#1392 - Zach Bitter

[0] What's up, Zach?

[1] Hey, how's it going?

[2] Good, man. How are you?

[3] Good, good.

[4] Thanks for having me back on.

[5] My pleasure.

[6] Hey, thanks for turning me onto those shoes you wear, too.

[7] Those ultras.

[8] Oh, nice.

[9] I started running with those.

[10] Yeah.

[11] I like them.

[12] I like them a lot.

[13] They're great.

[14] Uh -huh.

[15] Which ones, you got the, whatever the trail ones are.

[16] Okay.

[17] You know, I like the wide foot, what's it called?

[18] Footbox.

[19] Foot shake toe box, yeah.

[20] Toad box.

[21] Yeah, those are great.

[22] Cool, man. No, I'm glad you like them.

[23] And I feel like this is what you wear, so it gets me excited when I'm running.

[24] You know, it's really interesting, like, when you dive into kind of the world of footwear and stuff, and I learned this recently, and the number one indicator of low injury risk, which is what runners are always looking for, that's going to minimize risk.

[25] So comfort is the identifier for that.

[26] So you find yourself going into a specialty running shop, ask them to try on a variety of different pairs, a variety of different models, and find the one that's most comfortable for you, and that's probably going to lower your risk to the lowest you can get from your footwear anyway.

[27] What if you're like a really smushy ones?

[28] Aren't those supposed to be not so good for you?

[29] Yeah, no, that's a good question.

[30] I think it's one of those things where it's kind of half true, half not, where you kind of have to look at what's the purpose of what you're doing.

[31] So the way I kind of describe it is if I'm trying to strengthen my lower legs, you know, I want that low cushion, that firm platform because that's going to really activate the muscles in the lower part of the leg.

[32] But if I'm dealing with some lower leg issues or a little sore, I did a workout and my calves are kind of sore, or my ankle sore, then cushion can be great because it's going to relieve that kind of initial impact on the lower part of your legs.

[33] And the caveat, though, is those impact forces have to go somewhere.

[34] So they're kind of going to move further up the kinetic chain.

[35] So what I usually tell people, if you're dealing with lower leg pain or injury, then you might want to consider something a little more cushioned.

[36] And if you want, if you're dealing with something like in your knees or your hips, then getting rid of some of that cushion is going to just keep that kind of more precise foot plant and maybe alleviate some of those impact forces from ending up in those areas.

[37] But at the end of the day, the mechanics of it all are going to be the real driver.

[38] You want your foot to come underneath a bent knee because you're using your legs as kind of like a three foot spring, essentially.

[39] So if you can get that foot plant under bent knee, it's going to absorb it in the way your body intends versus absorbing it in a way that could maybe send those impact forces into the wrong areas.

[40] That's really interesting.

[41] You know, I was watching a video with this guy who is in his 70s who runs an under three -hour marathon.

[42] And he said that five years ago he hired a coach, which is kind of crazy, like a 65 -year -old dude hiring a coach, but trimmed a bunch of time off his marathon, I think more than five minutes off of his marathon.

[43] I think it was quite a bit more than five minutes.

[44] And he was running for a long time before that, but yet a coach sort of shortened his time and finishing a 26 -mile race at 70 years old.

[45] Yeah, it's never too late.

[46] Yeah.

[47] The bent knee is really important because a lot of folks who don't pay attention to the history of footwear don't understand that this fat cushioned heel that everybody sort of thinks of when you think of a running shoe and when you watch a lot of people run that don't know any better, they run and they land on their heel, which is sort of something that was created.

[48] Was it by Nike?

[49] Is that what it was that created that fat bottomed heel thing?

[50] Yeah, I think they were the first one to do the offset where it was traditionally, I think it was like 12.

[51] millimeters where your heel would be that much higher than your four foot.

[52] But I think even with when we get into kind of like say heel striking versus four foot or midfoot striking, heel striking is another thing where it's not inherently bad.

[53] It all comes down to what I was saying before where if you can heel strike but your foot is still underneath that bent knee, you're probably not going to do anything too detrimental.

[54] So like there's not optimal, right?

[55] It probably depends on the specific runner in their particular gate.

[56] Yeah.

[57] So you could have like extra long legs or something and maybe heel strike would work or extra short legs or what would it be?

[58] Yeah, I don't know for sure if there's a height thing that would do.

[59] I think it would maybe just come with like the mechanics of the way the person learned to run in the first place and just maybe some nuances with the way their body is kind of more or less designed.

[60] But I mean, there's heel striking folks that are very or not injury prone or have never gotten injuries or hardly ever get injuries.

[61] But usually I think if you're doing that, that's probably because you're under that bent knee and you're not kind of having that point where your foot is out in front of your knee, and then you kind of have that straight leg, but at an angle where it's going to be, you know, not ideal for kind of absorbing those impacts.

[62] Yeah, that's the real bad one, right, is when people are pigeon -toed, when their knees kind of bend in, which I do see quite a bit.

[63] That's got to be terrible for your knees, right?

[64] Yeah, I mean, I couldn't say for sure, but I think there's a lot of nuance, and it ends up be kind of like an individual situation with a lot of these cases.

[65] So it's hard to know for sure.

[66] There's probably people who can talk to mechanics better than me in Atlanta.

[67] Right.

[68] You just run.

[69] What was the, what was the, explain the record you broke.

[70] You ran 24 in less, well, it was 100 miles.

[71] And it's a 24 hour time period, but you did it in 11 hours and 40 what minutes?

[72] Yeah.

[73] So it was, yeah, let me, I'll explain it a little bit.

[74] So it was a, the event itself was called six days in the dome.

[75] and really what it was was you could do anything from a 24 -hour event to a 48 -hour event to a six -day event and just see how far you could run within that time frame.

[76] Six days.

[77] Yeah, I know there's some crazy people out there.

[78] So just wait until David Gagons finds that event.

[79] But, yeah, so I've been, it's interesting because there's not a lot of timed events that are necessarily structured 400 -mile or for like 12 hours.

[80] So a lot of times you find yourself jumping into some of these other events that are longer in duration.

[81] just kind of using them as a way to try to run a fast 100 -mile or a fast 12 -hour.

[82] So the race director for that particular event had reached out to me because he's known me for a while and knew that I was targeting fast -hundred -mile times and just said, hey, I've got this cool event set up at the Olympic training facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the Pettit Center, and I think it's going to be pretty conducive for fast times.

[83] And asked if I wanted to do it.

[84] So I actually didn't have an ideal timeline.

[85] to that I would have normally wanted to work with in terms of getting ready for it.

[86] But training went really well and I went there targeting the 100 mile world record, which was 11 hours, 28 minutes and three seconds prior to that and ended up running 11 hours, 19 minutes and 13 seconds for 100 miles.

[87] And then since we have like this 100 mile distance and also this 12 hour timed event kind of structure, you can find yourself if you're under 12 hours kind of double dipping and getting two events for the price of one, I guess you could say.

[88] So I kept running after I hit 100 miles and ended up going 104 .88 miles total in the 12 -hour time frame.

[89] So that was another record?

[90] Yeah.

[91] So it's two world records, 100 miles and 12 hours.

[92] Dude, six minutes and 48 seconds for a pace for 100 miles is fucking bonkers.

[93] That is so fast.

[94] That's so crazy.

[95] That's such a fast pace, Matt.

[96] Yeah, you know, it's funny like when you look at it because I think sometimes people look at like 100 miles and 11 hours and 19 minutes and there's not a lot of context in their mind unless they're kind of familiar with ultra marathon running.

[97] But when you start to break it down into like the subcategories where it's like well that's like four like sub three hour marathons in a row or I can't remember how many or what the 5K time is.

[98] It's like 31 5Ks at some time.

[99] That's four sub three hour marathons in a row.

[100] Wow.

[101] That's so crazy.

[102] That's so fast.

[103] Are you still eating mostly meat?

[104] So, you know, this gets brought up quite a bit, I think, because, I mean, I eat a ton of animal products, for sure.

[105] But, you know, I wouldn't classify myself as a quote -unquote carnivore or quite in that type of thing.

[106] Well, this is because the carnivore diet people want to claim you.

[107] Right.

[108] And we discussed this kind of the last time you were here where you take in a lot of glucose and you ramp up your carbohydrates considerably before a race.

[109] But like, what is your, what is a daily diet?

[110] Let's say in training, like you're preparing for something like this.

[111] What's a daily diet for you like?

[112] Yeah, yeah.

[113] So, yeah, let's jump into that.

[114] I think there is some nuance within that even because when you think of my lifestyle, the way I like describe it is if you took a calendar year and you grabbed a single day out of there and you grabbed a day where I was like a peak training day versus a recovery day, those are like so drastically different in terms of my energy, my energy demands.

[115] So like things tend to fluctuate quite a bit and change quite a bit.

[116] And I think that's oftentimes what confuses people because they want to, they look at what I'm doing, say on race day, they look at what I'm doing on one of my big workout days or my rest day and think that's what I'm doing across the board.

[117] So when you get the folks saying, oh, well, Zach follows a carnivore diet, they're probably looking at like a post -race recovery day where then I might be eating almost all just animal products, a lot of eggs, a lot of salmon, you know, red meat, that sort of stuff.

[118] But if you pick a day out where I'm doing like a big training day, doing like a 30 -mile run or something like that, that's where I'm going to kind of bring back some of the carbohydrates to try to supplement that activity.

[119] And the best way to maybe describe it is, you know, there's like this, this kind of train low, race high, or this carb periodization concept that's getting more momentum behind it.

[120] And more studies and science behind it, too.

[121] There's some interesting folks that are looking into this in more detail.

[122] And if folks are really interested in doing a deep dive in it, there's a guy named Dr. Mark Bubbs, he wrote a book called Peak.

[123] And he kind of dives into kind of like some of the nutrition science where it's been and kind of where it's kind of heading.

[124] And they highlight some of that.

[125] And one of the big things they're starting to recognize that even with elite athletes, when you're periodizing your training like I do, you know, your nutrition should be being periodized as well.

[126] You know, the science is pretty clear that like if you're doing a workout and you take in glucose or fructose, I think most science says a two to one ratio is ideal for maximizing the one that you can take in, then you're going to give yourself an advantage.

[127] That's like rocket fuel.

[128] so then it becomes a question of like do you need that 100 % of the time or do you even want to do it 100 % of time because when we look at you can I pause you right here when you say glucose two to one like what do you mean by that and what glucose to fructose okay because what they found out is when they started doing a lot of like the exercise science and nutrition was that the real limiter is your gut so like on paper so absorption yeah uh -huh yeah there's a finite amount you can absorb and you increase the amount you can you can absorb on average if you have that two to one ratio versus all of one or the other so two glucose to one sucrose yeah interesting and now what what are the different sources for glucose versus sucrose like sucrose is simple sugar that you get is that more like a refined sugar yeah yeah you I think like the way like most most like sports supplements and things like that are going to be designed to kind of meet those those specific because they're looking at the literature and they're seeing like okay this is how you optimize it's like a powering or a Gatorade or something like that would be a two to one?

[129] Yeah, I'd have to look to see exactly if they have that.

[130] But my guess would be they would be if they're looking at the research and where that's kind of at.

[131] But yeah, so, like, really when it, the question that I think needs to be asked with a lot of this stuff is, like, if I want to make a workout feel as easy as possible, if I'm trying, if I can get in, like, say, 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour, it's probably going to do that.

[132] Like, my pace, my perceived effort at that pace is probably going to feel easier.

[133] But then you have to ask the question, like, how often do you need it to feel that easy?

[134] So for me, the answer to that is, like, well, if I'm doing something really strenuous or something that's in a little bit of a gray area where it's just fast enough to dip into the glycogen stores, but just slow enough that I can do it for quite a while, like maybe even a couple hours, then you're kind of in this area where that could be an advantage for you from a performance standpoint.

[135] But if I'm going out for an easy run of like 60 to 90 minutes and it's going to be like a two to three to three.

[136] three out of ten perceived effort anyway like there's no real need for me to be hitting glucose during that or you know sports drink during that to make that feel even easier yet because my goal isn't necessarily to you know make an easy run feel even easier i guess is the way to hilarious you call a 90 -minute run easy that would nothing just a stroll just a few dozen miles well and i think that that also brings up a really good point too where like a lot of this stuff when we're looking at carbohydrate usage and performance is we're looking at elite athletes We're looking at folks that are training for, like, you know, the Olympics.

[137] You know, sometimes they're even Olympic medalists.

[138] And that's just not a very good comparison, I think, to the average person who's out there running.

[139] Because, you know, their purposes are different.

[140] You know, their objectives are different.

[141] Their lives are very different.

[142] Like, one is doing basically everything around a specific date and distance and trying to run as fast as they can on that date.

[143] And another person may be trying to run as fast as they can, but there's so many other factors in life, like their work, their relationships.

[144] They're, you know, the level of training they're actually able to have with the time they have and then also like, you know, managing their own health and nutrition because like, you know, elite athletes don't have a very rosy picture in terms of long term health either.

[145] So for someone who's like, you know, maybe 10, 20 pounds overweight and is trying to run to get into shape or train to get into shape or something like that, they're probably thinking just so much about health as they are about performance.

[146] So for them to be, you know, shuttling in 60 grams of carbohydrate every hour during training and racing is.

[147] is probably not the direction that they'd want to go.

[148] Now, when you get ready to do something like this 100 mile run, how many miles do you run on a typical day and do you ramp that up?

[149] Or do you just give yourself a base and know that you can push through?

[150] Like, how do you handle that?

[151] Yeah, so I'll build up my training.

[152] The way I kind of describe it is like I'm always focusing on specificity kind of being king.

[153] So depending on the race, distance and the intensity is kind of how I'm going to structure my workouts.

[154] So the rule of thumb that I use is the closer I get to the workout, the more specific the workouts I do are going to be towards that race distance and intensity.

[155] So for me, what that oftentimes means since I'm training for like 100 mile distance races is early in a training block, I might be doing some like shorter interval work like V -O -2 max.

[156] Like an example that would maybe be like a three -minute kind of almost all -out effort followed by like a three -minute recovery jog and then another three -minute interval like that, some of those real short interval sessions.

[157] And how many of those would you do in a row?

[158] how many sprints versus recovery?

[159] Yeah, it'll depend.

[160] I'll start, like, pretty easy.

[161] I'm the first one I, when I first started, I might just do three by three on that.

[162] And, but my goal really is to every week is to kind of build volume within that.

[163] So that first week, it might be just three of them.

[164] But by, like, say, the eighth week, I might do a total of, like, 24 to 27 minutes worth of volume within that V -O -2 max context.

[165] So it's really interesting because, like, you know, I could go out on any one day and do, like, maybe 10 of those.

[166] But if I do that and then it takes me, like a week and a half to recover from that session, it's not nearly as probably effective as if I spread that out a little bit and said to like five by three and then five by three, three days after that.

[167] Give your body chance to recover and build versus just destroying it all in one and then feeling like shit for a couple weeks.

[168] Exactly.

[169] I like to call it micro -stressing when I'm working with folks and my own training.

[170] I'm like, we want a micro -stress.

[171] We want to stress you just enough to elicit a response and so you get stronger and then we want to do that over and over and over again.

[172] Are you aware?

[173] I'm sure you are.

[174] You know who Pavel Tatsulini is.

[175] Yeah.

[176] Yeah.

[177] So he's got this sort of concept when it comes to weightlifting with kettlebells in particular calling greasing the groove.

[178] Yeah.

[179] Whereas instead of doing all these sets to failure, you would just do like half of what you're capable of and then do it again in a more frequent pace.

[180] Like do it again rather, you know, do it again on Wednesday, do it again on Friday.

[181] And then give yourself a lot of time in between each individual activity too, particularly training for strength.

[182] He actually recommends as much as 10 minutes of recovery in between sets, which is, you know, kind of, I mean, most people don't have the time for that.

[183] You know, six sets is an hour in.

[184] I mean, it seems like you're just laying around at the gym.

[185] People would, you know, if you were at the gym, people would mock you.

[186] But that's his protocol.

[187] Yeah, yeah.

[188] And I think it's, I think it, you know, endurance is, like I say, it's a patient person's game.

[189] So I think if you can build that volume in a, in a micro -stressing or in a, like, a sustainable way, that's what's going to keep you or get you strong, and it's also going to make it less likely to get injured.

[190] How much time do you need, like, if you got, you know, up to that insane pace that you did when you ran the 100 miles, if you took, like, a week off or two weeks off, how much would you lose?

[191] Not much in that amount of time, especially at that intensity.

[192] So the thing is, is, like, the 648 mile pace, we need to be kind of relative about it.

[193] So, like, for me, when I'm out training, when I'm not, when I'm not, when I'm fully recovered, that's like a pretty reasonable pace from an intensity standpoint.

[194] So the interesting thing about ultramarathoning is race pace is sometimes faster than even some of your easiest runs in training.

[195] So your training is kind of all what we would call like over speed training.

[196] Whereas in most endurance events from like the 1500 up to like the marathon, the majority of your work is going to be sub race pace.

[197] and then you're going to have, like, depending on the program, you know, maybe 20, 30 % of that be, like, over speed training.

[198] Why is that?

[199] Well, just because the relative duration of the event is so long, like, you know, I can't run fast.

[200] Or if I run too fast, then it's just going to end badly for me. Right, but why is that with marathons?

[201] Oh, well, because it's, it becomes, it's similar to strength training where, like, if the limiter is, like, the amount of, like, stress you put on your body.

[202] So if I was going to train to peak in, say, a marathon.

[203] my max potential pace for that wouldn't be sustainable to do every run.

[204] So I'd be running too hard, too fast, too often.

[205] And then we'd get into that kind of situation that we were talking about before where you're starting to macro stress versus micro stress.

[206] So if you run a marathon, what is your standard marathon pace?

[207] So I'm a little goofy where I competed in high school and college.

[208] And then I did some marathons, but not really in a structured manner.

[209] And then I got an ultramarathon running.

[210] So I haven't really done what I would consider a real, legitimate marathon training program.

[211] So you're basically saying marathons are for pussies, right?

[212] Is that what you're saying?

[213] Just say it.

[214] I actually think marathons are maybe the hardest event of them all.

[215] And I'll explain why because you're going fast.

[216] Well, yeah, it's just short enough where you have to be pushing like a fairly intense pace, but it's just long enough where if you make a mistake, you're going to pay for that for quite some time.

[217] So you're on such a razor's edge and you're also just one tiny mistake away from things going really badly.

[218] And what you're saying about mistake, you're talking about pay.

[219] You're talking about pay.

[220] like if you go out too hard yeah i see your watch what is what kind of watch you wearing it's a coros apex well i've never heard of that one before is that a gps watch one of those yeah it's it's relative they're a relatively new brand like in in running i i guess like the two kind of big players historically have been santo and garmin and uh corals kind of came to the market a few years ago they wanted to try to make like take that high in technology but make it maybe a little more affordable and also make it user -friendly because now everyone's, they care more about the post -workout or the post -run data that you're uploading to these platforms like Strava.

[221] So like Coral's kind of made it a big point to make it real user -friendly on that end.

[222] So you like, I get down at the run and I load it up to the app and it's up on Strava, like within a few seconds sometimes.

[223] And then you go dissect all the data, like how much elevation gain and loss, your pace per mile, all that.

[224] Is this primarily a running watch?

[225] I mean, you could use it for running or cycling or hiking or mountaineering or anything like that.

[226] It's got like all those kind of bells and whistles on it.

[227] Oh, okay.

[228] So if you're, my question was, like, so if you're running, how are you checking your watch if you're doing a marathon, you're making sure that you're not going crazy?

[229] Because it's, is it otherwise you just have to kind of gauge it just based on the pack and based on how you feel?

[230] Yeah, and I think that's actually a good, especially when you get into ultra -marathoning, I think the metric that people should dial in the most.

[231] is the rate of perceived exertion, because that's something that's not going to necessarily lie to you.

[232] Like, if you base your thing, your stuff off heart rate exclusively or a pace exclusively, you can find yourself, like, justifying something that's not necessarily where you need to be.

[233] And if something like that malfunctions, then that was your, like, only compass, then you're in trouble.

[234] So I like, when I'm doing my training and when I'm working with other folks, I like to use heart rate, and I like to use pacing and stuff like that.

[235] But ultimately, I'm trying to get the person to really understand, like, how hard is this effort?

[236] and then across the board, from, like, very easy to very difficult.

[237] And then when it comes time to race, we can kind of dial in, like, this is the intensity you're trying to look for so that they can kind of feel that out.

[238] Do you use a metric?

[239] Like, do you say, like, how do you feel seven to ten?

[240] Yeah, pretty much.

[241] I have a scale of, like, one to ten that I'll use a lot of times.

[242] And there's, like, a whole variety.

[243] Like, most people are going to be using some sort of, like, probably, like, zone system of training where there's, like, there's numbers that are associated with heart rate ranges or intensities.

[244] And there'll be descriptors.

[245] And, you know, there's some that are like one through 20.

[246] There's some that are kind of one through five and then one through 10.

[247] Isn't that so weird too, right?

[248] Because it's subjective.

[249] I mean, the whoop strap is something that I wear and it uses something like that.

[250] Like, what's your perceived exertion?

[251] I'm like, I just push it towards the far right.

[252] I don't know.

[253] Like, what does that mean?

[254] Like, it's so hard to gauge your perceived exertion, especially when the workout's over.

[255] Yeah, it was hard.

[256] I went all out.

[257] Like, what does that mean?

[258] I don't know what that means, you know?

[259] Yeah, yeah, it can be tricky, and it is very subjective, but I think it's one of those things where it falls into the same category that a lot of endurance events are, where you just got to be patient and really work on kind of understanding that.

[260] And you learn from experience, too.

[261] Like, you find out, like, oh, I went and did this workout, and I thought that was the right pace and intensity, but it turned out to be a little too fast.

[262] Do you keep a training log?

[263] Yeah, mm -hmm.

[264] And do you, like, write it on Excel or something like that?

[265] I basically just load all my stuff up to Strava.

[266] Okay.

[267] Yeah, so that's kind of like the go -to for most runners these days.

[268] I'm sorry, but do you keep like a diary?

[269] Like today, felt like this, and this was an issue, and I felt like I didn't have enough fluids, or do you do anything like that?

[270] Not so much anymore.

[271] I did it a lot when I was in college, and I did it a lot when I first started, when I was really trying to kind of learn my body and kind of learn what things mean and how I respond to them.

[272] But now I've been kind of doing it long enough where I have enough of a like an understanding of kind of how like when things go wrong like why they did or if something went really well like why it did that I don't feel like I need to take as detailed notes.

[273] But I think it's really valuable for someone who's especially while they're trying to learn the rate of perceived exertion and kind of really dial those things in.

[274] It's probably worth a lot of worth their time to write that stuff down so that they can look back at it and they have that resource available to them as they're kind of reflecting on things.

[275] Now, say if you're getting ready to do something like this crazy 100 -mile run, trying to break a world record, what do you, how much time are you giving yourself to really truly prepare for that?

[276] Is it based on how you're at right now, like what your baseline is, like what kind of preparation you've done before you knew that this race was available to you?

[277] Like, how do you do that?

[278] Yeah, no, and this is, this is a little, we can kind of hop back to where we're talking about before because when I was talking about the V -O -2 max workout stuff, that's kind of early in my training plan because that intensity is very unspecific to a hundred mile pace.

[279] You know, those VO2 max workouts are much closer to something shorter, like a 5K.

[280] So what are you trying to do with those VO2 max workouts?

[281] You're just trying to elevate your base?

[282] Yeah, like just in like here, like there's the different systems of training and that's kind of a higher intensity system.

[283] So it's not very relevant to the race pace that I'm doing specifically, but it's not irrelevant to my overall like aerobic.

[284] efficiency.

[285] So, like, by doing some of those faster stuff, things, you can work on things like your form, and just because when you're running that fast, like, things tend to be a little more dialed in.

[286] And it just expand.

[287] It basically, what you do is you give yourself kind of a bigger range of what your potential is going to be when you start focusing more in on, like, the aerobic side of things that we're going to see, like, as I would move further down in the training plan.

[288] So once I kind of do that section of training, oh, to answer your question, though, like ideally I'll have maybe about since I'm coming into most programs not completely out of shape like four months is kind of the sweet spot for me if I was coming like off the couch so to speak six months would be a little more appropriate are you ever off the couch only if I'm injured and I've only been injured in any significant way since alter since they're altering running once for about five weeks what happened I had a stress fracture on my right sacra alla what is that it's basically like on your tailbone oh ouch yeah yeah what the fuck happened so it was a But I think, it's hard to know for sure, but what was the way it was described to me when I was going in and getting that stuff checked out was what likely happened was I had such a history and kind of flat running that I was actually preparing for a race that had a lot more climbing and descending.

[289] So I started changing my training to more climbing and descending.

[290] And when I did that, like, one thing that sometimes happens when you're running a lot of flat hard surfaces is your ankles and your hips can get pretty tight from that real, like, kind of uniform, like, a mechanic that you're doing.

[291] So, like, Like my range of motion was semi -limited.

[292] So when I was doing some of that hard downhill and uphill running, I just probably wasn't very efficient with my form.

[293] And it ended up, kind of we're talking before, those impact forces ended up in the wrong spot.

[294] And then the stress fracture occurred.

[295] That is crazy.

[296] You broke your ass.

[297] You literally broke your ass.

[298] Like people always talk about, oh, he was busting his ass.

[299] Like you actually did.

[300] So where is it, Jamie, right there?

[301] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[302] So it's, it literally is your ass bone.

[303] The really goofy thing about it, too, was...

[304] Wow.

[305] When I first had the pain surface for that, it was kind of in like the lower back glute area is where it surfaced.

[306] So I thought I had like a sciatic issue.

[307] Oh, makes sense.

[308] I went into the doctor and they were like, okay, let's try some like active release therapy and let's see if we can get this thing to loosen up.

[309] And we just were working on and working on it.

[310] And like it would like clear up where I wouldn't notice it if I was walking around.

[311] But then any time I'd go for a run or try to go for a run, I'd get that sharp pain right away.

[312] and so after about I think it was maybe four weeks or so we just we had been doing a ton of active release a ton of mobility work and then like it wasn't going away so he's like well let's just get an MRI and see what's going on in there and they did the MRI got the results back and he said there's nothing there so you start running again so I started running again I ran like I think it was two or three days maybe very short like two miles and then three miles then maybe five or something like that and then I got a call back from the doctor and he's like oh it turns out we took a second look at the the MRI, there is a stress fracture there.

[313] And I told him, like, well, I've just ran the first three pain -free days I have since this issue.

[314] Oh, so mine fuck.

[315] Yeah, well, and I think what he said maybe was going on there was, it was, I mean, it was a very fine stress fracture.

[316] It wasn't, I mean, sometimes when people have a fracture on their sacred allah, it's like a big enough fracture where, like, it can be out for like a year.

[317] And, yeah, yeah, so it can be a really bad injury.

[318] But he said maybe the mobility and the strength work I was doing while I, I had that to try to rehab, kind of strengthen the areas around it enough that when I was just running flat, really slow, really easy, that protected that area enough where I didn't feel the pain anymore.

[319] Oh, okay.

[320] So after that, I think I took another, like, two weeks off completely just to make sure before I started building back up and then I started kind of building back up again.

[321] Do you ever run on one of those air runner things, you know, those self -propelling treadmills?

[322] I've been on one once before, but not in any, like, significant way, but they look pretty sweet.

[323] I love those damn things.

[324] Which one do we have?

[325] what is it uh who makes it it's air dine right air dine makes it the air runner is that what it's called jame you'll find out but anyway man it's some percentage 13 or make up the number 13 % harder than actual air air runner yeah assault air runner yeah uh it's amazing it's hard as fuck i gave one to bert burr crusher this too hard because he's he likes using a treadmill and pretending he's really running when he's just picking his legs up and down you know of a that makes you actually push.

[326] And so your calves get blown the fuck up, man. It's hard.

[327] It's really good.

[328] And it's, what does it say?

[329] What percentage does it say it's harder than actual running?

[330] Like if you were just running at the same pace.

[331] Some people are like, running's hard enough.

[332] Why are we making it harder?

[333] Well, the idea is that you go and run and it makes running easier.

[334] Uh -huh.

[335] Sort of like running with weights on.

[336] Uh -huh.

[337] But it doesn't give you an additional stress.

[338] Yeah, that's a good point.

[339] It's not pounding on your body.

[340] You know, it's not like you're, you're doing anything that's going to injure you, but it's, it's called, you, you know, you have to propel that thing.

[341] You know, it's, if for folks who don't know what we're talking about, it's basically a very subtle you, right?

[342] Like, the, the way the thing is structured.

[343] And it's got tread on it.

[344] And as you run, you are the thing that's making it move.

[345] So there's no machinery.

[346] It's not plugged in.

[347] It's not like, it's electronic and you set the pace, and you just kind of keep up with it.

[348] It's not, it's, you're making it.

[349] You're making it.

[350] You're making.

[351] It's, it's not, it's you're making.

[352] It's, it's it run so you're pushing it and as you push it it requires extra energy and extra effort and that extra effort when you actually go run on a regular road surface or a trail it seems easier yeah no that makes sense and i think it's pretty cool because like yeah with the weighted stuff like you run the risk of potentially hurting something by adding that additional weight like they were doing these uh ruck challenges i forget the comp i think it was trained to hunt or one of these one of these competitions they were making people wear heavy packs it might not have been trained on it was i think it was another con anyway they would make you wear like a hundred pound pack and so the idea was they were doing these races with a hundred pound packs on which you can imagine is a fucking recipe for orthopedic surgeon visits and so these people were getting kind of jacked up and they i believe they stopped doing that as a competition you know as a running competition but There's a few of those similar kind of competitions where they force you to do a bunch of physical activities and then bring your heart rate down and execute shots on targets and then run to the next station and do a bunch of physical activities.

[353] And they were doing that with heavy, heavy weights on and just really was a bad idea.

[354] Yeah, yeah, I think that would be maybe good for if you're going to do like a mountaineering experience and you're going to carry a bunch of little stuff like you're doing with hunting.

[355] But even then, you really should just ruck.

[356] Yeah, yeah.

[357] the heavy pack on there's a company called outdoorsman's that makes a really good one it's called an atlas pack and it's essentially a pack frame but the back of it is a universal post like what you would use for uh weights you know like a weightlifting post for um you know uh Olympic weights you know so those big round steel plates slide right onto it so you can get a 45 pound plate on it and then clamp it down and so it's like really secure on you as opposed to like sometimes if you put too much weight in a pack like maybe it'll sit all at the bottom it's this is like boom right in the center of your back and you cramp it down and and then you know you're really carrying all that weight you know on your hips a little bit on your shoulders and it's all like really centered well that's a good one for really training but you don't fucking run with it you just hike hike yeah get that strength and power yeah hard enough just to walk with it does it say how much what the extra percentage it is it's no i couldn't find like an official testing of whatever but uh one person that did a big deep dive into it said its main thing was to fix his gate or it will improve running gate that 30 % is a number that they read is like a sales like thing 30 % I didn't hear that one I thought I couldn't find it was like a I'm trying to find like testing or some sort of science on it.

[358] It doesn't seem like it's 30 % man I don't know what am I a math petition but it's it's just excellent for training do you do any training on machines or is all your training essentially done on the road?

[359] The running is all pretty much done on the road in the trails.

[360] I'll do like some mobility work and some strength work in the gym.

[361] And that's where I'll kind of go inside, I guess, for it.

[362] But yeah, you know, I've used treadmills and stuff in the past.

[363] And I do use them from time to time.

[364] But usually if I have the option to go outside, I'll do that.

[365] And I mean, I live in Phoenix.

[366] So it's, you know, it's sunny most days.

[367] Cold day is 70.

[368] Yeah, exactly.

[369] I'm there this weekend, actually.

[370] Oh, yeah, that's right.

[371] You're at the, is it, Comerica?

[372] Comerica theater.

[373] Yeah, Friday and Saturday, I'm psyched.

[374] Yeah.

[375] I love Phoenix.

[376] Yeah, it's the time of you're to be there for sure.

[377] Yeah, man, right?

[378] What's the temperature there right now?

[379] Probably maybe 65 or so.

[380] I've been there before in the summer in July when I used to do tempi improv and it was like fucking 120.

[381] Well, and that's the funny thing too, because when I was training for that 100 mile 12 hour world record, it was through the summer because the race was in August.

[382] So my peak training was like 110 degrees some days.

[383] And the funny thing, too, is the Pettett Center where I did the race.

[384] It was actually built for speed skating and some hockey rinks.

[385] So they keep it at like 60 degrees.

[386] Ooh, that's nice.

[387] I remember one day when I was running, it was like one of the hottest days this summer.

[388] I'm thinking, like, I'm going to race literally at half this temperature.

[389] Yeah.

[390] So it's really funny when you see that.

[391] And I think I'm no expert at it by any means, but I think there's some pretty cool, like, studies and stuff that of the effects that happen when you are training in some of those extreme heat.

[392] It's like what happens.

[393] The way it was described to me is it kind of simulates training at altitude to a degree.

[394] So who knows?

[395] Maybe some of that helps.

[396] Well, similar to hot yoga, right?

[397] They're doing some studies at Harvard, I believe.

[398] I think it's Harvard.

[399] Someone was explaining the whole deal to me. It's not something that I read.

[400] But essentially what they're doing is they're trying to find out whether or not hot yoga, these 90 -minute hot yoga sessions, replicate some of the known benefits of sauna.

[401] Because, you know, obviously the temperature is not as hot.

[402] keep it, the hot yoga place I go to, I think they keep it at 105 degrees versus sauna, you know, gets much, much hotter than that.

[403] You're in like the 180s, is what I like.

[404] And, but the idea is that when your body is extremely stressed when you're doing these poses and you're sweating like crazy, that your body core temperature rises basically to similar level than if you're just sitting in a sauna.

[405] So you get a very similar response.

[406] Yeah.

[407] Yeah, it's really interesting.

[408] Um, So I try to remember that when it's the summer in Phoenix, so I don't get too miserably.

[409] You're bummed out by, yeah, you've got to be doing yourself good.

[410] Cronk Gym, which is one of the most famous boxing gyms in history, Emmanuel Stewart, who was just a wizard of boxing, and he trained Tommy Hearns and, you know, some of the, like, the all -time grates of that era, he would crank the temperature, and this is in Detroit, they would crank the temperature up really hot.

[411] So you would go into that gym, and it would be that way, like, for that specific.

[412] specific reason because he believed that it increased endurance.

[413] Yeah, it's, it's interesting stuff, but I'll still take January and February.

[414] For comfort.

[415] Now, what do you do in terms of like, how do you hydrate yourself and like what kind of durations are we talking about?

[416] Like say if you're, if it's 110 degrees outside, 120, what was the hottest you ran at?

[417] I think 110 is what I got up to.

[418] And I try to get out relatively early so that it's not like 110 from start to finish.

[419] So like if I get out, say at like six or seven of the morning, you know, it might be in the 80s, high 80s and be working its way up so that like I'm finishing and it might be 110 for my key workouts.

[420] The way I structure my training usually when I'm kind of in peak is I'll do my biggest workout in the morning.

[421] And then I might go out and do like a second run that's like a little shorter or quite a bit shorter in most cases and really low intensity.

[422] And, you know, then sometimes if it's the afternoon in Phoenix, that's when I would see like that 110.

[423] but I'm usually not out for more than like 45, 60 minutes for those.

[424] So hydrating is interesting because, you know, I grew up in the Midwest, so I was very familiar with running in hot, humid stuff in the summer.

[425] And, you know, the dry desert heat, though, it seems like you get thirsty a lot quicker and a lot more frequently.

[426] So, you know, one of the things I learned the first summer I was in Phoenix was knowing where the water fountains are and kind of planning your routes around that.

[427] You drink out of public water fountains?

[428] When I have to.

[429] Do you worry about cooties?

[430] I haven't gotten anything too miserable yet.

[431] In fact, I did a race earlier this year.

[432] I think it was in early June called the San Diego 100.

[433] And it's got this spot in the middle of the course where the aid stations are a little further apart.

[434] There's like a nine -mile stretch and a seven -mile stretch.

[435] And I kind of mistimed how much water I did.

[436] So I filled up my water in a stream and it was probably not an ideal spot.

[437] Oh, dude.

[438] But I rolled the dice.

[439] Did you get anything bad?

[440] No, I didn't get anything bad.

[441] No, my thought during the race was this is the mindset in the middle of one of these things is like, well, if something really bad happens, it'll happen after the race.

[442] Definitely would, but it's really bad.

[443] Jardia is rough.

[444] I've never had it, but the people that I know that have had it say it's really bad.

[445] But you know, you could just bring a steripen.

[446] Yeah.

[447] But you can't really stop, huh?

[448] Yeah.

[449] I mean, in a race, I wouldn't want to.

[450] Yeah.

[451] And what really helped for me was the situation is since the track, since the race was on an indoor track 400 and like, I think 42 and some odd meters, I was doing a lot of my big long runs on a 400 meter track.

[452] Oh, okay.

[453] So when I did that, I would just bring out like a cooler and I'd have ice and water in there.

[454] Just have it sit there waiting for you.

[455] Oh, that's sweet.

[456] Yeah, that makes sense.

[457] But when you do a lot of trail running, though, right?

[458] I do some of that too.

[459] Yeah.

[460] Historically, I've done a lot more flat, runable stuff.

[461] But now that I'm out in Phoenix, I like to try to split the year into two halves and do some trail stuff in half the year and some like flatter road or track or runable stuff in the second half of the year.

[462] Do you bring water when you run trails?

[463] Do you bring like a backpack or something like that?

[464] Like one of those, you know, what are those things?

[465] Yeah, yeah.

[466] With the tubes.

[467] What the fuck is that?

[468] Camels, camel, camel backs.

[469] Yeah, there's, I'll do, I don't usually use what they call like the bladder, which is the tube thing that you're talking about.

[470] They are, and you can pack a lot of water.

[471] Usually, unless I, unless I'm going to be away from a potential stop long enough, usually what I'll do is I'll use the pack, but I'll have like smaller, little, like little flask, soft flax in there.

[472] Oh, okay, so you bring those two that, like, like, on the chest traps.

[473] I see a lot of people when they run with those.

[474] But you're rolling the dice with that.

[475] Like, you got to know how much to sip.

[476] Yeah.

[477] You know where it get greedy.

[478] The pickup spots are for more.

[479] Run with friends.

[480] Yeah.

[481] When I run with my dog in the summer, when it gets really hot, I bring a hydro flask in a backpack and I'm one of those collapsible dog bowls because, you know, I don't want him drinking out of puddles and shit.

[482] But just having that extra couple pounds on your back, it makes a difference.

[483] You feel it.

[484] Yeah.

[485] Yeah, and that's why, part of the reason why I try to go as minimal as I can with water, if I can get away with it.

[486] Obviously, if I go out and do like a big loop where there's no potential stops, I'm going to have to carry it all from the beginning.

[487] But if it's a spot where I know, like, I can get to water every five, six, seven miles, then usually I'll pack a little lighter and not be caring as much at any one given time.

[488] Do you hydrate up before you go?

[489] Yeah, I mean, I think it's one of the hardest things to really get right.

[490] in Phoenix was just like kind of learning kind of how much you need to be hydrating like between sessions because what I usually found out is I could go out and kind of neglect hydration for any one given like run or workout but if I did that then the next one I'd probably pay for it.

[491] So for me, the big motivation to make sure I'm on top of hydration during any given run is because I know like if I don't then the next one is going to potentially be miserable.

[492] Yeah, man, I've done that before.

[493] That's a weird feeling trying to do anything when you're dehydrated.

[494] It's like you have a bad battery or something.

[495] It's like everything's like, oh, come on.

[496] It's amazing how just normal everyday life, like you could feel like a little run down and you barely notice it.

[497] But once you start physically exerting, once you start training, when you start doing something hard, that's when you become like really in tune with how you're screwing your body up.

[498] Like drinking, for instance.

[499] Like have a couple of drinks and then run.

[500] Like, oh, God.

[501] You're like, well, this is what it's doing to my body?

[502] Yeah.

[503] I got to fucking stop drinking, you know?

[504] Yeah, yeah.

[505] I think you, you, I like drinking to thirst.

[506] That's usually what my gauge is.

[507] And I haven't really had any issues with it, with that, with that.

[508] So there's no like strategy.

[509] Like, say, I'm going to run 25 miles today.

[510] Let me drink X amount of liters of water before I go out.

[511] No, before the run.

[512] Yeah, no, I try not to like do too much, like, kind of like, preemptive hydrating.

[513] because I think what people oftentimes I think do then is they drink too much and then that comes at the expense of your electrolytes too because your body is going to excrete those.

[514] So if I find myself...

[515] Couldn't you just supplement?

[516] You can, yeah.

[517] And I'll do a lot more of that, especially in the heat too, just in general, is like having electrolyte supplementation and things like that.

[518] What do you use for your electrolyte supplementation?

[519] I use a product called hydrox mostly.

[520] It's like a powder that you can kind of mix in with your water by a company named X Endurance.

[521] They make these little tubes now, too, where, like, so if I'm running and I have, like, one bottle with some in it already, I can have these little, like, these little tubes that if I refill and want to put more, and I can just kind of take them out, pop it off, and pour that in.

[522] A lot of other people will use, you can make, like, little caps that you just, like, swallow it with your water, and it's got, like, the formulation of the different electrolytes in there kind of dialed in.

[523] and, you know, that's, I think that's a little more hit or miss as to, like, where people feel you need that.

[524] Some people tell you don't really need luxurlites at all.

[525] You just need to salt your foods and things like that, all the way to, like, you should be taken X number of these every hour.

[526] There's got to be science behind it, right?

[527] I mean, are you getting blood tests and finding out what your levels are, pre and post workouts or anything along those lines?

[528] Yeah, I haven't done any, like, post -workout tests to say, other than, I know, I was part of the faster study, which was a, it's, that looked at high carb and high fat athletes.

[529] And I think they were looking at some of that stuff too.

[530] And like anytime I've ever had a blood test done, though, by like my electrolytes, like my sodium, potassium level has always been in range.

[531] So I haven't really tried to, it's one of those things then where it's like, I'm probably not going to try to fix something that's not broken.

[532] Right.

[533] And you're pretty diligent about your supplementation and things on.

[534] Yeah.

[535] And I mean, I definitely am not afraid to salt my food.

[536] You know, most of my food is conducive to putting salt on.

[537] So, you know, I'm probably getting quite a bit of that stuff.

[538] just in my day -to -day nutrition too.

[539] Do you have specific salt that you like?

[540] Do you use Himalayan?

[541] Do you use sea salt?

[542] Like, what do you like to use?

[543] Yeah, I like to get sea salt.

[544] Lately I've been using this stuff called Redmond's sea salt.

[545] They get their salt out of like, I believe it's in Utah and Salt Lake.

[546] Oh, okay.

[547] And I don't know like if how accurate or whatever this is, but like I heard that if you can get an inland sea salt, it's better because it's not like it doesn't have potential as many potential toxins that you're going to find in like ocean sea salt?

[548] Mercury, things on those lines.

[549] Yeah, that's what the idea about Himalayan Sea Salt is, right?

[550] Because it's no real fucking sea in the Himalayas.

[551] Right.

[552] Is it called Himalayan Seasol or am I just making that up?

[553] Or is it Himalayan salt?

[554] I think it's sea salt, right?

[555] Yeah.

[556] The pink Himalayan sea salt?

[557] Right.

[558] Yeah.

[559] But how was it sea salt?

[560] Explain that.

[561] How does that work?

[562] Was it an older sea?

[563] I wonder if that's what it is, and it's just like these big salt.

[564] Big salt.

[565] Oh, it is just salt?

[566] Okay.

[567] Oh, it's just Himalayan salt?

[568] No?

[569] underwater too and they'll find like shark teeth and stuff like that around there like and you're up on this like trail and they're like there's no water in sight think about that next time you see some asshole that spend $10 million on a house on the beach yeah yeah what makes you think that's gonna stay there man pay for that eventually yeah that is not gonna be here something's gonna be different in the future it's always been that way like there's no permanent like place where the water is or the water isn't yeah it is funny how we think of that though where it's like You see the map now and we're like, oh, okay, this is just how it is.

[570] And it's like, maybe not.

[571] Well, look at Pangaea, you know, things change pretty goddamn radically.

[572] What's up, Jamie?

[573] I don't know the accuracy of this, but I just found this.

[574] Okay.

[575] Himalayan sea salt is a gourmet salt with a slightly misleading name.

[576] It doesn't come from the Himalayan mountains.

[577] Oh, Jesus.

[578] And it doesn't come from a sea.

[579] These motherfuckers.

[580] However, it's definitely a sea salt.

[581] So it's not a total misnomer.

[582] Himalayan salt actually refers to exclusively to Pakistan.

[583] rock salt that used to be sea salt hundreds of millions of years ago so why don't we call it Pakistan if I was Pakistani I'd be pissed like these motherfuckers are stealing our shine when a sea spreading over the region dried up it was covered by geological shifts leading massive deposits of salt scattered throughout the hills odd name aside Himalayan salt has a lot going for it it's tasty it's pink and some even claim it as healing prop well those fucking healing properties, assholes.

[584] Those are the people that like crystals.

[585] Yeah, that's what that is.

[586] We have a big Himalayan salt rock right there.

[587] There you go.

[588] Yeah.

[589] Will and low, I'll just go lick that, I guess.

[590] Lick that sucker.

[591] Does anybody look that yet?

[592] Someone must have licked it when we weren't looking.

[593] Yeah, I like Himalian salt, though.

[594] It does, it's nice.

[595] But like for cooking, like for cooking meat in particular, I like kosher salt because it's got the big, big flakes.

[596] The flakes, yeah.

[597] What's the when you put the big flakes on there, is that help, like, retain the moisture on it?

[598] Allegedly, I don't know.

[599] You know, I cook in a Trager, which I define that the low heat and the, what I do is I cook at about 225 degrees and they have a setting called Super Smoke, sort of accentuates the smoke.

[600] You know what a Trager is, right?

[601] Yeah, yeah.

[602] For folks who don't know, it's a pellet grill.

[603] What pellet grills are, they use something like this table.

[604] Like when they make this table, this is hardwood, this is made out of oak, they would saw the the tree and the sawdust in the past they would just sort of throw out well then they figured out where you can compress that sawdust and turn it into these pellets using the natural sugars from the wood so there's no chemicals at all and there's a lot of like really good ones but you know the one that i use is a trigger and when they compress these pellets there's a heating element that's electrically fired um inside the uh the grill that heating element turns into flame and it cooks the pellets and turns it into fire.

[605] So it's just fire and wood.

[606] It's really pure.

[607] So you're just basically cooking over wood and you can perfectly regulate the temperature and you do it on your app and all that stuff.

[608] But because it's so well insulated and I cook most of what I cook is wild game which is very low and fat so you really can't you really shouldn't cook at high heat or for any long period of time.

[609] You got to make sure you monitor the temperature of the actual food itself.

[610] So I like to put it in there I get it up to about 125, 130 degrees, and then I sear it on a cast iron frying pan, usually in beef tallow.

[611] Beef tallow is what I like the best for that.

[612] So I get some more extra fats, healthy fats with that.

[613] I've been doing a lot of slow cooking lately.

[614] I'll go in phases where I'll be grilling.

[615] I got to get a pellet grill, though those things look pretty sweet.

[616] I'll hook up.

[617] I'll hook you up.

[618] I'll have Trigger send you one.

[619] Oh, awesome.

[620] That'd be great.

[621] Thanks and events, Trigger.

[622] Once you use one, it's like, I have a regular grill.

[623] It's just fucking gathering dust I don't even touch it anymore Because you could do everything on this thing And it's so easy to maintain the exact perfect temperature And again for game Like I'm not cooking at a high heat I'm not worried as much about losing moisture Or stuff like that It's mostly a flavor thing I really just love the flavor of like The salty on the outside And then especially when it's seared You know it's just nice Yeah yeah You know I think like that the low and slow Is the way to go for a lot of that stuff and when I do a, when I roast, I'll get like a roast and I'll put it in a slow cooker and ultimately some of the fat will separate and kind of form on the top and always take that off and use it, cook eggs and stuff later.

[624] So it's, oh, that's nice.

[625] Yeah, yeah.

[626] Well, a lot of people have their own idea about what to do and what not to do.

[627] But I, I learned this from a guy named Chad Ward, whose label on Instagram is Whiskey Bent Barbecue.

[628] Oh, yeah.

[629] And he's a world champion pit master.

[630] And this fucking guy can cook his ass off.

[631] Oh, my God.

[632] He's cooked for us a few times in hunting camps, and his food is insane.

[633] He's so good.

[634] And that's his philosophy, is the reverse sear method.

[635] This is what I learned it from.

[636] I learned it from him.

[637] A lot of times people will cook it.

[638] They sear it on the outside, and then they try to finish it off.

[639] And you can do that that way, but it's not as good.

[640] It's better to bring it up to temperature slowly inside, like a pellet grill.

[641] Another good method is suvi.

[642] Do you ever suvee things?

[643] I haven't yet.

[644] I've had it from restaurants before, though.

[645] I was talking to someone, they said a lot of restaurants now do that just so they can kind of make all their stuff more uniform.

[646] So you go and you get exactly what you did the last time.

[647] Yeah, they don't, no one fucks up.

[648] Because if you go, you know, you can go to a restaurant, order medium rare and it comes out well done.

[649] You get mad.

[650] I've had that happen, right?

[651] But the suvee method is fantastic too because say if you have a steak and you want that steak to be 135 degrees, You basically put the setting at 135 degrees, and you can put it in there for four hours.

[652] So when you get it, it's just all the tendons and ligaments and all that stuff is just broken down, all the fash has broken down, and it's just so tender.

[653] But it feels weird because you're boiling it in a fucking plastic bag.

[654] It seems so wrong.

[655] It's like you're not, I mean, I know it's a different kind of plastic, but you're not even supposed to drink water if your plastic bottle has been sitting in a hot car.

[656] it's like how the fucking you apparently you can it's not an issue at all you know to cook in it but it makes me feel weird eventually we'll hear in five years that that's going to give us cancer I don't know man I don't think so I mean what is the reason why they can okay here we're going down a rabbit hole let's try let's go down the suavee rabbit hole why is it okay to suvee your food and why doesn't it leak what is it BCPs is that what they're worried about BPAs, BCA's?

[657] BCA's?

[658] BPA, which is a bunch of B and a bunch of other letters, which is supposed to be what you get.

[659] There's probably some NASA scientist who figured it out, though, right?

[660] Maybe not, man. Maybe the same guy who said smoking's fine.

[661] Oh, yeah.

[662] You know, remember the doctors prefer camel.

[663] Remember those ads?

[664] Yeah.

[665] I mean, you know, I don't think we're dealing with that, but it just, it feels weird.

[666] But as far as flavor, it's a phenomenal way to cook.

[667] particularly wild game it's really good for it because again you don't overcook it like if you want to cook an elk steak to 130 degrees and then blowtorch the outside that's what a lot of people do you know that's how you finish on a suvi you basically use a fucking blow torch you know so I have this um I guess it's like the Elon Musk flamethrower in the background I literally could use that yeah because it's basically the same thing it's just a fucking torch and you torch the outside of it to get a nice, you know, caramelized crust.

[668] And then the inside, you know, it's perfectly cooked.

[669] What does it say, Jamie?

[670] I don't like this one.

[671] You don't like it?

[672] Does it say it's going to kill you?

[673] The first one just says, like, there's after a considerable amount of research that's been done, we believe the answer is, it's safe.

[674] And it's like they believe it is.

[675] Oh, that doesn't mean anything.

[676] So they left a little window.

[677] Well, I feel like if you don't cook in it every day, like when the director of the cove was in here, I always fucking have a hard time saying his last.

[678] Sohoyas.

[679] Louis Sohoyas was in here.

[680] He was explaining how he was eating a lot of fish before he became a vegan.

[681] He was eating a ton of fish.

[682] And his mercury levels really shot up because a lot of fish has like a lot of fucking mercury.

[683] And if you eat fish for morning, noon, and night every day, day after day after day, you can develop high mercury levels.

[684] But then I talked to other scientists.

[685] They said, yes, if you're eating it every day all day.

[686] But if you just eat it fish, like once a week, you're fine.

[687] Like, don't worry about it.

[688] Or even twice a week.

[689] So I was like, oh.

[690] Did they say anything?

[691] Because I remember, like, when, I think it was probably when the Mediterranean diet got popular, people were all in on salmon and stuff and seafood.

[692] And then everyone went wild caught.

[693] Yes.

[694] And I guess that's where you'd get the mercury.

[695] But then they would say, like, the farm -raised salmon are not as good for you for whatever reason.

[696] But then, I guess, now farm -raise is what you're supposed to get because that's going to, they can control that environment.

[697] I heard what Louis was saying was that it's even worse.

[698] Oh, really?

[699] Yeah, in terms of like the heavy metals and talking.

[700] Because you've got to think they're just sitting there.

[701] Yeah, like it's like at least in the ocean, they're migrating, they're moving around, they're swimming in different places.

[702] Like that podcast that I did with him was so disturbing.

[703] Because I've always had this weird, not weird, just this sort of peripheral fear of what we're doing to the ocean.

[704] You know, this like thing like, man, how many assholes are out there just giant net?

[705] just pulling fish out of the ocean right now as we speak.

[706] And how much is that sustainable?

[707] I mean, I think individual people fishing is sustainable.

[708] Right.

[709] But that's not what's going on.

[710] It's huge nets.

[711] They're just scooping up everything.

[712] And the conversation that I had with him scared the shit out of me for the future of the ocean.

[713] Because what's been done, the amount of damage that's been done over 100 years, it's very similar to the amount of damage that was done sort of at the, The end of the 18th century, the beginning of the 19th century in the United States, where market hunters had basically wiped out almost every animal, wiped out the buffalo.

[714] Do you know when they were shooting the buffalo?

[715] They were basically shooting them for their hides and their tongues.

[716] And they would leave the carcasses to rot, which is just insane.

[717] When you think about bison today, it's like one of the most cherished meats.

[718] Right.

[719] Because it's so delicious and so good for it.

[720] And high in protein and it tastes great.

[721] but we basically almost wiped out every animal on this entire continent until they stepped in and decided to start regulating hunting and stopping it and then sort of made concerted efforts to reintroduce animals and still most of them are not at their historic range yeah yeah no it's you know it gets interesting you start looking into some of that stuff but uh hopefully they get the the bison herd back to where they need to well they kind of have that i mean there's there's basically a healthy supply of bison, but not the ocean.

[722] The thing is like the same thing that we did, not we, you and I weren't alive, but that human beings did in North America, they're doing right now.

[723] The world is doing to the ocean.

[724] And there's no real concerted effort to reintroduce these animals or fish.

[725] Sure.

[726] I see what you're saying.

[727] Yeah.

[728] So we're essentially not learning from our past mistakes.

[729] Well, yeah, we're just, and it's also, there's too many people involved.

[730] The thing about the ocean is it's kind of unregulated, right?

[731] Yeah, because we visit.

[732] It's the wild West out there.

[733] It's just this big gigantic swath of, it's basically like another world that's connected to our world.

[734] You know, it's a water world.

[735] We have the land world and the land monsters go into the water world with these floating little fucking killing machines and suck all the living forces and living beings out of the water world and then serve it up on rice.

[736] Sushi, ah, I'm eating healthy.

[737] You know, but it's just it's weird.

[738] Are you still doing, um, you were doing a podcast with Dr. Sean Baker, right?

[739] Yeah, yeah, it's a Human Performance Outliers podcast.

[740] We've been, I think we've got maybe 175 episodes now, so we've been going.

[741] So you guys are still haul at it.

[742] Yeah, yeah, we're not, we had a stretch where we're doing about three a week, but we've kind of backed off a little bit of that where just scheduling and stuff gets hard.

[743] How do you do it?

[744] Do you do it over the phone?

[745] Yeah, that's always the hardest part.

[746] Where's he?

[747] He's, he's down in Southern California.

[748] Okay, and then you're in Phoenix.

[749] Arizona.

[750] And so do you have guests and do that over the phone?

[751] Yeah, we'll bring them in and we'll record with like Zoom video recording and then bring it up.

[752] But that's always the hardest part is getting the audio quality for that.

[753] It's awkward too, right?

[754] Yeah.

[755] I really, I've only done over the last few years.

[756] I did the Snowden interview, which I did remotely.

[757] And I did one with Dr. Anthony West, who's an Egyptologist who did it with him.

[758] But most of the time when you do it with the, with Skype or anything along those lines.

[759] It's like you're kind of talking over each other.

[760] There's this weird delay.

[761] It feels inorganic.

[762] Uh -huh.

[763] Yeah.

[764] In person's the way to go.

[765] If you can do it.

[766] So props to you for getting done.

[767] I mean, I just don't, I mean, I just don't, um, I don't like it.

[768] It feels, I feel, I don't feel connected, right?

[769] It feels awkward.

[770] Yeah.

[771] Doesn't, doesn't make a good product, I don't think, as good a product for me. No, for sure.

[772] Yeah.

[773] You're taking a step back if you do remote for sure.

[774] So, Um, yeah, but it's been, it's been a cool experience just from a learning standpoint.

[775] I mean, we, I don't think we really have a specific direction.

[776] I mean, Sean's, uh, kind of the guy that everyone looks to at from the carnivore thing.

[777] So I think sometimes we get identified as carnivore, but, uh, we definitely go down a bunch of different rabbit holes.

[778] Like we did, um, we've had a lot of, like some of the protein researchers come on and talk about some of that stuff.

[779] Like, uh, Dr. Stu Phillips or Professor Stu Phillips, uh, Professor Don Lehman, Professor, uh, What kind of, what do you mean by protein stuff?

[780] Like different qualities of protein?

[781] Yeah, they're doing like the protein research.

[782] They're kind of the guys who are doing some of the more recent research and looking at like, well, what are our protein needs for I across like a variety of ages as well as when you introduce athletics.

[783] And then like what is the quality versus, or like I guess maybe the best way to look at it is like the bioavailability of different protein sources and things like that.

[784] And I think there's a it seems like something that we've, we'd have figured out already.

[785] But there's, I guess, some nuance with that even.

[786] uh now we're they're they're saying that there's there's probably reason to believe that our our recommendations should be higher than what they have been historically especially for athletes and elderly folks and you mean the rdaa yeah yeah the rdaa as it currently stands is basically just to prevent disease right yeah something like that and i think they're i think they maybe are learning more too about just kind of what role protein plays in bone health too as opposed to just people think a protein as just this building block for muscle but um there's a lot that goes into it with bone, bone health as well.

[787] So those guys that were really interesting to hear, hear about.

[788] And, you know, we've done a lot of stuff with ranchers and some of the, like, the Savory Salatin folks come on the show and talk about kind of that practice versus kind of your standard agricultural production methods and things like that.

[789] Savory Salatin?

[790] You mean Joel Salatin?

[791] What is Savory?

[792] What do you mean?

[793] Oh, like Alan Savory?

[794] So we've had Alan Savory, Joel Salatin, Will Harris from White Oak Pastures on.

[795] Bobby Gill, he's part of the Savory Institute.

[796] come on and just kind of share with us like kind of where that stuff is at because i think there's a lot of uh guesswork and unanswerable questions at this point with with some of that stuff because we're projecting like you know way down the road with some of this stuff are you talking about the difference between grain fed versus grass fed meat yeah and most specifically with those guys too just like kind of what it's doing to the soil health in the soil quality so one thing that i've learned that was interesting was that uh i mean we kind of start to like throw a lot of these different like quote unquote regenerative type uh regenerative type practices into one like bucket or one category when in reality there's a lot of different variants within them so someone can say like oh regenerative agriculture is going to save the planet and then someone will go dig up a bunch of studies that show like well no it actually doesn't do anything and then like yeah i'm i'm confused that because christers all in on this regenerative agricultural thing but has there is there real evidence that you can have a zero carbon gain.

[797] Yeah, I mean, it's a...

[798] Because that's the net positive.

[799] The idea is that if you use regenerative agriculture, meaning the animals graze, you're not talking monocrop environments, that these cows graze on open fields of grass, and then they shit all over the place, and then, you know, that shit becomes manure, and that this actually helps the plant life grow and all this stuff sort of it all becomes a part of a cycle and that this regenerative practice is actually instead of raising the carbon footprint it actually makes a carbon neutral footprint yeah yeah and I think where sometimes it gets confusing is if you go and you just look at studies on regenerative agriculture you get a lot of mixed information so what I was told and I'm still kind of going down this rabbit hole and the way I like to look at all these type of things is I try to like look at one side of the story and then look to the other side and see where the counters are to that and just kind of go back and forth until you hit a dead end.

[800] And then, you know, if you hit a dead end, like that's where you're at for now until something else gets introduced.

[801] And where I got to now is, I think it was maybe Will Harris told us this, that when you're looking for these studies on kind of what practice is going to be good in terms of like soil regeneration, you have to look up adaptive, multi -patic grazing.

[802] because if you look up like holistic or regenerative agriculture, you're just going to get a whole mess of like different ranges or different types of it.

[803] And some are effective, some aren't.

[804] So it's really hard to kind of piece out, you know, who's got the accurate stuff and not.

[805] And I mean, I think ultimately some of this stuff is we just don't know yet.

[806] And what was the one that's most, what did you just say?

[807] Adaptive multi -potic grazing.

[808] And what does that mean?

[809] It just means like you're instead of kind of, you're, it's a rotational grazing from what I understand, but you're kind of moving the, the herd.

[810] along to these different products and then they're like, you know, they're doing their thing in a what would you consider like a natural way like it would have been before we came in and shot all the buffalo and all that stuff.

[811] And then they're rotating it.

[812] So the way I've been under, I've understood it like the more of those products you can get, the better because then you're letting the the soil and the, um, and everything in there like really heal and develop that deep root system as well as some of that microbiome, like all the insects and things that would be in there and all that stuff.

[813] So you would need massive amounts of land and massive amounts of areas for them to graze?

[814] I think, yeah, I mean, I think you would need, I think the more, the better is probably the way to look at it.

[815] But hopefully the soil biologists aren't cringing.

[816] They must be cringing.

[817] Yeah, I'm sure they are.

[818] And we apologize in advance.

[819] But the interesting thing, though, is like, I mean, I think there's a lot of work to be done in looking into this and finding out the best way to maybe utilize it.

[820] But the part that I thought was really interesting was with the Will Harris, White Oak Pastures thing, they just, I think this study is maybe overutilized by like the pro -regenerative or multi -epatic group to a degree because it's like it's what they have.

[821] And it's what they're looking for.

[822] They're looking for a specific answer, meaning this is good.

[823] This is the way we found a way where you can eat meat and not feel bad.

[824] Yeah, yeah.

[825] And it's, the thing that's compelling about that study to me is the way it kind of happened was essentially what happened was Will Harris and White O Packers.

[826] They were raising animals for Epic Bar.

[827] That was one of their buyers.

[828] And Epic Bar got acquired by I think it was General Mills.

[829] And so General Mills looked at what Epic Bar was claiming when they were the independent and they were saying like our stuff is regenerative.

[830] You buy our product and you're giving back versus taking kind of a mindset.

[831] And I think General Mills was skeptical about that.

[832] So they spent, I think it was like $80 ,000 to go in and have a study done on Will Harris's White Oaks Pasture to really see if they could back that claim up.

[833] And they went in and they did the study and it actually showed like a net carbon sequestriation versus like they weren't even neutral.

[834] They actually pulled in more than they put out.

[835] So this is from Epic's particular type of farming that they at least at White Oaks pasture.

[836] Okay.

[837] So, I mean, again, that's one specific situation or one specific environment or area.

[838] So I think where people run into maybe a potential problem is, can we extrapolate that forward to other areas?

[839] Are we going to get that same results or is it going to be different?

[840] Right.

[841] That's what's important to, I mean, and it really is important to look at that honestly.

[842] Because even though you do have this one area, is that because of the environment where this farm is taking place?

[843] Is it because of the particular soil quality?

[844] like what are the factors that allow them to have so it's a it actually takes carbon out of the atmosphere like a certain percentage so instead of adding carbon it actually removes some yeah because i guess the the way it was described to me is that the inputs of that type of system are so low that like you're not like because if you look at just a normal like agricultural setup you know you have all these inputs of like manure and all these other things that are going to add to that that net effect or that that net negative effect of animal agriculture.

[845] So when you reduce the inputs down to next to nothing because your inputs are all kind of just manpower where you're moving these things around and letting the natural course of things happen over time, that's where you can maybe minimize some of these, like, I guess what you maybe call it like a tertiary damage of animal agriculture.

[846] But, you know, I think I think we probably have a lot to learn and stuff with that stuff too.

[847] But it's one of those things when I think about it, it's like, hopefully, we're spending a lot of time looking at that stuff because if they're right about the number of harvests we have left.

[848] I think what are the estimated we have a 60 harvest left.

[849] I mean, clearly regardless of whether you're vegan, carnivore, or somewhere in between, you know, we need quality soil, right?

[850] What about hydroponic?

[851] Because I know that there are some large -scale hydroponic operations that are growing vegetables and things along those lines.

[852] And some people think that there's a real promise in that because you're not you're not using soil at all you're not devastating the already depleted ground soil and you also don't need to do all the the harmful things that are involved in monocrop agriculture right like the the devastation on the wildlife the displacement of wildlife pesticides combines that are indiscriminately indiscriminately chewing up small rodents and bugs and rabbits and anything else that gets caught in their blades yeah yeah you know that'd be interesting i don't know a whole lot about it other than what it is so i mean i'm all for solutions yeah somebody sent me a link to something that is some indication that there there might be some promise in hydroponic agriculture but so but the thing about this whole idea was the name of the farm where that this was done where there's white oak pastures is that sustainable like nationally, forget about globally, even nationally in terms of like the needs that people have for beef.

[853] I mean, we use so much beef in this country.

[854] Yeah, I don't know for sure like what the scalability of that would be.

[855] My guess is like at this point it would be because it's pretty small like even from a percentage standpoint of what is being, or how much of that type of process is being used.

[856] It's like a single percentage or something like that.

[857] Well, all grass -fed meat, right?

[858] All grass -fed meat is like less than 3%.

[859] Yeah.

[860] it seems like we'd have a long ways to go but I mean I guess the counter to that would also be we're essentially going back to what we would have been doing historically and so it's not necessarily reinventing the wheel as much as it is just saying okay what we did here obviously is not sustainable or potentially not sustainable so let's look at what did we do to get back to where we were before I guess maybe is the way to look at that but how did you get linked up with Sean because Sean is such a polarizing figure Yeah.

[861] Because he's the carnivore go -to guy, and he's like a full -on carnivore zealot, as it were.

[862] Yeah.

[863] I mean, he doesn't even, he thinks vegetables are bad for it.

[864] So I think Sean sometimes gets misrepresented, and part of it is just, like, you know, the way he interacts on social media and stuff.

[865] But he's, I met Sean, like, before he, I think, went full carnivore, but on Twitter.

[866] And I mean, I thought he was an interesting person, not because of what he ate.

[867] What was he doing back then?

[868] What was he eating?

[869] He was kind of more like high, fat, low carb, I think.

[870] Something pretty similar to what I'm doing, maybe less carbohydrates since his activity levels are like really short and fast.

[871] And, you know, I just thought he was an interesting person because of his background.

[872] I mean, he's, you know, a highlands game athlete, professional rugby player.

[873] He's doing this high intensity.

[874] It's a gigantic dude.

[875] Yeah, I mean, he's twice my size.

[876] So it's like, my thought is like, okay, here's a guy who has a similar nutrition plan that I do, but he's doing the exact opposite athlete type stuff.

[877] He's twice the size of me. We're kind of two ends of the spectrum from like an athletic standpoint.

[878] So like I was just interested in kind of like, you know, what he was doing and what he was up to.

[879] And that's kind of why we started the podcast together.

[880] But yeah, I mean, one of the things that Sean always says on the podcast, I think, is kind of a better reflection.

[881] I mean, he'll say, I don't, the only thing I know for certain is that I'm wrong about something.

[882] So it's like, you know, it gets, I think it gets tough for someone like him who gets identified as the, like, the face of the carnivore movement.

[883] Because then, like, you get all the positive and a negative coming your way to.

[884] And, I mean, you can feed into that.

[885] But, I mean, when we record our podcasts and stuff, I mean, he's a very open -minded person.

[886] We're looking for answers and we're asking questions and things like that.

[887] And it's, it's, you know, it's a learning experience, I think, for me anyway.

[888] so well he clearly enjoys fucking with vegans well yeah and it's he's been on this fruitarian kick lately which is kind of hilarious i didn't know there was that many of those people out there yeah one of them just died one one fruitarian doctor died during a fast oh really yeah and sean was talking about it on his youtube channel there there's people out there that think that you could just get by by only eating fruit mhm jesus christ folks you know i've got a theory with like social media and that stuff in general is that like for a lot of the a lot of the people who are most active on it, it's like they're, they either take it 100 % serious or it's like kind of a joke or a game.

[889] And then when those two polar ends meet, it's, that's where you get the big kind of like, you like blow up interactions.

[890] And then it becomes the like kind of a game of like, well, the vegan told me that like I should die or something like that.

[891] So then I'm going to go tell that vegan that, you know, this or that.

[892] And it goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

[893] So stupid.

[894] There's such a waste of time.

[895] Well, the most interest, the one I always get a kick out of though along those lines is someone will come up with like a picture of like here's here's the human's uh you know jaw system and this clearly means we're we're frugivores and then someone will say well look at the the digestive track of a human being it is clearly designed more to be eating meat or animal products and you know they go back and forth with different like parts of the human anatomy to try to like prove that we're vegetarian or vegetarian or vegetarian arguments are so stupid and then I don't I'm thinking the whole time, I'm like, so what we have here is people who can have specific traits that are good for eating fruits and vegetables and some specific traits that are good for eating animal products.

[896] So we're omnivores.

[897] Yeah, it's biologically, it's been established.

[898] There's no real controversy.

[899] The controversy is fake, particularly from the vegans where they say that we're herbivores and our jaws are designed to crush, you know, roots.

[900] and shit, like, no, no, we, we had tools and fire for fucking hundreds of thousands of years, you knuckleheads.

[901] You know who, one of them of my favorite podcasts we've done was this guy, Dr. Bill Schindler.

[902] He's an archaeologist out of, I think it was Washington University.

[903] And he's such a cool dude.

[904] He, like, told, what he said something that was really resonated with me, where he said, you know, humans, we're unique in that, like, we've, like, over time, develop ways to use like tools and things like that to liberate nutrients.

[905] So to look at anything in its raw state is kind of missed the point of why humans are the way they are.

[906] Sure.

[907] Well, like lentils, right?

[908] I've seen this argument that human beings aren't supposed to eat meat because if we were, we'd be able to just rep it apart and eat it with our own teeth and go eat a squirrel with your face.

[909] Well, guess what?

[910] You can eat a squirrel with your face if you're so inclined.

[911] If you really wanted to do that, you could do it without tools.

[912] You know what you can't do?

[913] You can't eat a lot of beans without cooking them like we have we figured things out folks i mean cassava they in the the jungle they figured out that you have to cook this stuff and strain it and and and it's a primary staple of the diets of many people that live in the in the jungle you know and it's fucking toxic as shit if you don't do that i mean it literally produces cyanide cyanide is produced by cassava which is like one of their primary foods they just figured it out just like you figure out you have to boil lentils just like you figure out you have to cook beans i mean you You can't eat most of these things that we eat are not good to eat if you just eat them in their raw state.

[914] Some things like fruits are, some vegetables are.

[915] But some just are not.

[916] And this is the same with meat.

[917] And this idea that you're supposed to be where we're clearly an herbivore because of the fact that we, you know, we're not supposed to be, you know, killing animals with our teeth.

[918] Like, that's so dumb.

[919] Like, we kill animals with tools.

[920] And we've done it for so long that our bodies have adapted.

[921] We've adapted to the fact that we have clothes.

[922] that's why we're not covered in hair you fucking idiots like this is like real clear obvious stuff people who live in the coldest climates of the world aren't covered in hair you know yeah you know and it's it was interesting because like what you're saying too when when we had bill on the show he uh he's got this unique experience where he's actually gone in and visited these indigenous tribes that have been relatively untouched by modern society to basically with the one question of like well how do you eat so he's been he's seen like a variety of different stuff i think he even had a show on national geographic for a while that looked into some of this but he like just to show you the polarization of what humans can kind of do he he went and he visited the sombrough which is a branch of the masai over in africa you know they're they're basically drinking blood and milk for the for a huge portion of their nutrition and you know so you have this this this tribe that's basically on a primarily animal based nutrition plan and they're super healthy He said that they were maybe one of the most healthy groups of people he's seen from just like a physical stature, like tooth health and that sort of thing.

[923] But then he also went down to, I think it was in South America.

[924] I can't remember the name of the tribe.

[925] But they found a way to basically liberate nutrients from a poisonous potato.

[926] Casava.

[927] Is that what it was?

[928] Yeah, that's what we're talking about.

[929] Oh, okay.

[930] Yeah, so I think it was, maybe it was cassava.

[931] Maybe there's other ones as well.

[932] I think there is a purple, some weird purple potato that has a similar sort of a. toxic profile.

[933] And what he said was this tribe that ate basically mostly potatoes.

[934] What they would do is they'd literally dig like a pit and put like some like, like thousands of pounds of these potatoes in there and let them sit there and like ferment, I guess, for like up to six months.

[935] Oh God.

[936] And then they would actually make this clay that they would use.

[937] And because there was still a toxin or something in there that they needed to kind of prevent from like interacting.

[938] Oh, this is something totally different.

[939] Yeah.

[940] So they would, they take that this clay and they have this potato.

[941] And when they dip the potato.

[942] and this clay, it, like, binds to that toxin, so it becomes, it doesn't become an issue when you eat it.

[943] So, like, by itself, that potato could potentially kill you, I guess, but with the clay, it doesn't.

[944] And so I was like, how the fuck did they figure that out?

[945] That's what I want to know.

[946] I'm just thinking, like, who, how much trial and error goes into that?

[947] It's like, oh, this guy dropped dead.

[948] This guy dropped, oh, this guy lived.

[949] I guess we used the clay.

[950] There's so many things like that in the jungle.

[951] You just have to really wonder, how do they develop all these different medicines and all these different ways of eating things.

[952] And it's just fascinating when, like, you're, I guess when your only goal when you wake up in the morning is to find your next meal.

[953] Yeah.

[954] And, you know, kind of build, build enough around so that you can kind of survive.

[955] Like, you put a lot of time and energy into it.

[956] But yeah, it is interesting to think, like, how they all got passed along from generation to generation and how it got fine -tuned to where it is today.

[957] But I think it's, it's cool to look at that stuff when it just comes to your own nutrition, too, and kind of, when you understand, like, it's less about like this food is net bad for me or this this food is this particular food item is bad for me across the board and this one is great for me across the board more so about well this is what this food does well this is what this one does well so let's find like you mention mix and match to where you get the profile that you're looking for yeah i think the problem is what we're saying before is that people are entering into these conversations with this this goal that they want to achieve this goal being plants are bad for you or meat is bad for you or we're supposed to be only eating meat or we're supposed to be only eating plants and here's why and you know you have this confirmation bias you're not looking at any other piece of evidence and particularly the biological variability of human beings is pretty incredible yeah i mean i can eat peanuts all day long if you're allergic to peanuts you're dead if you eat one i mean it's it's uh we're we're we're strange creatures and what is this changing what you got here jamie the ancient oh here it is the ancient and ancient andian tradition of eating clay may have helped to protect health i think it goes back to ancient egypt i was just trying to find out how far back this goes and powerful egypt you could still buy clay dust right now it's like kind of looking that up too so eating dirt's good for you yeah or this so they found a way to like package the dust and right huh peruvian clay dust this is a whole history on potatoes here it is the world and like wild potatoes are laced with solanine and And Tomatine, toxic compounds believed to defend plants against attacks from dangerous organisms like fungi, bacteria, and human beings.

[958] We are dangerous organisms.

[959] Cooking often breaks down such chemical defenses, but solanine and tomatine are unaffected by heat in the mountains.

[960] Wow, say that word.

[961] Guantico and Vicunya?

[962] Like llamas.

[963] Wild relatives of the llama.

[964] lick clay before eating poisonous plants.

[965] The fucking llamas figured it out.

[966] The toxins stick more technically absorb to the fine clay particles in the animal's stomachs passing through the digestive system without affecting it.

[967] Mimicking this process, mountain peoples apparently learned to dunk wild potatoes in a gravy made of clay and water.

[968] Eventually, they bred less toxic potatoes, though some of the old poisonous varieties remain flavored for their resistance to for, oh, favored for their resistance to frost.

[969] Clay dust is still sold in Peruvian and Bolivian markets to accompany them.

[970] Wow.

[971] That's interesting.

[972] That's crazy.

[973] But it tastes like shit, though.

[974] Still dirt, still eating dirt with potatoes.

[975] But look, people do what they've got to do to stay alive.

[976] We're just so fortunate we don't have to do that.

[977] You can go to crossroads and have a nice vegan meal if you want to.

[978] You're not really worried about staying alive anymore.

[979] We're worried primarily about, yeah, about, well, you know, people are worried about the environment.

[980] They're worried about the health consequences of certain diets and the environmental consequences of certain diets.

[981] And, you know, and these people, this is what I've really gotten into after Chris Cressor was on the podcast recently debunking the game changers when he was talking about the positive net benefits of regenerative farming.

[982] I don't think that's clearly been established worldwide.

[983] or in large scale, like in terms of, and maybe it can be.

[984] Like, can we do it and feed, yeah.

[985] Yeah, can we feed the entire country on that?

[986] I mean, I don't, I'm not.

[987] Yeah, you know, I think that's, I mean, that's the million dollar question right now too, right?

[988] Like, well, how are we going to feed however many they're predicting?

[989] Like, how are we going to feed the 10 billion people we're going to see in X number of years?

[990] And I think it's interesting, and it's certainly worth thinking about, but like, it's also, like, well, how far do we keep kicking that ball down the road before we find ourselves in a situation?

[991] where like, you know, then what's the next question?

[992] 15 billion, 20 billion, and so on and so forth.

[993] And eventually, like, you know, we just overpopulate the world and it ends really badly for us.

[994] Well, diseases usually follow overpopulation.

[995] I think the real key for us, I think is going to be, and I think this is within our lifetime is going to be lab -created meat.

[996] And I think they're really close to doing that.

[997] And I think if you have some sort of ethical.

[998] lab -created nutritious meat where you don't have to worry about suffering or death if this has been established then we open up a whole new avenue of exploration because now you can say okay all these people that are vegan for this moral and ethical sort of dilemma that they have with animal agriculture killing animals suffering let's take all that out now you can eat lab created meat that has absolutely no suffering attached to it let's find out how health healthy things really are.

[999] And let's find out how many people stay vegan and how many people revert to more omnivorous diet, which, I mean, there's, this is something that vegans hate to hear, but it is a fact, 84 % of people who start a vegan diet quit.

[1000] Now, is that because of taste?

[1001] Is that because of, and then there's the argument that, well, people that do it over a long period of time, you get a higher retention rate.

[1002] That's fine, but 84 % still is the number.

[1003] I mean, it doesn't matter if you get a high retention rate for people that have doing it more than two years and more than three years.

[1004] Like if you stick with it, you can do it.

[1005] No, they're just more committed.

[1006] But the reality is 84 % quit.

[1007] This is what's been firmly established.

[1008] What would the number be if there was ethical, humane, lab -created meat that had no suffering attached to it at all?

[1009] It's just science -based.

[1010] It's just made with compounds and, you know, whatever they use to create this stuff.

[1011] That would be interesting.

[1012] It would be interesting to find out.

[1013] Could we eliminate large -scale animal agriculture in favor?

[1014] of lab created meat and what, if any, environmental factors would there be that would be negative that we're attached to lab created meat?

[1015] Because you've got to think, whenever you're making anything, right, industrial, large scale, you're going to have waste.

[1016] What is that waste?

[1017] Can that waste be mitigated?

[1018] Can they figure out some sort of a way to have some sort of net positive effect where that waste is utilized in some sort of a form where it's, it actually can contribute to the natural processes of, you know, soil regeneration and manure and, you know, composting and things along those lines.

[1019] Yeah.

[1020] No, I think it's interesting.

[1021] And we're in an interesting time for sure.

[1022] It'll be interesting to see where they get with that and everything else with that.

[1023] And, you know, you brought up an interesting point, too, not to keep going down the rabbit hole, but the other thing that I thought really interesting was when you look at waste component.

[1024] Because I feel like we're not maybe looking at that as much as we should be when we're talking about trying to feed a bunch of people.

[1025] It's like, well, maybe we should start with what we're throwing away that we wouldn't have to.

[1026] Oh, yeah.

[1027] And I think, like, at first I just thought, like, well, you know, there's a lot of food thrown away at restaurants.

[1028] There's a lot of stuff that's thrown away just because it doesn't meet standards for, like, the grocery store.

[1029] It's like, let's start there.

[1030] And I actually had asked Dr. Schindler about that.

[1031] And he actually did a study with some of his grad students where they looked at, I think they took 30 white -tailed deer.

[1032] And they processed it down to, like, the very last potential calorie.

[1033] to find out how much is wasted, even in like a, you know, a deer that, say you go and you shoot a deer and then you take it to the process and get it all done.

[1034] He said it was between, I think it was between like 13 to 30 days worth of human nutrition that gets wasted in a single white tail deer.

[1035] Whoa.

[1036] So like.

[1037] Well, here's the problem with that idea.

[1038] A waste is only if you do something with it.

[1039] If you leave it in the field, there's no waste.

[1040] Right.

[1041] Like if you just killed a deer, it's not, it just left it there.

[1042] There's no waste.

[1043] You're feeding animals.

[1044] Right.

[1045] I mean, they're going to absolutely destroy that thing.

[1046] It's going to be gone in a short period of time, including the bones.

[1047] They'll eat the bones.

[1048] And if they don't eat the bones, the bones will eventually deteriorate and become part of the soil.

[1049] This is what happens when animals die.

[1050] Sure.

[1051] So I guess maybe the way to look at then is like what are we, if we're looking to just, if our objective is to feed as many people as possible and we're maximizing the amount of nutrients we can acquire from a specific thing, like we're leaving a lot on the table or we're giving a lot to different areas, like different animals and things that would be...

[1052] Well, we're doing it wrong.

[1053] You know, we're putting our waste and bags and we're throwing it into the ground fills.

[1054] I mean, landfills.

[1055] Have you seen they did this aerial study of Los Angeles?

[1056] They're trying to find out where most of the methane comes from.

[1057] They were trying to figure out, it's fucking landfills, man. Landfills are disgusting.

[1058] And this is not how it's supposed to be.

[1059] It's supposed to be animals are supposed to have access to what's left over.

[1060] I mean, this is what would happen But if a bear killed a moose, all right, if a bear killed a moose, it's going to consume a big portion of the body, and then it's going to leave whatever's left, and then rodents and vultures, and then eventually insects and bacteria are going to break it down.

[1061] And this is a natural cycle of life for animals.

[1062] This is how it's supposed to be.

[1063] What we do is we take it, we cut it up, we eat some of it, we throw some of it away, we put that in a plastic bag, we zip tie it, We dig a fucking hole in the ground, and we throw that bag in there.

[1064] It's not, it's ludicrous.

[1065] Yeah.

[1066] It's, we know better.

[1067] We do know better.

[1068] We understand the whole process of these things breaking down in the wild and what happens to them.

[1069] We understand that there's animals that their entire diet consists of eating animals that other animals have killed and they leave some of it behind.

[1070] That's, we're supposed to leave it behind.

[1071] It's supposed to be a part of the whole cycle of life.

[1072] We were supposed to compost.

[1073] All these things are supposed to be natural.

[1074] You know, when I was a kid, my mom and my stepdad were part of this cooperative farm thing.

[1075] And we started composting.

[1076] And we didn't do it for very long because we eventually wound up moving and we stopped being a part of this thing.

[1077] But I thought it was really interesting because I was a little kid.

[1078] I think, oh, I never thought of that before.

[1079] You take your food waste and you separate it from like paper.

[1080] You know, like give your paper waste and then you have like, leftover tomatoes or something like that and all that would go into one specific bin and that bin would go into this big thing it was like it was made with like chicken wire and leaves and you had a lid over it and like it was a wood box and you would throw everything in there and it would all sort of rot and compost and then you would take that stuff and you would use it in the garden and this is this is how composting is done this is how fertilizer is made and this is what you're supposed to do yeah this is like small scale regenerative farming and what we're doing is assholes we take our food we put in fucking bags we zip tie it shut and we chuck it in the ground it's dumb it's a really dumb way of doing things i just feel like that is something that we could really leverage at the educational level like you know we've got schools where we we're housing these kids and like you know one of the biggest hurdles i think is like we got them indoors sitting in desks for seven eight hours a day and then we why not get them out and learn that and do that and we have these many little like regenerative areas sure then you learn it and then it doesn't get forgotten when you're an adult as easily well we're so enamored with this idea of working you know we're so enamored with this idea of getting a job we're so enamored with this idea of the structure of civilization as it stands in 2019 is the way to go so we're teaching kids how to complete this this life that they're born into the way it's established for their parents the way it's established for their neighborhood, get in your car, drive to work, work all day, come home, you know, eat what you can, throw the rest of the garbage, go back to work in the morning.

[1081] And this is nonsense.

[1082] This is not how you have to do it.

[1083] You don't have to do anything.

[1084] There's a bunch of different ways to live this life.

[1085] And there's only 100 years if you're lucky.

[1086] So this thing that we're setting up, we're setting up kids to essentially be as miserable as everybody else before them, doing the exact same thing that everybody else has done.

[1087] like maybe you can get lucky like I have been or like you've been and you find something that you actually enjoy doing then you get lucky like oh my god you know Zach found a job that he really loves and he got really good at it and now he actually has joy in what he does but there's there's a lot of different places in this this country alone where you can live and you could do things in a non -traditional manner and you can get by and you'll probably be healthier and happier than someone that gets stuck in the same goddamn civilization cycle, this industrialized cycle that we're all in.

[1088] And we don't teach kids that.

[1089] What we teach kids is here's history, here's math, get your SATs in, get the score, go to the college that you want, get a job.

[1090] And this is the standard path that seems to be rewarded.

[1091] And if you say, well, I'm going to drop out and find myself, oh, good luck, loser.

[1092] You know, you're going to fuck up your life.

[1093] You know, what are you doing, man?

[1094] You're not even going to college.

[1095] Jesus Christ.

[1096] Like, and it's very unfortunate that we have this incredibly rigid system.

[1097] And, and it really makes people feel like, made me feel like a failure.

[1098] I didn't fit into the system.

[1099] I just, because I have ADD or whatever, emotional issues, whatever I had, I just could not sit still in class and concentrate.

[1100] I had way too much fucking energy.

[1101] This was just, this was just not for me. I was twiddling my thumbs and tapping the floor and looking at the clock and a When that fucking thing hit, I was gone and I didn't want to do home.

[1102] I literally didn't do any homework my entire high school career.

[1103] I didn't do any.

[1104] I just got by being smart enough to pass test by learning what I learned in class and not putting in any fucking extra effort.

[1105] I just wanted to get out.

[1106] And I found something that I was good at.

[1107] I figured it out.

[1108] I got lucky that I did that.

[1109] But for a lot of people, they just lived these lives of frustration.

[1110] You know, and they never do find a thing.

[1111] and they're not taught to find a thing.

[1112] And there's also, I think there's a great satisfaction to working on something that you enjoy, whether it's working with your hands or working on something that's creative, and working with the land.

[1113] You know, you talk to people that run their own little organic farms.

[1114] Like, I know this couple that runs an organic farm.

[1115] And, man, when they talk about their food, they talk about the vegetables they grow and the stuff they grow, they're like beam.

[1116] They're excited about it.

[1117] They're excited.

[1118] It's a natural, there's a, there's a natural, there's a gravity that we have towards that.

[1119] It's a natural human reward to be able to cultivate your own food.

[1120] If you can make a salad out of some stuff that you grew yourself, man, that feels amazing.

[1121] It really does.

[1122] And there's people that could be making a living doing that.

[1123] They're never encouraged to do so.

[1124] And they might be way happier than selling insurance.

[1125] Yeah.

[1126] Yeah.

[1127] No, I agree.

[1128] And you could feed other people.

[1129] too, man. That's the other thing.

[1130] If you could figure out a way to run an organic garden and you do compost, you don't use pesticides, you do everything organic and everything is regenerative and you actually can feed people.

[1131] My God, how good would you feel?

[1132] Pretty satisfying.

[1133] Yes.

[1134] Yeah.

[1135] I would think really satisfying.

[1136] It's not for everybody, but it's got to be for somebody.

[1137] Yeah.

[1138] And they're not being, no one's teaching you that in school.

[1139] Right.

[1140] Yeah.

[1141] You have to be one of those outside the box thinkers because school is essentially set up for scale, right?

[1142] It's set up for, you got 500 kids.

[1143] You to turn them into not losers.

[1144] How do I get 500 kids to not be a loser?

[1145] Well, just standard path.

[1146] You know, like standard American diets, like standard American education.

[1147] These, like, standard paths that will work for X amount of people.

[1148] You get 10 people, seven of them won't be losers if you just shove them into this machine and pump them out in this fucking form.

[1149] Yeah.

[1150] It's a bummer.

[1151] Uh -huh.

[1152] Now, here we're getting education advice from the ultra marathon runner.

[1153] Yeah, but you're a good guy to get education advice from.

[1154] Well, I was a teacher for five years.

[1155] but it's also you're a successful guy at an unusual thing you know you found a thing that you really excel at that you actually enjoy yeah and that is for so many people the ultimate goal of life like if you can make a lot of money in this life but you will not be as happy and it's not it's really contrary to like capitalist ideas like we're taught to think that the more money you make the happier you'll be that's definitely not true but you're you're you're not true but you're You will make more money if you're happier with what you do, which sounds like a contradiction.

[1156] But it's not.

[1157] You'll excel.

[1158] And if you're excelling, you'll probably, whatever you're doing is profitable.

[1159] Obviously, there's some things that you can excel at that are just, there's no fucking way to make a lot of money as a bowler.

[1160] You know, if you're like, I'm really in a bowling.

[1161] Well, you're kind of fucked.

[1162] Because it's just one of those things that nobody gives a shit about it.

[1163] But I find something else you're interested in too.

[1164] Yeah.

[1165] Yeah, it would be nice.

[1166] He found something to actually paid the bills.

[1167] But if you can find something that you enjoy, you'll have an interesting.

[1168] infinitely happier life.

[1169] It's just you can do that.

[1170] You just have to find those.

[1171] You have to explore those things.

[1172] And I think that's where we fail kids.

[1173] We fail kids in giving them this landscape of possibilities that actually does exist.

[1174] I think there's a landscape of possibilities for what you can do.

[1175] And everyone is different.

[1176] I don't want to be an ultra marathon runner, man. Right.

[1177] If you and I are competing, I'm fucked, okay?

[1178] I'm not going to win.

[1179] I'm not going to excel.

[1180] I'm built like a chimp.

[1181] I'm not, I'm not the guy that's supposed to be running 200 miles.

[1182] It's just your realm.

[1183] And it's also, it's not what I don't desire to do that.

[1184] Conversely, if you had to become a stand -up comedian, you'd probably be like, well, fuck this.

[1185] I don't want to do any thinking about things that's funny.

[1186] And the first time you bomb me, like, what am I doing with my life?

[1187] You know, it's everybody has a different personality and these different personalities and these different interests and desires.

[1188] They take different paths.

[1189] And I think we need to open that up to people more and just sort of in some way encourage people to seek more to seek to genuinely try to find the things that interest you maybe you should be a fly fishing guide you know maybe you should be a guy who makes homemade mugs out of exotic hardwood you know maybe you know maybe you're a knife maker maybe you're a person who'd maybe you should make fucking dream catchers i don't know don't make dream catchers Does anybody really like dream catchers?

[1190] Those are like something you buy and then you put it on the wall and you go, what the fuck am I doing?

[1191] Why did I do that?

[1192] I'm like pretending I'm a Native American or something.

[1193] But there's things you can do, man. You just have to find that thing.

[1194] And I think that's so hard for people.

[1195] And that's why people, when they find someone like yourself, that's doing this unusual unorthodox thing and you're extremely successful at it, it becomes so attractive to people to hear your story.

[1196] Yeah, and I think I would have never guessed I'd be doing what I'm doing now 10 years ago.

[1197] So it's equally surprising to me, I think, sometimes.

[1198] But it is interesting when you think about just where you thought you would maybe be and then where you end up and all that stuff in between.

[1199] And ultimately, I think if you, I think you want to be smart about stuff.

[1200] Like I didn't necessarily just quit my job and say I'm going to be an ultramarathon runner.

[1201] You kind of have like a few different options available or you just keep options open to.

[1202] Like for me personally, I like to coach too.

[1203] so I'm going to do some of that and that helps supplement things.

[1204] And then, you know, podcasting has always been a fun thing to do.

[1205] So historically I'd always go on podcasts and then a couple of years ago, it was like, well, if it's this much fun to go on them, it must be fun to do them too.

[1206] So, you know, starting these other, I think when people start kind of really exploring where their curiosities are, you find these different avenues too and they just kind of snowballs a little bit as opposed to being, you know, maybe you start out making the dream catcher and then you become something else.

[1207] Right, right.

[1208] You just get really into feathers.

[1209] Yeah.

[1210] Did you ever think about doing something?

[1211] Like, do you get revelations post -training?

[1212] Do you, because one of the things that I always have, after, like, really good hard workouts.

[1213] First of all, I'm always filled with gratitude.

[1214] I'm always, like, really thankful after long, hard workouts.

[1215] And I've thought about doing this thing called the gratitude series, where I do a podcast, like, immediately after, like, really hard workouts.

[1216] Nice.

[1217] And just talk about my feelings.

[1218] something.

[1219] I mean, it sounds fucking corny and self -indulgent.

[1220] But realistically, I think there are some lessons that I learn off of really hard workouts.

[1221] You know, where it's like at the end of it, you know, when it's all done, first of all, there's always this feeling like eight out out of ten times I don't want to work out.

[1222] Really, eight out of ten.

[1223] I work out ten out.

[1224] But eight out of ten, I'm like, fuck this.

[1225] You're always happy.

[1226] Always.

[1227] Always.

[1228] And that's the hump, man. that that fucking hump of just shut that part of your brain up and just start moving and then once you start moving you start breaking a sweat once you start breaking a sweat it becomes easier it starts feeling good then you start getting some satisfaction like ooh I almost didn't do this today here I am doing it and you know and sometimes it's fucking you know sometimes I'm looking at a three mile run which is nothing for you but a mile in I'm like fuck two more to go Jesus Christ and I'm running hills and shit but when it's over, it's like, yes, I did it.

[1229] You know, and I get back to the car and I'm saying hi to people, hey, what's up?

[1230] How are you doing?

[1231] Waving to the neighbors.

[1232] Dogs exhausted.

[1233] I'm happy.

[1234] Everybody's pumped.

[1235] You know, it's like, and I feel good.

[1236] I feel warm.

[1237] I feel friendly.

[1238] I feel loving.

[1239] I feel, you know, I want to call people and tell them I care about them.

[1240] It's like, there's moments like post -workout in particular where you just feel really good.

[1241] and I think life is sometimes about getting over those periods of feeling kind of shitty or low energy or lethargic or unrested or what the fuck it is and just pushing through that because you know the territory you've been there before and then developing a habit of being able to do that and being able to know and have faith in the process and understand that this yeah yeah I know you don't want to do it shut the fuck up and go just go and just go and And once you do go, you always feel better.

[1242] Yeah, no, I 100 % agree.

[1243] And I think in my own training, like, I get that from a lot of different workouts.

[1244] But the one that I really love is, like, when I get closer to a race, and like I was saying before, you start dialing things and to be more specific to the activity you're trying to prepare for, I'll do a phase of training where I'm running kind of in an area of about, like, 150 to 155 beats per minute.

[1245] So I can go, like, it's just fast enough where I feel like I'm really kind of, like, working.

[1246] but it's also Sloan if I can go for quite a while so I can log a really big run and when I was training for this last race at the Pettit Center I had a training cycle where I hit I had a four -week block where I had one D -load week which is basically a reduction of volume and intensity and three build -ups.

[1247] Why is it called D -load?

[1248] Because I'm like reducing volume and intensity and the other three though were build -up one so I had like 130 mile a week right around 130 and then 250 -mile weeks and they were just like basically loaded with like kind of just faster then or right about kind of 100 mile intensity so you know I would do and you can maybe pull it up I think I have a picture on my Instagram page of the I did these key workouts where I'd go to a track and I would just do loops around the track and it'd be like anywhere between 27 to like 32 miles at that kind of intensity and you just get into like a flow and a rhythm and it just once you kind of get moving it feels great and afterwards yeah you feel great a whole rest of the day and you just want to kind of go out and do it again.

[1249] You almost have to be careful not to do too much at a certain point.

[1250] Who structures those?

[1251] Do you structure them yourself?

[1252] Yeah, yeah.

[1253] To kind of go back to what we were talking about in the beginning, like when I structure a plan, ideally I start out, I start out with a good base, a good aerobic base, which I typically kind of retain almost year round.

[1254] I'll take like off season, but I like to follow a principle where I'll let myself kind of lose some of that peak fitness just so it's sustainable because staying at your peak fitness level is not sustainable.

[1255] So I let myself get like just out of shape enough so that I'm not always at that level.

[1256] And then I start kind of building in the structure towards the race itself, which starts with those shorter, faster intervals since they're further away.

[1257] And then I get closer and closer to the race where I'm doing things that are more specific.

[1258] So like the next step would be I'd be doing some longer intervals or kind of like what you consider like an anaerobic threshold type workout, which generally speaking is about like your max intensity if you did like a 60 -minute all -out time trial.

[1259] And then, you know, that's still not specific to 100 miles because I'm out there for 11 hours.

[1260] So I'm kind of still moving closer to that slower race pace.

[1261] Yeah.

[1262] And it's a, I mean, it just follows the principle of, you know, hitting all the systems of training like you would in any other periodized endurance plan, but always keeping that compass of the stuff you do for the, or the intensity of the race itself is the type of work you should be doing closest to it.

[1263] So you're really just optimizing when you're closer to the race itself.

[1264] How do you know what your peak fitness is?

[1265] Like when you say that you want to, you can't really maintain the peak fitness.

[1266] You want to back off a little bit so that you can just keep your training running.

[1267] How do you know where that is?

[1268] And how do you know that you cannot expand that?

[1269] And then yeah, no, that's a great question.

[1270] That's somewhat subjective to.

[1271] I mean, you can analyze things if you want to go into like heart rate variability type things.

[1272] But that's a little bit more on the micro level.

[1273] For me personally, like usually I'll get to a point where like, I'll do a race, and you can just kind of tell, like, I'm exhausted from that.

[1274] And I like to think of it kind of two -folded, where, like, physical recovery and mental recovery.

[1275] So if I do a big race and afterwards, like, I can't even, like, bring myself to think of another big training block.

[1276] I know I need to, like, let myself kind of get a little bit out of that fitness state, that peak fitness state, and just kind of reset or hit the reset button.

[1277] So this is just from years and years of training.

[1278] Yeah, and you make mistakes.

[1279] makes.

[1280] I mean, in the past, you know, a lot of times I'll do one, I think I got one more race left for me and then it goes badly.

[1281] Oh, right, right.

[1282] Now, what is a long day?

[1283] Like, say if you're getting prepared for this 100 -mile race and you know you're going to have to run for 11 plus hours, what's a long day for you?

[1284] Yeah, so the longest run I did for this particular one was three and a half hours.

[1285] It was, I think, 32 miles or somewhere in that neighborhood.

[1286] I'll do, I'll do, I usually don't push up much past five hours in my own training.

[1287] Uh, if I'm going to do much more than that, I'll just jump in a race.

[1288] Uh, like the nice thing about Phoenix is there's a race company called Aravipa and they put on like 30 some ultra events every year.

[1289] So it's like, you can basically almost every weekend.

[1290] Pretty much.

[1291] Yeah.

[1292] That's crazy.

[1293] So like the, the, the guy who race director at Jamil, he'll, he'll let me jump in events when I want to.

[1294] And so sometimes I'll, if I'm going to do something, like say I want to, I'm preparing for a hundred mile and I want to get a really long day, like a seven, eight hour session in, you know, I'll just pick like a, like, a 100K type event or like, you know, 50 mile or type event and just do that at like, I like to say, like, I try not, those are, you know, those are training tools.

[1295] So I don't want to necessarily race it all out.

[1296] But if you can kind of keep yourself at like maybe 80 % of what you're capable of, you can get that good long stimulus, but not necessarily beat yourself up so much that it takes away from the race you're preparing for.

[1297] And so 50 miles would take you or how long would that take you?

[1298] It depends on the course.

[1299] Like, I, I just did a 50 -mile or actually about a week and a half ago held the JFK a 50 -mile, and that took me five hours and 42 minutes.

[1300] And that course is kind of, it's got, you go over the Appalachian mountains for about 60 miles, and you get on a really flat tow path for about a marathon, and then some rolling street hills.

[1301] So that's not as fast as you can find.

[1302] I mean, you can go on a track.

[1303] How much elevation are you going up and down?

[1304] That one was about 3 ,000 feet.

[1305] That's a lot.

[1306] It is, but the funny thing about ultramarathon, especially in North America, is like, you know, the trails are where a lot of, you know, there's a lot of interest there.

[1307] So 3 ,000 for 50 is actually considered a relatively flat, fast course.

[1308] Whoa.

[1309] You know, it's hilarious.

[1310] It's really interesting, too, because, like, some of the, I live just about two hours south of Flagstaff, and I mean, there's a group of ultra -marathon guys who train up there, and they, I got a lot of inspiration from two of them specifically for this last race, the race set at the Pettit Center.

[1311] One guy's name is Jim Walmsley, and he's, for my money, probably the, best ultra -marathon or we have certainly in North America, if not the world.

[1312] I mean, he's got the course record at the Western States 100, which is the most tested hundred -mileer in North America.

[1313] He's got the course record at the Lake Sonoma 50 -mile by a pretty big margin.

[1314] He's actually got the two fastest times, but the next closest person of him is like 18 minutes behind or something like that.

[1315] And then he's also got the course record at the JFK, 50 -mile, the one I just was mentioning before.

[1316] And these three events are three of the most tested courses that we've had.

[1317] And he's got the course records at all of them.

[1318] And he can probably go faster on all three.

[1319] Jesus Christ.

[1320] So, I mean, some of his training is like, he'll do like 150 mile a week sometimes with like 30 ,000 feet of climbing and descending.

[1321] And the kicker is one of his training partners, Jared Hazen.

[1322] So if Jim is the best ultra runner North America has from the male side, Jared Hazen is by far the most underrated.

[1323] So this guy, he ran the Western States 100 this year.

[1324] Jim finished first.

[1325] Jared finished second.

[1326] Jim broke his course record by running 14 hours and nine minutes on a course that has 17 ,000 feet of climbing and 23 ,000 feet of descent.

[1327] You ran 100 miles with that much in 14 hours?

[1328] In Western states, it's considered a running course for the most part, too.

[1329] Like there's crazier ones that get way worse from a climbing and descending standpoint.

[1330] Like Moab.

[1331] Yeah.

[1332] We have to use trekking stations.

[1333] Yeah.

[1334] So Jared, though, Jared, so Jim, he had actually broken the course record the year before, and he took like, I think it was like 16 or 17 minutes off the old course record, ran 14 and a half hours.

[1335] This last, next year, he broke his course record with the 14 .09.

[1336] Jared came in second in, I think it was 1423 or 26, just behind Jim, basically pushing him all day.

[1337] So any other time, Jared would have won that race, except for that year.

[1338] And it would have been like, you know, a huge story for him.

[1339] And, you know, it just, I mean, it was an amazing performance from those two guys and just watching kind of their training.

[1340] And then their performances, because I was out there crewing and pacing my wife, it was like a huge motivator for me when I kind of got into the training buildup for that race at the pennant center.

[1341] So it's, it's just funny with ultramarathon, because you have such a variety.

[1342] I think we talked about this a bit the last time is on it.

[1343] You can have like these 50K races that are like, I mean, there's 50K races that have 10 ,000 feet of climbing and descending.

[1344] and then you can have these six -day events that are on a 400 -meter track.

[1345] Right, which is much different, yeah.

[1346] You are doing something really bonkers right now, right?

[1347] You're attempting to run across the entire country and to break the record.

[1348] Yeah, so this is kind of in its infancy a bit from the planning stages, so I probably won't happen in the immediate future, but someone you're very familiar with actually Justin Wren, who's got the fight for their guy, and I was actually on the phone with him last night.

[1349] And one thing I've kind of been interested in since I started ultra running is this route.

[1350] It's a 3 ,100 mile route, basically, that goes from San Francisco to New York.

[1351] And it's been done by, you know, quite a few people both walking, running.

[1352] Pete Kosselinik, he's got the course record.

[1353] I know he averaged like 70 miles a day.

[1354] Yeah.

[1355] Yeah.

[1356] So it's like, it's a pretty insane route.

[1357] And I've always been interested in doing it.

[1358] And I just haven't really been motivated, I guess, to really, attempt it, or I guess I just really didn't know when I would do it.

[1359] I just kind of idea I would.

[1360] And then last year, one of my, one of my sponsors, the F -bom, those nut butter satchez.

[1361] I love those.

[1362] Yeah.

[1363] But my friend Riza and John L. Rollins, they believe that the name should be changed.

[1364] They believe nut butter has a negative connotation to heterosexual males who think that it sounds like something comes out of your dick.

[1365] any thoughts a name change but may be good well I guess in their defense there's is called F -bomb not not better right so right right right F -bom's better right it's a better name yeah yeah yeah yeah stuff I love their stuff yeah no they make a great product and they had actually proposed last year I think they just were maybe spitballing a little bit but they're like hey would you be ever interested in doing that like go running you know doing that cross -country route and I was like yeah I've been actually wanting to do that at some point I just haven't gotten around to actually planning it out how funny is that a statement.

[1366] Yeah, I've been wanting to run 3 ,100 miles across the fucking continent and try to beat the record, which average 60 to 70 miles a day.

[1367] God damn, dude.

[1368] How would you prepare for that?

[1369] Yeah, you know, I mean, I'd be in super uncharted territory because I've just haven't done anything like that before.

[1370] So it would be difficult.

[1371] You'd be a lot of learning on the fly.

[1372] I think really the big key thing there is you're managing a lot of stuff with that.

[1373] Like, you want to make sure you're sleeping well throughout that, because obviously if you're not sleeping well, it could end badly for you pretty soon.

[1374] So then I think you just end up trying to do as much specific things as you can to prepare without going overboard.

[1375] So just a lot of time on feet.

[1376] I mean, you can imagine the pace is going to be incredibly slow.

[1377] There's probably going to be like walking breaks.

[1378] I'm not going to be like, you know, certainly not going to be running 648 per mile pace.

[1379] But my my first thought is like I'll probably target like a 12 to 14 hour range per day.

[1380] And whatever I get out of that 12 to 14 days or hours is what I get.

[1381] And then that gives me kind of the flexibility to have like at least 10 hours of buffer to kind of like prep and sleep and get ready for the next day.

[1382] Do you know Eddie Azard is?

[1383] A comedian?

[1384] Are you aware of what he did?

[1385] He ran the entire length of the UK on the outside of it.

[1386] With no training, right?

[1387] He's an animal man. He really is a special person.

[1388] Really is a special person.

[1389] I remember only knowing of him as a comedian and, you know, had seen him do a lot of stand -up before and then I watched this documentary where he's running I mean, how many miles, how many different marathons was it?

[1390] It was like 26?

[1391] 27 and 27 days.

[1392] 27 marathons and 27 days.

[1393] He did wind up taking one day off or his feet were literally mangled from blisters.

[1394] I can only imagine.

[1395] He wasn't in shape, which is just fucking crazy.

[1396] He's just sheer willpower.

[1397] I mean, just to do one marathon.

[1398] marathon when you're not in shape.

[1399] I just can't imagine.

[1400] Just the fucking sheer amount of just will, just pure will that it takes to do something like that and to just keep pushing.

[1401] Left right, left right, left right, left right, left right, even though everything in your head, your brain, your feet, everything, stop, stop, stop, fuck you.

[1402] Left right, left right, left right.

[1403] I mean, he ran, how many thousand miles was it?

[1404] the entire length of the UK over in the outside of too though he did 43 marathons oh Christ he did one in south Africa right 43 and 51 days was his first one and then 27 and 27 days was his second one 43 43 fucking marathons article in 2009 comedian alien was celebrating after finishing his 43 marathon in 51 days he's really really interesting guy yeah it's amazing he's he's Eddie Izard but he's he's He's a cross -dresser, so he's like, it's, he comes out as transgender, I think, but not really, because he likes women.

[1405] And he likes women as a man. He just likes dressing as a woman.

[1406] He's just a really unique guy, but he owns it, you know what I'm saying?

[1407] Like, he is who he is.

[1408] Sub -five -hour marathon, the connection was aimed at finishing on a sub -fire marathon, missed his target by 30 seconds.

[1409] Give it to him.

[1410] Yeah, let's round down in that case.

[1411] Jesus Christ.

[1412] Give him an honorary 4 .59.

[1413] Such a fucking interesting, interesting, like, thoughtful, intelligent person.

[1414] Really enjoyed talking to him.

[1415] But when he's talking about these marathons, you're like, good Lord, man. Like, it's hard enough for someone to do who's like you.

[1416] Like, for a guy like you, to run 40 what?

[1417] How many marathons?

[1418] 40 what?

[1419] What do you say?

[1420] A lot.

[1421] A lot.

[1422] Let's say 40.

[1423] Fuck it.

[1424] For you to run 40 marathons in 40 days, it's fucking bonkers, right?

[1425] Yeah, that'd be a bigger training block than I've ever done for sure.

[1426] that's crazy and you're a fucking world record holder you got a goddamn stand -up comedian out there running it's amazing what people can do when they decide they're going to do it yes yes but yeah i mean i think with for for this particular run you know i probably would have kept punting it down the road and you know had i not talked to just and ren to be honest with you like uh you know when you do something like that like part of the reason i think you do that is uh for me anyway is when i see like endurance ultra endurance sport, too, it can be a very selfish sport because you're, you know, you're putting in tons of training.

[1427] Race day is like an all day effort with tons of people helping you out.

[1428] Like they're taking time out of their schedule, their day to come out there, crew, pace, essentially like be your support system while you're out there kind of trying to, you know, do all these things.

[1429] So, you know, part of it is like I want to try to give back in a way as well as opposed to just always going out and racing for my own, my own sake.

[1430] And what will it be done?

[1431] How will it, will you have sponsors?

[1432] Yeah, I mean, hopefully what we'll do is I was talking to Justin.

[1433] Can we sponsor you?

[1434] Absolutely.

[1435] Really?

[1436] Yeah.

[1437] We wear like a JRE logo on one of your shirts or something?

[1438] No doubt about it.

[1439] Fuck yeah.

[1440] All right, we're in.

[1441] Let's do it.

[1442] Awesome.

[1443] We got one sponsor on board.

[1444] Here we go.

[1445] Yeah, hell yeah.

[1446] But yeah, so like when I talk to Justin, I mean, Justin is, I mean, you know Justin, well, he's been on this show.

[1447] I love that guy.

[1448] And I think it was on here that I heard his podcast for the first time.

[1449] I know I heard him tell, I guess what you would call his origin story here, and I think I heard it again on like the mind pump media guys podcast.

[1450] And it's when I describe just listening to Justin Wren's podcast or his interviews to people, I try to say like, well, it kind of comes in these stages where he tells his background story of like his experience with bullying.

[1451] And at first you just, your heart just sinks for the guy.

[1452] You're thinking like, well, how could anyone have to go through that?

[1453] I would never want him to go through that.

[1454] And then you kind of transition into this phase of like you kind of get nervous and anxious because you're thinking like, well, who did I say something mean to when I was younger or who did I potentially affect in a negative way?

[1455] And then it's like, then you just want to try to do something to support.

[1456] And, you know, it's really, when you look at someone like Justin Wren, it's, it's mind boggling to me that this guy isn't like an internationally known hero or leader yet anyway.

[1457] Well, he's becoming.

[1458] He's getting big.

[1459] He's getting big.

[1460] I mean...

[1461] The only thing that's holding him back is he keeps getting sick.

[1462] Yeah.

[1463] Well, and that's just it.

[1464] He's got a fucking crazy, you know, his parasites he's got now.

[1465] They don't even know what they are.

[1466] He picked up some parasites in the Congo.

[1467] They can't even identify them specifically.

[1468] Uh -huh.

[1469] And he's really suffering health -wise.

[1470] And you would never know talking to him.

[1471] Like, he just goes about it.

[1472] Like, the guy's gotten malaria.

[1473] Like, most people would probably say, okay, I went over to Africa.

[1474] I got malaria.

[1475] I helped some people out.

[1476] I'm good.

[1477] I'm good.

[1478] Now, now someone, you know, we'll raise some money for this charity and we'll send it over to him or something like that no he keeps going back and keeps getting malaria three times yeah yeah three times and now he's got the unknown parasite so like when I think of like what we I think maybe like I mean Justin Wren is like next level when it comes to like a leader I think and I think in the current especially in the current climate like you know our leaders today tend to be you know people like celebrities athletes and then politicians and things like that and it's like I you look around and it can be very underwhelming about just like you know some of like uh like how how badly are like how badly are people actually trying to help people and how much how many of these like politicians actually care about poor people how many of them actually care about someone who's disenfranchised or how much how many actually care are they doing it are they doing it to just get elected right do they actually care well Justin it's just care yes it's all care there's no worry at all about ulterior motives they don't exist there's no ulterior of motive to sleep on a dirt floor or in a grass shack with the pygmies like he's done for months at a time he's just doing it for love.

[1479] Yeah.

[1480] Yeah, so I think like when I look at like I think people want to help and I think people want to do things that are good for humanity, but oftentimes they don't necessarily have that example to kind of like to lead the way.

[1481] They look into a void in some cases and I think Justin is the type of person who, you know, if the more people we can get to know about him, his story and what he's trying to do, on the wells and the farms and with the pygmy as well as his new branch on anti -bullying, the better.

[1482] So when I reached out to him, I was actually like kind of surprised.

[1483] Like I shot him a note on, I think, Instagram and Twitter.

[1484] And I thought, like, he's probably not going to see it because he's not following me. And he responded in like less than a couple hours.

[1485] Like, you followed me, he responded back.

[1486] And he's just like, this is so awesome.

[1487] I feel super honored that you'd want to, you know, help out in some way.

[1488] And it's like he's just always looking for opportunities to help, like, promote this great cause.

[1489] then, you know, when I got that response from him, it was like clarification of what I think some I already knew about the guy just from listening to him on your show and others, like, you know, he's really in this for a big reason.

[1490] And if we need a fast track, this cross -country event to bring him some awareness, we'll see what we can do.

[1491] But he's in everything he does.

[1492] He does to help and promote other people.

[1493] Even when I was trying to talk to him about his parasite, I had to keep getting him on track.

[1494] He's like, you got to interview my doctor.

[1495] And no, fuck your doctor.

[1496] what's going on man what's happening with you because I worry about the guy because he's so selfless when he's talking about like blacking out and all these like after training they got to get him in the shower because he's shivering and he's pale white I'm like bro what is going on with you like what is this and he's like oh you got to meet my doctor he's amazing like stop stop with the fucking doctor I don't want to get what is happening he doesn't want to talk about himself it's amazing he's the most selfless person I've ever ever talked to he's talking about fighting again, right?

[1497] He's getting over these incredible bouts of antibiotics that, you know, weaken your ligaments, right?

[1498] Like, when you take Cipro or any of these, like, super intense antibiotics, one of the side effects is a lot of times people get injured, like your ligaments get injured, because apparently there's a weakening effect, which is really kind of, it's really fascinating when you think about the human body as an overall organism.

[1499] and that it's really an ecosystem.

[1500] And that when you flood antibiotics into that ecosystem to try to prevent disease from destroying it, you also have these unintended side effects.

[1501] And one of them is weakened ligaments.

[1502] And there's a lot of correlation between people getting staff infection and then blowing out knees, ACLs, you know, tendons and things along those lines afterwards.

[1503] So both of his shoulders are fucked, you know, and this is post -antibiotics.

[1504] And yet he's still talking about fighting so you can bring more awareness to the pygmy.

[1505] So I'm like, bro, please, stop.

[1506] Just get your shoulders fixed.

[1507] Whatever you got going on.

[1508] Let's heal that up first.

[1509] And then also find out what the fuck this parasite is.

[1510] Like, you don't even know what this, didn't even know what this is.

[1511] He's not even thinking about himself.

[1512] He's like, if I can get in and get a fight in by the end of the year.

[1513] I'm like, the end of the year, man, it's fucking December.

[1514] Like, stop it.

[1515] You're not getting in by the end of the year.

[1516] You're not getting in the beginning of 2020.

[1517] Let's heal up.

[1518] heal up.

[1519] We want you healthy.

[1520] He's such a rare, totally selfless person, and he's such a powerful force for good for those people, the people that live in the Congo.

[1521] And what he's done for them, I mean, I don't know how many wells they've built so far, but they've made an alliance with the cash app, which is one of my sponsor.

[1522] So every time someone downloads the cash app, when they use the code Joe Rogan, whether it's for Google, for Android, or for an iPhone, for Apple, get ten dollars goes to this cause so they've raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and they're building wells right now it's just this amazing thing that he's done and he's just like you feel like a piece of shit like when you're around him you're like why don't why am i not this nice yeah he's so nice it's it's like it wasn't enough for him to find people who are hard off he had to go and find the most forgotten most hard off people on the planet right it's like so many people in africa have it rough you're no no who's got the roughest yeah yeah the tiny folks that live and you know and on top of that the guy's a world class mixed martial artist me he really is he's one of the best heavy weights in the world and how much better would he be if he was selfish and he spent all of his time training and not getting malaria three times not having this unknown parasite that they think might be in his fucking brain i mean they don't even know what it's i was just reading this story about some guy who was having seizures and it turns out he had all these worms in his brain and I'm like and I was thinking about Justin I'm like it was from uncooked pork from this guy and Justin they think the problem with the Congo is it's so remote and you don't get a lot of people to go there and get diseases and then come back so they might not they don't even know what this is it might be something that no one's ever got before sure and then made it back to Western civilization to be examined yeah wow yeah wow what the hell man yeah Yeah, and you would never know talking to him.

[1523] No, he just doesn't he want to talk about it.

[1524] He wants to talk about his friend.

[1525] Hey, you got to get my friend on the podcast.

[1526] He's really sweet.

[1527] He's a great guy.

[1528] He makes kites.

[1529] Like, what the fuck you're talking about?

[1530] Each kite is going to generate X amount of dollars.

[1531] You'll bottle up Justin Wren and feed it to everyone, I guess.

[1532] Well, you know, it's an interesting, I'm not just an interesting.

[1533] It's a beautiful sort of expression of what can happen to a person when the experience deep pain and sadness and then they find a way out and then they find a way to help other people and that's sort of what he's done you know his his childhood was really rough and he came out of that a super kind person as opposed to being angry and mean this is what we need more in the world right we need more people building people up and helping and less people tearing people down and hating it's so much of so much of what social media is used for and so much of what the internet is used for is hate is anger there's so much anger you know and to see someone like just in this rare soul that has found a way to almost universe i mean like everything he does is channeled towards good all of it you know including kicking people's asses yeah which is like how do you make that good you found it you found a way to make kicking people's asses a good thing it's beautiful i'm i'm really honored to be his friend so he's one of my you know the rarest people that i know yeah no doubt no it's it's been cool to hear his story and you know i think thanks to you he's probably got a much bigger audience too so um so what are you thinking about in terms of the timeline uh well so if if i go and try to get close to or right around the the record for that it's you know about a 40 -day -ish time frame give or take uh so you're really i think the biggest hurdle or planning thing is to find the timeline where you're going to run into the least amount of weather issues because you're going across the country.

[1534] So you're going over the sierras and you're going through the, you know, the middle of the country and then all that stuff.

[1535] So obviously you don't want to be going over mountain passes in the middle of winter, which you probably don't also want to be going through the Midwest in the middle of the summer.

[1536] So some of it's going to be kind of planning around that.

[1537] There's probably like some good opportunities in the spring and the fall that kind of catch that window of moderate temps versus extremes.

[1538] What's the gentleman that did it before?

[1539] Pete Costell, like, do you know Pete?

[1540] Yeah, yeah.

[1541] There he is.

[1542] Man runs from San Francisco to New York in record time.

[1543] Look at that guy.

[1544] He's still dazed.

[1545] Pete's also like, what the fuck did I do?

[1546] You want to hear something crazy about Pete, though?

[1547] So he did that, and then that wasn't enough because he, I think this was a year ago or two years ago, he went up in Alaska and went from Alaska down to the southern tip of Florida all by himself with just like one of those push strollers.

[1548] And he averaged like, I think it was like 50 miles a day.

[1549] day or something like that?

[1550] What?

[1551] So yeah, folks, he went from Alaska at Florida.

[1552] Yeah, yeah.

[1553] He did a, I forget what they called it.

[1554] Well, the stroller.

[1555] So that's his food?

[1556] His food's in the stroller?

[1557] Yeah.

[1558] What the fuck, bro.

[1559] You know, it was funny.

[1560] I was kind of following him while he did it.

[1561] That's so crazy.

[1562] He's got a baby stroller with food in it.

[1563] What a crazy idea?

[1564] He did, when I was following him, like, you know, he was logging all his runs on Strava.

[1565] So it was hilarious to see like these, these weeks after weeks where it's like 50 -mile day, 50 -mile day, 50 -mile day, like, you know, like, 350, 400 mile weeks and stuff like that.

[1566] And then if you, like, zoomed in on his routes, you could see, like, he'd be on this route.

[1567] And all of a sudden you'd see him deviate a little bit.

[1568] And you'd zoom in.

[1569] You'd be like, oh, there's a grocery store there.

[1570] That's why he turned right there.

[1571] To fill up his baby cart with food.

[1572] Where do he keep his money?

[1573] I don't know.

[1574] The baby car?

[1575] Probably, yeah.

[1576] Someone trying to steal that baby cart.

[1577] Where do he sleep?

[1578] I think he stayed at hotels, if I'm not mistaken.

[1579] I'd have to, I'd have to look back in the store.

[1580] Just to bring the baby card up the stairs.

[1581] Yeah.

[1582] Jesus Christ There's crazy people out there man There's different kind of humans right Like you have this idea of like what a person is capable of And you see someone like that and you go okay I gotta rethink this People are capable of way more Yeah Yeah it's nuts when you think about As soon as you think you find limitations Then all sudden someone goes out and does Something crazier or bigger or better And guy took a baby stroller from Alaska To Florida What the fuck man um did you talk to him at all about this idea i haven't yet no i mean it's been are you going to yeah i'll definitely reach out to him he'll he'll be good about it i think yeah he's a nice guy i know how many people have done this run i you know i don't even know it's been it's a documented route so uh it's been done done you could probably google it and find out and uh but yeah it's it's it's more than you think it just really usually comes down and actually you know just and work with someone earlier who did it walking i think i think it maybe was a slightly different route.

[1583] But it was basically the same premise.

[1584] And he walked like some 20 some miles a day or something like that and was raising raising funds and awareness for Fight for the Forgotten too.

[1585] So we'll maybe talk to him a bit too.

[1586] So the idea is late summer, early fall, something like that?

[1587] Yeah, that's probably ideal.

[1588] I think you want to try to catch, you want to get away from winter, but you also want to be done before the worst part of summer.

[1589] Right.

[1590] With the global warming, warming, do you factor that in?

[1591] Depends so fast it ends up coming.

[1592] Yeah, I mean, it's...

[1593] The route might be shorter by the time I get around to doing it if the coasts come in, though.

[1594] So sometime around this time next year, it should be completed.

[1595] Is that the idea?

[1596] Maybe.

[1597] My thought is it's probably got to either be about, like, you know, a 10 -month, like, start point or 18.

[1598] So I could either do it now, or I guess it would be a little less than 18, but by finishing.

[1599] So I would either maybe try to do it.

[1600] it like this fall or if I don't have enough in place by then target kind of the end of winter for 2021.

[1601] And what would change?

[1602] What would make you decide to do it 2021 versus 2020?

[1603] Just just I mean, I'm trying to respect how much like planning it's going to take and I haven't really started that yet.

[1604] So I don't want to like necessarily get, find out like, okay, let's say I just put a date on the on the calendar right away and then find out, oh, I need to like, and there's a lot more resources is I have to try to acquire to make this happen.

[1605] And this is in terms of logistics, like food, mostly logistics, and getting everything just organized enough to, because I don't want to screw it up.

[1606] Yeah.

[1607] So there's that too.

[1608] And then also planning around my own race schedule to a degree too.

[1609] So obviously this will probably, this will take the place of an entire.

[1610] The way I look at like seasons of racing is there's kind of two key ones.

[1611] You have like your spring, early summer, and your kind of late summer fall slash winter seasons.

[1612] kind of two.

[1613] So I'll basically just sacrifice one of those seasons for this.

[1614] And I probably won't do.

[1615] I mean, I don't really know what to expect because I've never done anything quite like this before.

[1616] But I'm planning on dedicating one of those seasons towards that exclusively.

[1617] Jamie's nodding over here.

[1618] I was getting through this article.

[1619] It's pretty interesting.

[1620] So it started here with distance walking was a huge spectator sport in the late 19th century.

[1621] They would bet money that like you couldn't do it.

[1622] For instance, that's all.

[1623] Look at this quote.

[1624] People followed it like it was the World Series.

[1625] So it continued on until the Great Depression in World War II, probably because people didn't have enough time to waste their time doing this.

[1626] And then it picked back up in the late 20th century, and that's when you had to prove what you were doing.

[1627] Look at this.

[1628] The first known transcontinental journey took place in 1896 by a mother -daughter duo who needing to raise money to save their farm in Spokane County, Washington, responded to a $10 ,000 public wager that no one could make it by foot across the country.

[1629] Helga and Clara Espy left home with $10 between them, as well as a compass, a knife, a curling iron, and a smith and Wesson revolver.

[1630] Don't fuck with those ladies.

[1631] They'll curl your hair and shoot you in the dick.

[1632] They made it to New York City seven months later, but for reasons unknown, did not receive any reward for their toils on their way home.

[1633] Helga and Clara took the train.

[1634] What the fuck?

[1635] Why didn't they get paid?

[1636] Someone fucked them out of their money, probably.

[1637] Someone fucked them out of their money, some jackass.

[1638] Yeah, so it started to get, picked that back up again in like the 60s.

[1639] And in 1980s, somebody that was doing it had his team scramble to get witness signatures the whole way across so he could prove that he did it when he did it in the amount of time that he did it.

[1640] I mean, people cheat on marathons, right?

[1641] They jump in cars and marathons and make it on the train.

[1642] There was a guy, I think, before Pete broke the record that I think got caught cheating, Because, I mean, you've got to document stuff pretty detailed, and it's crazy.

[1643] Like, I mean, you'd think it would be enough just to track it on your watch and upload it.

[1644] Right.

[1645] But, like, you know, people do goofy things.

[1646] Like, they get in the back of the RV, I guess, and drive really slow.

[1647] But people who are really good at, like, looking at those GPX files can look and see, like, oh, that's not a run.

[1648] That's, you know, they can see these variances and paces or consistencies that wouldn't be uniform with running or something like that.

[1649] Oh, interesting.

[1650] Well, maybe this should be some sort of a video recording of it.

[1651] Like, if you have a GoPro in your head.

[1652] I want to do a live feed and just have it on all the time.

[1653] Is that possible?

[1654] Satellite streaming?

[1655] There's probably a way to do it.

[1656] Yeah, that would be dope.

[1657] Listen, man, we're in.

[1658] We'll help you.

[1659] Whatever we could do.

[1660] Sounds like a very worthy cause, and it's a crazy undertaking.

[1661] And we'd be happy to promote it, too, and let everybody know and have people fucking honk their horn and drive by you.

[1662] We're going to dairy queen.

[1663] See you later, Zach.

[1664] As long as they want to, like, hand off a nice ribeye or something.

[1665] What are you going to eat?

[1666] along the way how are you gonna do what do you like what kind of food would you uh yeah so it kind of to maybe go full circle with we started before where we kind of talk about kind of what i periodized with carbohydrates and stuff like that where i think there is a point where the distance is long enough where like a strict ketogenic diet is maybe more applicable uh i think it's very um pretty pretty well established like if you'd follow a strict ketogenic diet or a zero carb diet and try to perform in some of these typical endurance events it's going to come at a performance costs unless you have some weird like like outlying type situation.

[1667] And I mean if Trent Stalingworth looked at, he's a guy up in Canada who works with a lot of the sports performance stuff.

[1668] And he did some studies that actually looks at like if you do if you go super strict keto or zero carb, you get really fat adept.

[1669] You get really good at burning fat.

[1670] But it comes at a cost of your ability to burn exogenous glucose.

[1671] So like if I went zero carb for like a year and then I I tried to take in my fueling strategy that I do now, my body would probably reject it, or at least I would have to be, like, really, really conservative with how much I used.

[1672] Do you talk to Dom De Augustino about this stuff?

[1673] Not personally, though.

[1674] Do you know him?

[1675] Yeah, I know I follow him and stuff.

[1676] I'm actually going to be presenting at his Metabellic Health Summit in, I believe it's in end of January, early February.

[1677] He's a very, very interesting guy because he's a super legit fact -based scientist who's also a power athlete, you know, and ketogenic, like, for a long, long time now.

[1678] Try to get him on board for this attempt.

[1679] But, like, the, what I'm trying to say with that is, like, he'd probably help you.

[1680] Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'd be, he'd be a great resource for sure.

[1681] But, like, for something like this, like, my intensity is going to be so low that, like, I don't technically need to be taking in exogenous glucose for something like that.

[1682] So it might actually behoove me to be as fat adapted as I can get versus what I'm normally doing is I'm trying to get as fat adapted as I need to be, but not necessarily so far that it comes at the compromise of being able to do my in -race nutrition fueling plan.

[1683] I was always under the impression that your body always knows what to do with glucose, but that it has to be fat -adapted.

[1684] That's not the case necessarily?

[1685] I think you probably can to a degree, but what happens is, like, you down -regulate, like I can't speak to the science perfectly, but Trent Stalingworth did a bunch of research where basically it down -regulates the mechanism that allows you to take in glucose and utilize it in a meaningful way.

[1686] so like you know most people can tolerate probably somewhere between maybe 60 to 90 grams of glucose per hour during some of these events whereas like if you went on a strict zero carb diet and try to do 60 to 90 grams of of sports drink or fuel or something like that like I don't think your body could clear it because it would have downregulated your body's capability to do that so I mean folks who are interested should look at Trent Stallingworth's work he he would be able to describe it in much better detail than I can.

[1687] So you would just go on a real super heavy fat diet.

[1688] I think so that's where I'm, that's what I'm thinking about.

[1689] I wouldn't necessarily.

[1690] Just avocados, coconut oil, meat.

[1691] Yeah.

[1692] Just mainline those F -bombs.

[1693] Yeah.

[1694] Just get as much fat as your body can.

[1695] I think a lot of fat and a lot of protein would be the name of the game for something that that's that low and that slow intensity and that long -duration.

[1696] And you would try for how many miles a day?

[1697] Well, Pete did it in 70, so I feel like it would be cool to try to challenge his, his attempt.

[1698] who knows.

[1699] How many hours was he doing a day?

[1700] I don't know.

[1701] That's a good question.

[1702] I'd have to look back and see what he was doing.

[1703] I don't know if it was consistently the same every day.

[1704] So maybe that's where my plan would deviate.

[1705] And I probably am going to learn along the way and maybe change things.

[1706] But I do kind of like, at least on paper, that idea of targeting a 12 to 14 hour window so that I have at least 10 hours to kind of like refuel and sleep and stay on top of that stuff.

[1707] And what that'll likely mean is like maybe there'll be some days where I go well past 70 miles.

[1708] maybe there'll be some days where I go well under and you just hope that you average to get the record.

[1709] But the record's kind of secondary.

[1710] I'm going to stick, if I fall off, if it's clear when I get to the Midwest that I'm not going to hit Pete's record, we're going to just try to keep the main goal in mind of bringing awareness to fight for the forgotten.

[1711] Beautiful.

[1712] Well, listen, we're in.

[1713] You let us know.

[1714] We'll help you.

[1715] We'll pump it up.

[1716] We'll sponsor you.

[1717] Whatever we need to do.

[1718] Let's make it happen.

[1719] Awesome, man. Thank you.

[1720] Thanks, Zach.

[1721] Thanks for being here.

[1722] Yeah, hey, do you mind if I share my social media real quick?

[1723] Please, I was just going to ask you that.

[1724] Oh, cool.

[1725] Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

[1726] No, please.

[1727] Yeah, I mean, you can find me on my website at Zach Bitter, Z -A -C -H -B -B -T -E -R .com.

[1728] Social media is Instagram at Zach Bitter and Twitter at Z -Bitter.

[1729] All that stuff can be found on my website, though.

[1730] Zach Bitter, ladies and gentlemen.

[1731] Thanks, brother.

[1732] Appreciate it, man. Awesome.

[1733] Thanks, thanks, you see you soon.

[1734] Bye.