

Speaker 1 (23:03):
that's the other question.
So okay, so you have yourtreadmill on.
For how long did it take 11something, or how many hours was
it?

Speaker 2 (23:08):
12 or 9, I think okay .

Speaker 1 (23:10):
So 12 hours on a treadmill, how does the motor
not burn out?
Yeah, so we had two machines upset up and just in case, yeah,
just in case, okay, we did haveissues, so it was good we did
have two, so you could just jumpover.
Yep, okay.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
But we needed to regardless, because the way
those treadmills were set up isthere was a built-in system that
they could not override, thatthey would automatically shut
off after three hours and it waslike a total reboot.
So if it would have been likefive, six minutes to reboot it,
so we had it.
So, like before it hit threehours, I'd hop over onto the
other one.
I see, yeah, and then.

(23:44):
But we did have we actually hadan issue because we were
running so much power throughthat little corner of the house.
I had it all set up because itwas at my house at the time in
Phoenix.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, so like big electric buildup, right, yeah,
yeah, and it was, it would havebeen I think it was in April.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
So it actually got Wow and we had the air
conditioner turned on all theway, we had all the video
recording equipment, both thetreadmills, all the lighting and
everything, all the video, likeeverything in that room and one
of the treadmills the screenwould go out.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Oh my God, it would just black out.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
So you can't even see what pace you're going.
Well, the problem was it didn'tcompletely black out, but it
would stop tracking.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Oh no.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
So like, for whatever reason, that was malfunctioning
and it was something to do withthe power, so like, so I ended
up losing some distance fromthat.
Oh man, before I caught it.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
I think there was maybe like three or four minutes
in the early miles before Inoticed that, hey, this thing
isn't actually tracking.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Oh my God, that would stress me out so much Like,
wait, I gotta get this rightyeah.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
So I hopped over to the other one and then we
thought maybe it was just likekind of a fluke, so I want to
switch back to that one.
It did it again.
Oh no.
So at that point I just like Idon't know how I thought of this
, but I just like told, toldnicole.
I was just like go to the shed.
There's like this hundred footextension cord there, grab that,
bring it in and plug thattreadmill into the other side of
the house.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
It's on a different breaker.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Good idea, and then uh yeah so I'm on the other one
while they're getting that otherone set up and thankfully it
worked from there on in afterthat, so it was something to do
with the power going into thatroom.
Wow, so there's a.
There's plenty of things goingon other than the running that
yeah yeah, that's complicated,but it's like that's.
That's very telling of thepandemic too.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Just like we have to make this work.
Um yeah, oh my gosh.
Um, so it was probably like 8.6miles per hour or like what was
it like?
Just under seven, or?

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, I think we came up to like seven, 17 pace or
something like that.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Okay, cool so you, so you're spending 12 hours on a
treadmill that day?
Um, and how was it differentdoing it?
How different was that from ona 440 meter track?

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Way different than I thought it would be.
I thought it would be a fairlyclean transition.
The biggest thing that stoodout to me was like when I'm
running on a track, even thoughit's super monotonous and super
controlled, you're still makingthese like micro adjustments
subconsciously that give youthis sense of control, like I'm
dictating the flow of thisTotally, whereas when you're on
a treadmill you're justresponding to the belt.
So, like you kind of be, itkind of feels like you're being

(26:12):
told what to do versus you'rekind of guiding, and that was
really taxing mentally.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, so I cause if you get tired, like on a track,
you're like Whoa, catch yourself, Like if you're, you're going
to fall.
That's a little bit more scary,but yeah, interesting.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
So I found myself basically like just changing the
pace a lot versus just like myinitial thought was, I'd set a
pace and just zone out.
It's harder.
That was that got moredifficult.
So I would do if I had a pace Iwanted to hit, I would go like
above it and then below it.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Add it and then kind of rotate around yeah, keep
yourself mentally, like thinkingabout how to change it.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
That's interesting.
And then for fueling, for boththe 100 miles on the track and
on the treadmill.
Uh, when are you taking insugar and how are you doing all
that?
Like during the actual race,and then I want to get into your
actual diet.
But so like during the race.
How are you doing it?

Speaker 2 (26:59):
yeah, so in on the on the track ones.
It's usually pretty formulaicI'll have have some fluid-based
carbohydrate source and thenI'll have some solid food stuff
sometimes, although my fast onewas all liquid calories
basically.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
So it's just nothing.
Fiber to slow anything down.
Yeah, is that also to kind ofprevent digestion possibility.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, you stay away from fiber as much as possible
on race day.
No real good, compelling reasonto have it.
So yeah, I mean, if you can getclimate control and a real good
system and you're not out therefor too long, I think, like you
know, six, four days, fastenough, where I avoid solids if
I can, if it's something alittle longer getting closer, if

(27:41):
, like at a race like WesternStates or something like that,
I'm going to take in some solidsat certain points, especially
during, like hiking breaks, justto get a little bit of variety,
palette change and things likethat, consistency changes and
stuff like that.
But yeah, for for the PettitCenter and then for, I think,
for the treadmill.
I had all liquids except formaybe some potato chips or
something like that, and so likethen fluid wise is it?

Speaker 1 (28:03):
are you taking water with electrolytes in it or ever
just water by itself?

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, I'll do some water by itself, but then I'll
also have electrolytes in thecarbohydrate stuff in in a
bottle as well, and then I'mhitting that on on a formula
based on my fluid intake and mycarbohydrate needs.
So if I have a scenario where,let's say, I like run the
numbers before the race, I knowin the climate I'm going to be
in, I'm going to lose like aliter of water per hour, then

(28:30):
I'm going to take in a liter perhour and then I'm going to tie
my electrolyte loss to that.
So for me, I lose like 614milligrams of electrolytes for
every liter of sweat.
So then, for every liter ofwater I take in, I'm just going
to make sure I have thatconcentration of electrolytes Do
you feel okay.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
So something I ran into when I did some ultra stuff
was the hypernutremia thing,where like when you take in
liquid.
It just doesn't it just itdoesn't absorb.
Have you ever run into?

Speaker 2 (28:55):
that Um prop, maybe not to an extreme sense, but
I've definitely mismanagedthings where I'm taking in more
fluids than I need, not enoughelectrolytes, and vice versa.
Yeah, in fact, definitelymismanaged things where I'm
taking in more fluids than Ineed, not enough electrolytes,
and vice versa.
Yeah, in fact, the second timeI did western states, when I
finished I got like superlight-headed and like the first
60 seconds and almost passed out.
They had to like carry me overto the med first 60 seconds of
the race after like when Icrossed the finish, like just

(29:16):
the moving kept my heart pumpingenough where it probably wasn't
an issue, but then when Istopped, you know, your blood
kind of pools in your legs andit goes away from your brain and
everything's just like yeah andI was.
I remember like that year Ifinished 11th, so I was like the
first person to not get theauto entry to the next year, so
they wanted to interview meabout that.
Yeah, it's like.
Yeah, so like I'm like, yeah,sure, whatever, but then, like,

(29:37):
as I'm standing there, I'm likeI'm gonna pass out and.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
I like told them they're used to that like that
would be the first or the lastperson who passes out of the
finish line of these things.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
So they like rushed me over to the med tent, they
gave me some broth and that waslike a light switch went on as
soon as I had that salt.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
Um, so what would you say is like the scariest, not
near death, but like whereyou're like.
I went a little too far, like,or like.
I ran too, because I felt thatwhere I'm like okay, maybe this
was like I put pushed myselfover the edge and like I'm going
to pass out.
Have you ever had one of thosethat you're like that stands out
as like, not not right?

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, I did a race in , was it?
I think 2016?
In 2016 was a hundred K inCalifornia and it was uh, it was
actually six days after I donea hundred K in China.
So the only reason I was thereis I wanted to get a qualifier
for another race.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
So 200 Ks in the same week.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah, uh-huh, pretty much with the travel from China
back to the West coast.
So I'm on, I'm in that race and,uh, I get to like about the
midway point there's like thethis peak climb on the course
before you start going down andI start going down and as I'm
heading, descending down thatthat uh trail, I like clipped my
toe on a rock and fell.
But I was like so out of it thatI didn't even recall falling,

(30:48):
like it was just likeimmediately on the ground and I
hit my head on a rock.
So like it was likeinstantaneous and the next thing
I knew I was like, okay, I'm onthe ground, I fell and then,
like I knew, I hit my head, butI didn't like feel any pain or
any sensation other than I knowI hit my head.
So I immediately reach up tosee if there's anything there.
It's like blood pouring out,wow.
So luckily I had a bandana, soI like pressed that on my

(31:11):
forehead and I walked back tothe aid station.
That was maybe like a half amile from that spot and you know
they brought in, like themedical person and they, like
you know, patched it up.
They, they made me drop out atthat point, because they didn't
know if I had a concussion ornot.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Took me down to the start finish.
I sat there for a few hoursbefore they let me go and I
still didn't know the severityof it until later that day.
I was eight hours from where Iwas living at the time and I'd
had a hotel midway I.
My thought during that day wasI'll run the hundred K drive
halfway that night stay at ahotel that I reserved, I think

(31:47):
it was.
I asked them after, before Ileft, because I hadn't seen
anything on my forehead fromthat fall.
I just asked them.
I was like do I need to go andget this looked at like stitches
or anything like that?
And they're like well, youmight not need stitches, but
cosmetically maybe you want toat least consider it.
So I'm like well, I'll get tothe hotel, take off the bandage,
take a look at it and see howbad it is.

(32:08):
And when I got to the hotel andlooked at it, it was like this
massive gash is this the pictureon Strava?

Speaker 1 (32:13):
you have a picture on Strava of some hitting your
head really bad.
I probably yeah, because I waslike scrolling through and I was
like, okay, well, he definitelyhit him his head at some point.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah, it's probably that it looks like a huge chunk
out of my forehead essentiallyyeah, so when I saw that, I like
went straight to the emergencyroom, and I mean it was an
emergency room in Bakersfield,california, so they see like way
worse situations than thatthey're used to like.
Oh, that person got stabbed.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So they're like this guy gotbumped in the head, so the guy
didn't even skip a beat.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
He's like looking at it.
He's like, oh yeah, we'll putin these stitches that we do
like internally, and thenthey'll dissolve.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
You pull them out and you won't stitched it up and
then sent me on my way and thenit was fine after that.
So that was probably yourscariest encounter on the run of
like your health was tested.
Yeah, pretty much okay, um, uh.
So, getting into food, becauseI am so fascinated by this, you
were one of the first peoplethat I ever heard about okay.
So back up when you firststarted running, I think you
mentioned on one of the podcaststhat I listened to that you
were listening to ben greenfieldpodcast, like back in the day I
did was too like.
I don't know, maybe it was 10years ago, um, I couldn't

(33:20):
because he used to post a lot.
I think he might still um, Idon't listen to him as much
anymore but he was the firstperson I ever heard talking
about ketogenic diets with ultraor any endurance athlete he was
that keto diet yeah, and Ihadn't.
I hadn't really heard about thatbecause in the running
communities that I was gettinginvolved with it was always just
like the typical like sugar,eat sugar stuff and like that's

(33:42):
just all they eat, you know,like bagels and whatever.
But I found it reallyfascinating and I began
experimenting myself with a lotof that stuff and I was like
cyclically keto for a whilebecause as a woman, I think it's
like more safe to be like likeas from what I've like
researched, like I don't knowthis for sure, but I mean I've
like dabbled a lot in that likeover the years.

(34:03):
And then you came on the sceneas someone who was like the
poster child of a keto endurancewhich was like, primarily like
a meat heavy diet.
Is it minimal vegetables andlike roughage, or is it like
describe your diet?

Speaker 2 (34:17):
I'm just so curious to hear from your point of view
Describe it is.
It's, uh, it's low carb.
So, like I don't do strict ketoeither, um, I've done, I do
strict keto phases, maybe in theoff season and things like that
, and then I started that at theend of 2011.
So I've been doing it now for Ithink I guess it'd be, coming
up on like, I guess, about 13years or so.

(34:38):
From the first time I did it orstarted doing it to now those
inputs have been like all overthe place, so like the
macronutrient ratios that I'lltarget, throughout different
phases of the year.
Those have been prettyconsistent over that timeframe.
But the inputs have changed andusually it's just out of
curiosity, more or less.
So, like when I first started,it was actually like mostly
plant-based, a lot small, verylittle meat, animal-based inputs

(35:01):
, and then, um, then it kind ofbalanced a little in between and
then I did one where I was likemostly animal-based, very
little plant inputs, um, and youknow, usually I was kind of
like somewhere in the middlethere.
Uh, so I don't really avoid oneor the other necessarily.
I'm more kind of interested inlike making sure like, first of
all, can I put together aprotocol that is going to work

(35:21):
consistently that I enjoy enoughto do, and then, as soon as I
stop enjoying it for one reasonor the other, then I'll just
change the inputs.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, I feel very similar to that, where I kind of
like have gone between likemore plant-based, with some veg
or some fish and whatever, andthen, like go to the other side
of things and do more of a ketothing, maybe in the dead of
winter, when I'm not as much inendurance training mode and the.
And the thing that I've foundthat you probably have too is,
like you, if you already becomein ketosis and then you start to

(35:50):
play around with like running alot, and then, uh, eating a
sweet potato, like right afteryou're running it like you can
get back in ketosis prettyquickly.
Yeah, so, like some people might, it might take them a lot
longer to get into ketosis anduse that um, utilize that, but
it's like it's easier if you'rerunning a lot like to get back
into ketosis, yeah absolutelylike.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Lifestyle is a huge driver of just like the
physiology behind all of that.
Like I mean, you can even takea high carb athlete and they're
going to be in some level ofketosis at times, most likely
just due to the volume ofrunning they're doing, like
anyone who go.
You could take a if you took,like a high carb endurance
athlete, had them go out on likea Sunday morning long run and
not fuel beforehand, likethey're going to have some blood

(36:27):
ketones produced by the end ofthat.
So yeah, when you think aboutit now, you like, even if you
reduce half of theircarbohydrate intake, it's just
going to force that their bodiescan demand a fuel source and
that's going to be what'savailable for them at that point
.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
And then they're going to just have it.
I think of it as a kind of likea spectrum versus like an all
or nothing thing.
So, and you can see this onlike fat oxidation rates charts
too, where, like, if you go inand you do one of the treadmill
tests where they give you, likeyour carb and fat ratios at
different points on theintensity spectrum, you can kind
of see like okay, I'm burningthis much fat and this much

(37:05):
carbohydrate and you can landyourself on different ratios
depending on those inputs.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, I found too that, like if I get my body
really adapted to less, like ifI can go train and do a 20 mile
long grind on very little, like,maybe just water, which people
are like, oh that's crazy, butit's like just doing that.
and then then when you do takein the sugar, like at the race,
it's like crack and like you'relike, oh, like I feel so amazing
and it's because, like, youhaven't been training with that

(37:27):
and so then it like it gives youa superpower, but it's like
kind of and it's kind of fringebecause, like a lot of people
would think that that's wild,but like I think, I think it's
an interesting thing when itactually works for people and it
seems like you've done a lot oflong runs that are fasted or
call something that I heard yousay.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, quite a few of them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the way Ilook.
My first kind of exposure whenI started.
Well, like when I first started, I went stretch keto during
like my off season, just to kindof like see what it was like,
and I didn't have really anyanticipation as to whether I
would keep doing it or not.
Um, I assumed at that point, Iassumed it's either going to
work or it's not, and I'm goingto keep doing it.
I'll go back to what I wasdoing, but what I realized once

(38:05):
I kind of started addingtraining back was when I was
still strict keto I felt greatbasically all the time, but then
when I would do somethingmoderate, high intensity, I felt
like I just had this like kindof roadblock where I couldn't
quite get to the paces I wouldbe hitting prior to that Right?

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, the extra step.
Yeah, I know what you mean.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
So then I started bringing back some carbohydrate
and I noticed what you justdescribed there, felt like
whatever I needed before washalved and I'd get that same
response, that same kind ofperceived effort reduction.
So then I was like, okay, okay,well, maybe I just cycle in
carbohydrates strategicallyaround.
You're gonna run a hundredsessions, yes, yes I feel the
exact same way.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
we're all like I know I'm trying to do a tempo or
something, and so then I'm likeI want to run 10 miles in a six
flat pace, so like I'm gonnahave extra sweet potatoes or
like carbs that I like trustthat are not too crazy, and then
it gives me that like extrasnap, cause it sucks when you
get into that mode with trainingwhere you're like just kind of
slow all the time.
And you're just like and I'vehad that with keto too where I'd
be like I just can't get fast.

(39:01):
And you think like you're out ofshape and you're like it's just
cause you have no carbs, orglucose in your brain or
whatever.
So I wanted to also ask youokay.
So a couple had like I'm likebouncing around, but I want to
make sure I hit on these thingsbecause I'm just genuinely so
curious, okay.
So, uh, when you have setbacksbecause like you're someone
who's done like huge things andsuddenly if you're injured, like

(39:24):
you hit your head and you can't, run or like something like you
hurt your leg or something.
I saw you had like a hamstringinjury at some point, recently
maybe.
So when you have those andyou're like a type a person
who's just like always wantingto do big things, how do you
work around it?
And uh, with this question Iwant to build in the the 15%
treadmill question, cause I feellike that has to do with like
uh, injury stuff.

(39:45):
Cause like I'm obsessed with 15%treadmill walking, like I came
out of surgery and the firstthing I did they were like you
can't exercise and I was likeI'm going to walk on the
treadmill at 15% for like a fewhours and like it helped me.
So what do you do when you'reinjured?
To keep yourself in a trainingmode even though you're like
very far from like you're like aperformance, like physicality?

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, I think of it through two kind of.
I think of two things basically.
One is what do I need to do tocorrect whatever caused the
issue in the first place, likewhat was lacking that led to
that, and sometimes that's justlike a reduction of something I
was doing too much of, butsometimes it's like, ok, there's
an imbalance here and I need tocorrect that.
So I'm thinking about, like,what do I need to do to make
sure that doesn't repeat itself?

(40:27):
And then I'm also thinkingabout, with what I can do with
whatever limitations I have fromthis injury, what are things
that are going to be likeproductive that I normally would
either not have enough time for, enough energy for when I'm
kind of in like typical trainingand I start kind of structuring
kind of my training around that.
So a lot of times that'll belike, um, some sort of strength
movement, mobility movement orthings like that, or you know, a

(40:49):
cross training device.
So, like you said, the 15%treadmill.
Um, like when I've had injuriesin the past where it's like
impact based and I want to, I'mready to get back into training,
but I want to get back in a waythat's less, like less it's
going to drive less impact.
Yes so like the 15% incline onthe treadmill, you can get your
heart rate up pretty high.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Yeah, easily, really fast, it's crazy yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Yeah, at a relatively low impact slow pace, fast it's
crazy.
Yeah, yeah, at a relatively lowimpact slow pace.
And I actually like, and I alsothink like there's, when you're
doing a lot of flat races, likeI am, then you also have this
scenario where you're kind ofgoing through this very similar
mechanic all the time, which isgoing to create imbalances and
weaknesses and kind of make youa little more lopsided than
you'd maybe want to be, justholistically.

(41:31):
So I think kind of keeping insome of those modalities that do
change that variability of theterrain is just good for, like,
your overall health and juststrength within the sport too.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, that makes sense, like the equal and
opposite reaction.
Like I'm a big flat runner type, like I love running flat too
and hills are my weakness.
So like I was like okay, nowI'm going to just like dominate
hills and just do inclinerunning and like I noticed you
do you do specifically the fivemiles in an hour.
Five miles an hour on 15%.
I was like this is like, thisis amazing, because I like spent
months where my whole Stravawas like yeah, I got my five

(42:05):
miles in an hour, but likenobody understands.
There was like, okay, cool.
Like it looks like, not verylike great, but it's like, no,
it's hard.
Like my heart rate was like one, 78 the entire time.
Um, so it's, it's just funny tosee that, cause I was like oh,
this is so random, like what aweird common denominator.
But yeah, so like finding the,the training that you can do to
supplement all of the flatrunning.

(42:27):
Um, and then what about likestrength, like do you do lifting
and like all the other, likesupplementing with strength
training?

Speaker 2 (42:33):
to help with running.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
That makes sense, yeah, for for runners.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
I think it's like step one is always like do you
have a relative strengthdeficiency?
So the way you can kind of testthat out is if you went into
the gym and let's say, like youhave like a squat rack or
something like that, if you putyour body weight on that squat
rack, if you can't do one rep,you probably have a relative
deficiency.
Or if you're not comfortablewith squatting squat there's a
technical aspect of squatting.

(42:57):
So I don't suggest people justgo in there and start trying it
necessarily especially if youdon't know if you can get it off
the ground or off the bar, Ishould say you, I mean you can
use like a leg press orsomething and kind of like
replicate that sort of like canI do my body weight?
If that is a no there, then youshould probably stick to some
very traditional kind ofstrength movements, like that
very machine to kind of getyourself into that spot where

(43:20):
you can do your body weight once, and from there you get a
little more options available toyou.
You can do things like more,like more plyometric based
things, like muscular enduranceroutines, which are like
basically like like lunges, boxsteps, uh, like, yeah, a little
more plyometric type stuff.
Or what I think is a reallygood strategy for a lot of

(43:41):
runners is single leg stuff, sosomething as simple as like like
picking up a dumbbell or akettlebell off the ground by
like bending over with one legright, okay yeah, um, or you're
doing like single leg, legpresses and things like that, so
you're actually engaging yourbody on that single leg at a
time.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
That's what you use when you run exactly, yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
And then you can see if you got imbalances too, where
, like, if I get on the legpress and put whatever weight on
there and press with both legs,whatever my stronger leg is
going to just like intuitively,like compensate for the more of
the load than my weak leg.
So I'm almost reinforcing thatlike that imbalance that makes.
So the single leg stuff canreally help with identifying.
Is there a weakness on one sideversus the other?

(44:21):
Um, a physical therapistprobably can do that for you too
.
Yeah, you really want to getgood that it's it's.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
It's helpful to hear.
I mean, like that stuff isalways like my biggest weakness.
I just like I like to run andthen like anything else, I'm
like it's probably not going tohappen unless I have someone in
the room with me looking at metelling me to do it um but so
okay, out of all of these wildadventures that you've had when
you've done like the multiplehundred mile races in different
forms, uh, and like the trailrunning and stuff, you also have

(44:50):
done things like run from SanFrancisco to New York, like like
real adventure races that takea long time, seven continents in
seven days.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
I haven't done that and I haven't done the Transpati
yet either.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Something on Google says that you have.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Oh really, because I Googled it, I'll take credit for
it if someone wants to get it.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
I think ChatGPT is lying to me, because I was
thinking you hadn't, because Iwas like, well, this is weird,
like why, why not?
Because I would have thoughtyou would have broken the record
.
But then ChatDBT says ZachBitter has done this, and I was
like, well, I'll have to askabout it.
So so, is that something onyour list that you'd want to do?

Speaker 2 (45:22):
The not so much the seven continents thing.
I do want to do the Transcon,though the San Fran and New York
run.
That's one thing oh, myschedule to do okay, but I got
injured, like literally I think,like four weeks before I was
gonna start okay, because that'sa 70 mile a day that the record
is 72 and a half okay, and you,you probably, you think you
could probably break that, so isthat like I?

(45:43):
don't know if I could break it.
I mean, I think that's that oneof those tougher records out
there for these like multi-daylong haul stuff, but I would
definitely try to break it.
So that would be my strategygoing.
It would be how do I preparemyself to give myself a shot at
it at least?

Speaker 1 (45:56):
but so the seven continents in seven days is not
a goal or something.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
No, okay, I'm not I'm not opposed to it.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
It's just not something I've necessarily
gotten excited about what, whatdoes, besides the san francisco,
new york, uh, what other likewhat is like I?
This is still left on my bucketlist of like.
I have to go do, do this.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Yeah I, I think I could still run a faster hundred
mile time uh for a couple ofreasons.
One is just, I think, like wherewe were talking about before,
it's like a negative split that.
So, like I mean there's adebate as to whether negative
splitting is optimal or if youleft someone on the table or you
know the who knows on.
My theory is that you'reprobably like a few percentage
points on either side of even.

(46:33):
That is like a loading zonewhere you're going to get the
best out of you as long as you,you know, have everything else
work out well for you that day.
But I did that in just kind oflike normal, like typical
training shoes essentially,whereas now, like we have the
whole super shoes stuff.
So good point, yeah, becausethat was 2019.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah because that was 2019.
Yeah, and so do you know if Ialways feel like this might be a
touchy subject, but do you knowif the person who broke the
record after you the worldrecord if he was wearing the
super shoes?
I think he was wearing he waswearing one version of the nike
super shoes I see, um, yeah,because like I feel like if I
was someone like you, you'd belike well, wait a minute.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
I want to get back out there in the super shoes and
just like break it again andand like it becomes like this
back and forth thing which iskind of like, I think, why these
records drop, because it's likeit just shows like okay, well,
if Zach can do it, I'm going togo do it and then, like it just
keeps going like that, but sobesides that, like so you think,

(47:32):
the hundred mile, probablyanother few years of, just like
some honest swings at it to seeif I can lower my time, um, but
you know, along with that I Iwant to try to figure out the 24
hour.
That's a really intriguing.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
So what you?
Uh, I'm sorry, I'm alwaystrying to remember all your
stats, so you did 24 hours at,was it one 21?
Um, I'm trying to think.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
I think the furthest I've gone is 125, 125, so 125 uh
miles in a 24-hour race isthat's also a track?
Yeah, so that race was.
So I actually stopped at like Ithink 16 and a half hours.
That's where I dropped out ofit.
So I hit 125 at one or at 16and a half and didn't get any
further.
So that's where I want to tryto figure out like, how do I
figure out that last eight,seven, eight hours to?

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah, yeah, Because that's even crazier.
So that's like that's so.
That's really wild to me.
So you ran 125 miles in 16hours and then it's like what
could you do in the rest of theday?
Right, If you don't blow up toosoon?

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Yeah, so I a day, right if you don't blow up too
soon.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
yeah so I've got like seven to eight hours of
potential like what?

Speaker 2 (48:38):
so?
Like 200, something?
Well, I mean, the world recordis 198.6, so, and that's like
head and shoulders above anyoneelse who's done it.
So there's the guy, uh,alexander sorokin, who has the
100 mile world record.
He's actually got the 100k, 100mile, 12 hour, 24 hour now, and
he's the only human to ever goabove 190, and he's done it

(49:00):
twice he did it 198.6 and Ithink like 192 or something like
that yeah so I mean that's ahuge number do you know him?

Speaker 1 (49:08):
do you ever like?

Speaker 2 (49:08):
yeah, I had him on my podcast.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah, oh, okay, cool because you're just like hey, we
were kind of in the same clublike the rare people in the
world who do these things.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah he's a fascinating guy to follow,
for sure yeah I mean interestingstory too.
Like he's been in the ultrarunning world for a long time,
like we actually, before we kneweach other, crossed paths at
like world championships in the100k and just had no clue
because yeah like neither of uswere like winning that race at
the time and like, yeah, it wasjust.
It was just like there's somany athletes at that, you don't
meet them all.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Yeah, and then when people start to just get dressed
better and his story was likedoor over the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
He got laid off from his job and I think, if I
remember right, he just did aton of treadmill training and
then he went to uh.
The following year after thepandemic he went to the
Centurion hundred, the one thatI was going to do right before
that got canceled when I did thetreadmill and he broke my a
hundred mile world record there,uh, by I think like three or
four minutes.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
And then.
So he was like that was like apretty big jump of compared to
anything else he had done beforethen.
And then he kind of went onthis stretch of like maybe two
to three years where, likeeverything he touched was just
world record.
World record he broke the 24hour twice, he broke the 24-hour
twice, he broke the 100-miletwice, he broke the 100K twice.
Yeah, the 12-hour would havebeen within the sum of those.

(50:21):
So yeah, so I mean he's likethe dude for the six hours up to
24 hours, right now.
So does that give?

Speaker 1 (50:35):
you like, does that kind of make you go well, does
it fuel, fire a little bit oflike seeing inspiration of like,
okay, this guy.
So you're like it's like a, nota rivalry, like it's like a
healthy competition kind of.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
It shows you what's capable too.
Yes, yes, you know.
And, and he's also in his 40s,like all these records, he's
when he's been 40 plus.
So it also gives you kind of aperspective of, like, what is
what is necessary next?
Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
That's a great inspiration.
I love that because in the backof my mind I mean I look at
Camille Heron and I look atwomen who are doing big things
later in their careers.
Like I'm kind of in a pointwhere I'm doing like trying to
work on my marathon and thenlike work my way up
competitively, but like likewhile I can, I guess.
But it is awesome to think asyou get older, like ultra just
can get better.
Yeah, um, and he's a greatexample of that um, do you feel

(51:15):
like so, like talking about thecompetition or healthy
competition kind of vibes.
Do you feel like you'reinternally motivated or
externally motivated, likehaving someone else to see doing
the things?
that's a very external thing, Ithink yeah versus like I have a
fire inside of me and I have togo run this out.
What do you think yours is, orlike your?
Why?

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, I'm probably a little more internally motivated
, but I don't.
It's not like a either ornecessarily.
I think the external motivationfor me is like, okay, here are
these guys who've done likethese historic numbers.
There's a path there, right,there's a process that they use
to get to that, both in trainingand in race execution.
And I get motivated from like,well, how do I use those inputs

(51:58):
to figure out what I should evenbe targeting in the first place
?
So, like one of the hardestthings with the 24 hour right
now is like what is the strategyto yield your best result?
Like, do you go out a littlebit faster and hold on for dear
life?
Do you go slow and just try tolike gain momentum as the race
progresses?
And there's not like a clearsignal there, necessarily when

(52:19):
there's very few people doing itor there's very few examples of
it and there's still not a veryclear one, although there is
the women's world record and themen's world record of the
24-hour have a pretty healthypositive split.
So that would maybe suggestthat you do maybe want to bank
some time.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Like go run first half faster, exactly yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
But then there's, like you know there's there's
big numbers that are put up withother approaches, like the
men's American record by Nickcareer.
Now his is like perfect, evenlysplits, just like, like
clockwork basically.
So I think there's some,there's probably some
personality in there too, whereI mean someone like camille.
She thrives under running likeher normal running pace, which

(52:58):
is probably too fast to sustainfor 24 hours.
So she goes out there and justgoes for it and then eventually
she hits a roadblock and maybejust like shuts it down for 20
minutes, refuels, stretches andgets back out there and she
starts running again.
You know some people that worksfor, some people maybe doesn't,
and other people might need tokind of feed off the momentum of
just continually say, okay, I'mdoing this right, I'm doing

(53:20):
this right, which I would thinknick is probably maybe a little
bit more in line with.
Um.
But yeah, like you getalexander strokin and he came
through 100 miles in like 11, 10when he ran 198.
So like he was way out in front, like he was at that point, he
was like projecting to run wellover 200.
So I mean you can always makethe argument of like, well, if

(53:40):
he would have went slower, hewould have gone 205 miles yeah,
yeah, you just can't really tell.
He's like or he wouldn't havedone as well and ran 193.
So right, right, right, yeah,it's so elusive, like that's the
thing.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
It's even like I've seen that lesson with just the
marathon, where it's like youjust don't, like it's hard to
tell what your body's gonna do.
But it is interesting to thinkthat ultra marathoning,
competitive ultra marathon, likefast ultra marathoning, is
still relatively new.
Like, like, with this caliberof seeing what's possible and
how, like we kind of don't know.
Like if you took elliotkipchoge or something, or like

(54:11):
the next elliot kipchoge, andput him on a track for 24 hours,
how far could he?
go right, exactly, or like wouldhe just blow up like we just
don't know, like what, what'spossible, um so, but so you
think that your why stems from II'm internally motivated in the
sense that I just have thislike desire to just problem
solve and I get curious aboutlike what I'm capable of.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
So like once I kind of get fixated on a goal, then
it's like okay, how do I buildthe training for that?
And that's really whatmotivates me.
I like that kind of the processoriented like thought, thought
and then trying to like test itout on the race itself.
So yeah for me, it's like if Igo and I have a bad race, I
don't really get upset aboutthose things, because it's like

(54:55):
if I'm at a race, it's probablybecause I chose something I
wanted to be doing for themonths leading into it and that
alone is going to be fulfillingto some degree, because I'm
going to answer a question onrace day one way or the other.
It's going to either be like OK, that went really well and I
need to replicate some of thoseprinciples that got me there, or
these things went wrong.
What did I do in training thatcould maybe make that not the

(55:18):
case?
Or was it just purely poor raceexecution?
Uh, fueling execution and allthat stuff.
So that stuff really motivatesme the most, I think, is kind of
like trying to self-improvebased on the problem solving
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
And sometimes if you have like small wins, like your
very first ultra, you seesomething and you're like not
saying that that's a small win,but I mean compared to what you
went on to do, like you seesomething and you're like, oh, I
got validation from that, likeI, whatever I did to take it to
that point worked and I'm goingto keep doing it to see what I
can keep pushing.
Um, and it's cool to think thatyou're kind of still like right
in the middle of that, like youhave no idea what could happen,

(55:54):
like in the next however manyyears that you keep doing it.
Do you see yourself runningforever?
like what's your what's yourultra like retirement plan my?

Speaker 2 (56:02):
my, what I've been like, what I tell myself is like
, as long as I'm as motivated asI've ever been, I'm gonna keep
doing it.
And the nice thing about ultrais there is such variety between
trails, distances and otherthings that, like, so far, when
I've lost motivation, it hasn'tbeen for the sport, it's been
for a very specific aspect of itand I just need a break.

(56:24):
So, like you know, before I ranmy fastest 100 miler.
I spent half a year basicallytraining for a trail 100 miler
because I had been like I hadhad a race that prior year where
it was just like I.
I went into it with goodintentions but when I finished
and I reflected on I was like,yeah, I just it was.
I didn't have that edge that Ineed to be really excited about

(56:45):
this.
Yeah, because I've just beenrinsing, repeating for too long.
So I needed to take a break todo something else and I did, and
then when I came back it waslike I ran my best hundred miler
I had on on the flat stuff.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
So I love that.
Yeah, I feel very similar whereI was like I was racing a lot
and then I just got so sick ofit and I was like I just want to
run for fun and not have anyonelooking at me and like that.
There's something about likejust finding the edge again.
That's going to get.
Um.
Have you ever been on astarting line where you're like
I don't know if this is going tohappen?
Like you're just like this isthis is not my day from the

(57:18):
start, or um from the start,maybe not.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
Well, I guess it depends.
Maybe on expectations.
I've done races where it's likethe expectations are really low
, where I'm just like I'm doingthis kind of for fun or to
explore a little bit, versushaving a real strict goal yeah
and there's maybe a lot moreuncertainty with those, I would
say like with the 24 hours,since I haven't really had a
very successful with one of that.
That's one where, like you geton the starting line, you're
like I don't know that my planis gonna work.

(57:45):
Yeah, it could be the worstpossible idea yeah, yeah this
strategy could be completelywrong right whereas with like
certain races, like the hundredmile I mostly have, like got
that down and like there's,there's a range of where you're
probably going to land based onhow you execute um, and how well
you predicted your fitnessgoing in.
But it's likely not going to besomething where, like it's not

(58:08):
an experience you haven't hadbefore.
So you sort of know thepitfalls along the way, the
signs that say like, yeah,you're, you're doing this wrong
or you're.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
You sort of know the pitfalls along the way, the
signs that say like yeah, you'reyou're doing this wrong or
you're you're doing this right.
Yeah, I see that.
Um, what so?
What is next?
Like, what do you have on thebooks that you're like allowed,
I guess, to say that you'redoing?
Is it the next race for you?

Speaker 2 (58:24):
Yeah, yeah, I think I'll probably go back to the
Pettit Center for a hundredmiles, which is in June next
year.
Um, uh, I'm most likely to dothe Vermont hundred mile, which
is the trail race on the Eastcoast.
Uh, that's kind of a oldhistoric hundred miler and I'd
like to get back to a trailhundred miler next year at some
point.
So those two are kind of more,more certain.
I'll spread in some other onesalong.

(58:45):
I'll do something before thePettit center.
I'm just coming off off seasonright now, so I kind of want to
get back up to kind of peaktraining to see where
everything's at before I putanything before that on the
calendar.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Right, yeah, it's always hard to put anything on
the books when you're like kindof still right Right.
Especially like a hundred miler.
Um.
So, yeah, well, thank you somuch.
Um, we're, we're good on um thetime that we have and I I just
appreciate so much.
You have no idea how big thiswas for me, like you are my um.
I don't even know Like I was,like I was telling my friends

(59:14):
I'm like guys.
Zach Bitter.
Cause, it's just like, that's mycelebrity and in the running
community, it's, uh, it's.
It's always funny when you getto talk to someone that you,
like, you've looked up to for solong.
So thank you so much for comingon my show.
Um, if you want to share anyway for people to follow you, uh
, I'm sure they can just lookyou up on google or whatever,
but like your instagram or yourpodcast, yeah go for it.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
My website's probably the easiest place to find all
that stuff.
Instagram podcast iszachbittercom, but my instagram
handle is at zachbitter yeah,great, um.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
so, yeah, thanks again for coming on the show, uh
, and thanks for everyonelistening.
Um, this episode was brought toyou by the museum of distance
running, our motor short, whichis an apparel brand that caters
to the creative class of runners.
If you use offer code Lucy10,l-u-c-i-e 10, you can get 10%
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(01:00:04):
We're going to have a fallwinter collection coming out in
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