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Security Halt!
Zach Bitter on Running 100 Miles & the Mental Edge of Ultra Endurance
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How far can your mind—and body—go? In this episode of the Security Halt! Podcast, host Deny Caballero sits down with legendary ultra-endurance athlete Zach Bitter to explore what it really takes to push the human body beyond its limits.
From his journey into the world of ultramarathons to setting world records, Zach opens up about the physical and mental demands of extreme distance running. He shares his expert insights on training protocols, nutrition, hydration, and recovery, while also diving deep into the mindset required to stay focused when running for hours—or even days.
Whether you're a seasoned runner, an aspiring endurance athlete, or someone looking for motivation to make lasting lifestyle changes, Zach delivers powerful lessons on discipline, grit, and longevity. You’ll also learn how age, coaching, and community play into peak performance and how mindfulness transforms pain into power on the trail.
🎧 Don’t miss this conversation with one of the most respected voices in the endurance world.
🔥 Tap into the mindset of ultra-success.
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Securepodcast is proudly sponsored by Titans Arms. Head on to the episode description and check out Titans Arms today. Zach Bitter, welcome to Securepodcast. How's it going? Good, good, thanks for having me on. Absolutely, dude, you're a running machine, you are an endurance athlete and, like I mentioned earlier, this is a sport that a lot of us in the world of whether it's special operations or in military and veteran culture, a lot of people are starting to dive into. This Shout out to you Jason Coffin, my friend who ran my, my first. It was a very immature event but, damn it, I stuck through it for as long as I could. But one thing that I realized is you can't go into the sport half assed. You have to understand it and train and live it. And today, my man, we're going to dive into that from your experience. Awesome, yeah. So take us all the way back. Where did you become there? Find this love for running.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I got started pretty early. We old enough where we still did the presidential physical fitness challenges in middle school.
Speaker 2:So, that was. I don't know when they stopped doing those, but it was the mile run that we did for that. That kind of like showed me for the first time in my life that it wasn't really necessarily oh you're a good athlete or a bad athlete. You can be like. You can be like interested in athletics and sports and things like that and be really bad at one sport and really good in another. So it was kind of like was that aha moment at a pretty early age.
Speaker 2:But you know, I just liked sports in general so I didn't really take running all that seriously until maybe my I would say my senior year of high school. I, at least at the time, started taking it seriously in my mind and started listening to the coach and started like actually kind of going through some of the paces that would be required to kind of peak for races in a way that would make make some sense. But it really wasn't until college that I probably got a real good scope of all of that and what that meant and then started asking the right questions and started getting interested in actually learning about specific workouts and just seasons of training and things like that and getting a little bit more of a lay of the land of like how, like a professional would actually operate within a sport of running and things like that. So that's where I really kind of fell in love with running to the degree where I was like, okay, no matter where my career takes me or life takes me, I'm going to have running be kind of part of that process, part of my life. And that sort of led me towards ultramarathons and I did my first ultramarathon in 2010,.
Speaker 2:Right as the sport was kind of starting to kind of flow back upwards again and timing was about perfect with that because it just has continued to grow every year. Basically since then I got exposed to just a variety of different types of ultramarathons and kind of like my my early experience with running kind of was able to figure out just like there's different skill sets and different training inputs and things that are important for different types of ultras, different types of trains, and really got to know like which ones I wanted to go after, and that kind of led me into kind of chasing some more like flatter, faster, runnable hundred mile stuff. So I focused quite a bit of my career on kind of just fine tuning that aspect of the sport over the years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people tend to think that it's just picking up a pair of shoes fancy shoes, fancy hokas throwing them on, finding your cell phone, taking that pre-run selfie and then going after it and that'll get you through a few miles. But the nutrition, the support, work, the, the amount of and I'm I'm guilty of it too it's not just one thing, it's a column conglomerate of so many different things and you have to live and change the way you you actually structure your workouts Like I love bro workouts, but yeah, biceps and bench press isn't going to help me in endurance run. Take us through your approach to training for for an ultra marathon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I look at it through the lens of let's improve you as a runner first and then we can specify towards the ultra marathon once we kind of have a good, established kind of running base there. So the way I usually look at that is having a good strong foundation is going to be kind of the priority for everyone. And you know, with people I work with and people I run into that are interested in the sport, that varies from one to the next. You might get people who are very new to running as a whole and we might want to spend a little more time just working on developing that low end kind of easy running volume side of the training. Or it could be someone who's been doing like a bunch of ultra marathons and running a lot of slow miles on the lower intensity side of things and they're going to benefit more. Maybe they may just be a step ahead in terms of like what would come next.
Speaker 2:But either way, once we have that established, then I like to kind of do what I call like a speed work development phase, where we're focusing on some just important intensities that are going to help move the needle. And when I say speed work I'm referring to just basically like the higher end of the aerobic intensity spectrum spectrum. So that might be like a series of short intervals that are kind of up near the end of that at like their VO2 max or an intensity that would be somewhere in the neighborhood around 12 minutes of what you could do in like an all out setting, and then like a series of long intervals that may be kind of up towards the moderate to moderately high side of the aerobic intensity spectrum and that would be based on like an intensity most people could do for about 60 minutes in kind of an all out setting. So we start kind of like pushing their development with some of that and once we've kind of had that good foundation, some speed work, development in place, then we can kind of start thinking about okay, what are the actual demands that are going to be required of you out there on an event, because some of these ultra marathons it's like max pace during them might be slower than even an easy run. So we do want to kind of get around with focusing on what are you actually going to be doing out there?
Speaker 2:What ratios of walking, hiking and running are you going to likely be doing on this course, and then start kind of going back to focusing on the specifics that they'll be doing and then maybe move the running development side of things a little more into like a maintenance phase as you work on the, the peaking side for the race itself. Um, so that's kind of like the scaffolding I'll like to like to work with. But, like we were kind of chatting about before, it's like there's just so much variety in terms of people coming into the sport now that the the starting point can vary a bit depending on who it is and what their background looks like yeah, it can seem as so like daunting at first, but the reality is's it's.
Speaker 1:It's something that is innate to being a human being able to move and get out and that's, honestly, like one of the the the first things I tell our veteran audience that you know get out and move, get out and start moving. For a long portions of your life you were doing physical fitness and if you stopped, just get out and start walking, being able to put that like enjoy the movement, that's something that a lot of people don't understand. Like it's not, it's not about suffering so much. Like we can build the grit, but at first you got to really just get out there and have fun. Like is that still your approach to like being able to get out there and put miles in? Are you still very much like the happy runner? Because I I have some friends are insane runners but they actually hate it?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I think there's like. I think like finding the joy in it is important, because that's what's going to make it sustainable. Um, you know, if I hated what I do, it would be like I'd be asking myself to invest somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 hours a week between the training, the strength work, the mobility and all that stuff towards something I don't really enjoy, and that would just seem like at that point there's probably something more fun that can get me moving my body that I would enjoy better. So I do usually like to kind of look at it through that lens of like let's figure out how we can make this process fun for you and to some degree, that's going to drive the way we may maybe even prepare for a race too. So, like you said, you know a lot of people get into the sport because they, they, they this, like going out, working at low intensities, going on trails, hiking through mountain passes and things like that, or just basically being busy with their, with their movement patterns for long periods of time, and it's like, okay. Well, how do we leverage that interest into this strategy in order to give them what they're enjoying but also move the needle on performance too, when they get to the point where they say, okay, now I want to try to do this event, maybe a little faster than I did in the past or improve upon that stuff.
Speaker 2:The way I usually look at it is like, if I look at like a seven day training block, there should be a day in there where I'm probably like, yeah, you know, in a world where I didn't have a goal here, I probably would just skip that one and do something else.
Speaker 2:There should be a workout in there where I'm like this one I'm really looking forward to, I can't wait to get to it.
Speaker 2:I'm like excited, I'm waiting for it.
Speaker 2:And then there should be ones where they feel they feel they just feel normal, like they're not like super exciting, they're not super deterring, they're just kind of like okay, this was a good workout. It gives me an opportunity to feel good about checking a box and putting in the stuff that I needed to do to both work on health and fitness as well as improve my running or hiking or ultra marathon whatever the race they're doing performance. And when we start kind of deviating too far from that is when we need to start asking questions about okay, what inputs are we doing that are maybe not sustainable or that we need to adjust, or kind of figuring figuring out how that all kind of fits within, like the life Cause most of these people have jobs, families, social lives and things that are kind of non-negotiables in terms of things they're going to like give up forever or for long periods of time. So I think one of the fun parts about working with a variety of different people is like figuring out what that path forward is for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's the other thing that I find really fascinating is eventually, when you do fall in love with something and, yeah, you're not addicted to it, you're not blurring the line where it's an obsession you do find yourself making better choices, are in line with your ultimate goal. If you want to be a runner and you want to see yourself get to that ultimate goal or running that 100 mile race, the rest of your life has to kind of come along with it and it can be a positive, doesn't have to be an obsession. You, you know you might find yourself not drinking or not drinking as much. Your diet becomes better and you start aligning everything else behind that. In your own life, in your own experience, has that been your journey where you've seen yourself like maybe not fall off to the wayside, whereas some people you know near you have where? You're like, oh you know, I chose a better diet, I chose to do better habits. And and how's that impacted your life, being focused on being a performance athlete?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say where I've been really lucky is I've been exposed to kind of different phases of that. Like, all right, I'm going to refine this to the degree where I can walk away from a race thinking I don't know, there's a way I could have done it much better. It's come to me, it's come at me kind of in slow stages where, like by the time I start taking one aspect seriously, I've already taken some other stuff seriously, so it doesn't feel like it was a total overhaul or total lifestyle change necessarily. It was kind of like working on like certain aspects, refining them and then bringing on a new one or another way I like to look at it is like let's sit down and talk about what are the non-negotiables in your life right now, the things that you're just not going to give up or can't give up. In some cases, like most people aren't going to be able to quit their job to go train for an ultra marathon, so that would be a non-negotiable. And then we kind of figure out like, okay, well, what kind of block of time are we looking at here? And then what do we put into it? That is going to be a reasonable spot to kind of start getting that foundation in place where you start looking at it as something where you'd rather not have it removed than the initial process of maybe being a little deterred by the fact that you're kind of doing all these new, different things.
Speaker 2:So I think running tends to be one of those sports where it grows on you over time. So you're often willing to give up a couple of things early on to improve running and then, once you kind of get stable within that, then something that maybe in the in the prior year or the prior training cycle, you're like, yeah, I'm not going to give that up. Now. You're like, okay, I think I can probably sacrifice that, even if it's like for the short term.
Speaker 2:In your mind I find, like over years you end up kind of establishing that refining process where you get to a point where now you've sort of worked out a lot of the stuff that felt necessary, that really weren't really identified, the things that are important, that you want to have alongside the running, to make it not feel like it's the only thing that is moving the needle on your interests and passions in life, because I think some of those other passions feed into your performance too.
Speaker 2:When you feel like you've got other things and other outlets to kind of take. You take your mind and give your mind a break from the, the, the kind of the rigors of the training and the racing and that side of things. Yeah, for me it was just like years and years of kind of gradually adding different things in, getting interested in different aspects of it to the degree where then, by the time I got into ultra running kind of full scale, I had a pretty refined process that was going to yield good results as long as I stayed consistent with it and interested in it. And that, I think, was just maybe me being kind of fortunate not to kind of get drawn into something to such a degree for one reason or another. That was that I wasn't ready for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we, uh, we have to. We have to dive into this now, cause it's. It's one thing that to see a collegiate athlete or high school athlete become a collegiate athlete and become a professional football player in that linear process, but how do you become a premier, you know, endurance athlete, and what was that road to becoming? You know, somebody that's like, hey, like I'm doing this professionally now, like this is what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wonder about that sometimes because, like when I was running in high school and when I was running in college and then the few years after college, before I started getting into ultra marathons, there wasn't really any signs that would say like, oh, there is a path forward for you to be a professional athlete in anything much less running or including running. I should say so, I think, for for me that was like it gave me the opportunity to really find what I enjoyed about it, cause it was not something that was necessary. It wasn't like, oh, if I don't go out and put in the work and get a good race result, like I might not get paid next year. So so I kind of had that, that, that lack of expectation in the early days when I was still developing and still kind of learning what I enjoyed about it. That gave me a little probably a little bit of a less pressurized environment. And then I ended up doing some more runnable 50 milers. That led to a very runnable 100 miler actually was on a 400 meter track in 2013. And at that event I broke the American record for 100 miles and the world record for distance run in 12 hours and that sort of gave me like this insight of like, oh well, maybe there's like more here than than I originally expected in terms of where my potential is at like a national and global stage with with some of these ultra marathons. But I still wouldn't even say at that time. I was like, okay, this is a career path. It maybe sparked that possibility and then it was kind of more like wrapping my head around the business side of ultra marathoning and where's it going to go? Where was it at then, what are the opportunities in here, and things like that.
Speaker 2:So I spent probably two years really just kind of working on that side of things before getting to the point where I saw a path forward that I thought was maybe sustainable, or one that I could tolerate the risks of and and not feel, feel too, uh, too compelled to think like, okay, what am I giving up in the process here? So it was. I think it was 2015. I stepped away from teaching to pursue training and racing more full-time, build up my coaching programs a little bit more. So that was kind of like the part where I was like, okay, I can take this seriously.
Speaker 2:But I even then even though when I was at my height and stuff and broke the world record for a hundred miles in 2019 and things like that leading into that and then beyond that, even I still always looked at the sport of ultra running as, like this is a.
Speaker 2:This is a sport where there's there's opportunities for professionalization and in some cases, they can be fully funded to the degree where that's all you do For me at the individual level and then as just someone who I want to have, I want to build something other than just my own running and racing. So I've always kind of had some combination of feeling compelled to have other things that were more like what I would call career-based, and also interested in doing more things than that too, things like I started a podcast in 2018 and then continue to build coaching and things like that. So having kind of those other outlets that are part of the running world, part of the running community, but not necessarily directly related to my own training and racing, have been both kind of fun and sustainable ways, I think, to kind of approach the sport, given kind of where it was at at the time and where it's still at for the most part.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you find it just as rewarding being a coach?
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, Coaching is so much fun because it's like you get that same, like you have a you've got a bandwidth of physical output that you have to respect.
Speaker 2:Where it's like there's dozens of races I would love to jump into and really test my limits, for At the end of the day I probably got to pick two or maybe three per year where I really want to build up and peak specifically for, and then any of the other ones are more kind of like tune-up races or training races towards those ones.
Speaker 2:But with coaching you get a roster of different clients with different goals, different courses, and you get to kind of experience that process of the training inputs, the problem solving, the race day, execution and stuff like that as kind of like an observer, and that's just a lot of fun for me to do that too, and my wife's an ult marathon runner too.
Speaker 2:I run with a group here in Austin called Rogue Running and I get opportunities to pace people that are running in that group as well as get on calls with my own coaching clients that are virtual and talk about all the strategy and things like that, and it is a lot of fun to kind of see someone like hit a new mark and because you know that feeling right when you have, like you know, I've had races now where I put in like a really good training block and then produce the results I was looking for or better in some cases and and you just know what that feeling is like of looking back on that process and then how it resulted in that. So when you see someone else express that same emotion, you like you can go right back to that. You know. You know exactly how they're feeling.
Speaker 1:Feeling and it's just kind of a cool way to kind of experience the sport yeah, and there's so much that goes into like this, this sport, and it's not, it's not as easy as one thinks. Like the nutrition side is huge and when you which specifically when you're addressing that with your clients like what are some things that you've seen that are like super, super important to take into account?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a great question and when you get into these long races it is something where, like it's a big variable where you could be by far the best runner, the best athlete on that field. But if you neglect your hydration, electrolytes, nutrition and things like that, you can easily be humbled and beaten by by people that on paper, you should be ahead of if they're got those things in order. So you know the way I usually look at it is like trying to kind of pinpoint proper fluid is going to be a really good starting point because a lot of problems can be downstream from dehydration. So things like going out for a run where you weigh yourself before and after and figure out kind of what your fluid loss rates are in like cool temps, moderate temps and hot temps, so you can start kind of looking at like what is my fluid intake needs going to look like on race day, getting if you can get like an electrolyte loss test, that can be helpful too. So you know what you're pairing with that fluid intake to make sure that you have that right balance of fluids and electrolytes. And then it's just like figuring out kind of like well, how much should I be consuming during this race itself. So there's sort of like two main channels there that you're going to be relying on, and one is just you're going to be burning body fat and that's going to be the easy one to uh rely on because it's just going to be there, it's on board. The leanest athlete on the starting line has got enough body fat to get them through the events, even if they look like they don't. So so it's uh so that one is just something where it's like, okay, that side of the equation is sort of taken care of.
Speaker 2:Then there's the carbohydrate metabolism side of it, which is the one where you could deplete that to a degree where your performance suffers if you're not replacing during it. So what I like to usually do is look at, kind of what the workload of the individual is, which is just basically how much energy per hour do you expect to demand in order to reach the goal you're achieving. If we're looking at someone who's trying to say, finish under 24 or around 24 hours for a hundred mile which tends to be kind of like one of the goals within the hundred mile running world is, can I break 24 hours and we just look at like, well, what pace is required for that? What kind of like energy requirement per hour is that going to produce? And it's usually like somewhere around maybe 500 calories per hour or so for someone with that particular goal. So now we kind of have a workload number to work with and then it's like okay, well, what percentage of that is going to be fat metabolism that you don't really have to worry about too much on race day, versus carbohydrate metabolism which you may have to work.
Speaker 2:So we can get into like population level data with that stuff and look at just things like at someone's aerobic threshold, which is like that crossover point between easy to moderate which is pretty important for ultras, especially longer ones where, like, if you're going out above that category, you're probably going too fast, and then we have a different problem we need to solve versus your fueling. So if I look at that as kind of like the ceiling for someone's hundred mile intensity, then we know, like, at a population level, most people are about a 50, 50 split between carbs and fats at that. So if we want to look at it through the lens of okay, now we have that workload of 500 calories per hour If we want to try to replace half of that with carbohydrates, we have a starting point to start playing around with. You see all sorts of different fueling strategies, though, because you get these people who are winning some of these big races hitting 100 plus grams of carbohydrate per hour. Their workloads may be upwards to 1,000 calories per hour in some cases, so to some degree they need to be pushing those higher numbers.
Speaker 2:But then you got a person in the very back of the pack who might be much lower than that and be just fine on like 40, 50 grams of carbohydrates per hour. So even though over the course of the hundred miles you may have a similar energy expenditure between the first person the last person, the per hour inputs are going to be different. So that's where I like to get like, talk to people about, like let's identify where you are on that, so that we're not trying to shoot for the wrong target and then give yourself a situation where you're either under fueled or trying to force so much down that you're getting digestive issues, and you didn't actually need that much in the first place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It's fascinating the amount of science that goes into this which, at the same time it being one of the one of the most innate human things that we could arguably do which is run Like we were like. It's simple but at the same time it is complex.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's definitely a lot. There's a lot of. It's one of those things where I think there's definitely like what I would say big movers that you can focus on. That are gonna get you most of the way there and you can make those look a lot simpler. And then there's things like once you kind of have that in order, you can start refining it.
Speaker 2:And it's sort of one of those things where, as you go through that process, you start adding these little things that if you look back at them after years of doing it, you think, wow, that's a lot of moving parts. But you're like, yeah, but like the majority of it was done through simplicity and then it was like the last 10, maybe 20% was done through like adding these small little things along the way to refine, and you're kind of learning at a rate at which is achievable with some of that too. But it kind of comes back to like a lot of principles, I think, with like performance and health, optimization and things like that is like take care of the big blocks first, because that's what's going to really move the needle for you, and then, once you have those big blocks kind of in place and established, then start getting curious about the smaller movers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, nothing's going to help you if you're not getting good sleep and you're not drinking Right. Exactly, yeah, which is one of my biggest issues. I don't drink enough water. I'm trying to train and maximize, and it's all comes down to health. Improving our health, like. One of the things that I'm always talking about is like, look, you can have a say and a big impact on your own health journey if you just start being more active, and the reality is that includes what you're eating and how much water you're intaking and the other. The other thing that we have to focus on is age. Age is a factor that a lot of us don't pay attention to until we're, like, very, very senior. When it comes to the sport, how has age impacted your ability and how have you seen yourself either like make gains in in certain aspects or actually had to like okay, like recovery times a little bit more impacted now, what are some things that you've pinpointed in your journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a great question and I would say like early on in my the majority of my running career, I was very injury resistant. Like I, it took a lot to get me hurt and the things that got me hurt tended to be things I could pretty well control. So I just made sure I didn't overreach in those areas. When I got to like my mid 30s, I started noticing some things where it was like I probably shouldn't be doing that or I need to make an adjustment here and the timing of it. So you know something you learn by experience. I picked up some injuries and kind of figured out OK, I can't expect to be able to tolerate that the way maybe I did in my mid twenties. So that's like potentially a downside, right, you don't have the same level of level of uh or wide ranging opportunities maybe to throw stuff out there, get curious and do like bigger heroes type workouts, because your body's just not going to respond the same way. But when you just look at the way that like aerobic development occurs is you also have a lot more time built in over the years. Because I think where people sometimes miss the mark a little bit is they think of like a specific training block as like the big independent mover of their performance on race day, when reality it is that on top of everything they've done prior. So if you take someone like myself who's been running for I guess like over 25 years at this point, there are things I don't have to do that I would have had to done earlier because I've I've sort of refined a lot of stuff. So, like my, my low intensity aerobic development is is I can lean on a lot of prior training blocks that I did with that and I might not have to push the needle on that as much. So if I'm going through like a speed work development phase, I can probably keep my volume lower than I maybe would have in the past because I don't have as big of a need to rely upon building that, that foundation, the way I maybe did in some of those early years.
Speaker 2:So that's the benefit of getting older, especially in ultra, where you have like lower intensities at race day is, you know, I think speed work is still important. Keeping the top end of that aerobic intensity spectrum intact is important and to some degree as you get older it's going to be a little harder to do that. So you want to make sure you're not neglecting it as much as maybe you could have. Like when I was younger, I remember I finished college and we did a ton of speed work in college. I finished college and we did a ton of speed work. In college we run like five Ks, 10 Ks, eight Ks and stuff like that and I was just sick of speed work. So I just spent like the next year plus just basically running slow miles and I didn't really lose any speed because I was young and there's like my body just kind of held onto all to it, where you know that has an end game eventually, even when you're young.
Speaker 2:but when you're older, I think it's even more important to be a little more mindful about like okay, I need to kind of try to. I need to be a little more focused on both the way I structure these workouts, because any individual workout might be different in terms of what you can tolerate or need relative to what you would have been doing when you were younger, but the way you position it and the frequency at which you do may change as well, cause that's what you're going to lose first. Yeah, the sport is, sport is interesting. I mean I would say like, as it's gotten more popular and more competitive, more professional, as we are seeing like younger people come in and do quite well.
Speaker 2:Uh, when I first started, it was kind of like this running joke where it's like oh well, you can get around to a hundred miles when you're a hundred milers when you're 40.
Speaker 2:Cause, that's probably when you're like you, like you know, at your best, or or or get all the marathoning and sub-marathoning Olympic distance without your system and then start doing ultras where I think now we're seeing. We're seeing like D1 collegiate athletes get into ultra running and trail running like right out of college and things like that, and that's just a lot of talent, a lot of competitive pressure and a lot of seriousness entering the sport too, where we see younger people doing quite well at some of these longer races too, especially once they've had a few opportunities to practice things on race day and learn themselves a little bit. But we're still seeing the sport. I would say there's still some physiological things there that are going to be unique where you're going to reach your ceiling of potential much earlier in like the 1500 or the K before you will the hundred mile or anything like that. So we still see, you know, folks in their forties doing really, really well at some of these longer events.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. For me, the attraction point is is just the ability to you know, in the, the, the military culture, you know the suck to find yourself, and I think that there there are, are those that never served that have that same drive to find something that sucks. Can you stick in it long enough? Can your body hold out long enough while you're in that mindset? Tell us about cultivating grit for this sport, because at some point it is a mind game. And how is that developed for you? This episode is brought to you by Titan's Arms. Head on over to titansarmscom and buy a mind game. And how is that developed for you? This episode is brought to you by Titan Sarms. Head on over to titansarmscom and buy a stack today. Use my code CDENNY10 to get your first stack. I recommend the Lean Stack. 2. Start living your best life, titan Sarms. No junk, no bullshit, just results.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's a great, great question question. I would say, like my trajectory went through like a phase, sort of like you would get. You'd hit these kind of pinch points during a race and you'd you kind of figure out how to navigate them. But then there would be points where you maybe like concede a little bit to the doubt and then you kind of have a new bit. You have like this baseline of like where you feel like your your mental toughness ends and you start kind of conceding to slowing down or dropping out or whatever happens to be. Then you'll have a race where you sort of exceed what you had done in the past with that, where you, just when you reflect on the race, like, oh you know what, when I got presented with that, that doubt or that, that negativity, I was able to push past it further than I have before. So you just got to like redefine that baseline and then, after doing like multiple events, you sort of get to that spot where you've refined it to quite a degree. And it's like a very small margin of the difference between, like, a race where you maybe feel like all right, I'm going to crush this thing, versus I'm not gonna, I'm not going to do well today and you have to get past it and things like that. And like even my fastest hundred miler, at mile 40, I hit a spot where I was like I'm not sure I have have it in me today. So I questioned like should I even push for like my best that day or should I just like accept a decent result and then move on to another event down the road? And I essentially just like brought my mind back and said okay, why am I thinking about the end of a hundred mile race at mile 40? That's letting your mind wander too far ahead and it's just like we'll just get back on pace for this next couple of miles and then make a decision there. You know there's no reason to make any, any decisions at this point in the race. So I did that and then I just started progressively feeling better from there. So it was like you know you start kind of learning how the mind starts to try to drop in like kind of negative negativity and self-doubt and then how you maybe respond to that when you're doing these longer events where your exposure point may be.
Speaker 2:It's brand new. I've never run this far before or I have run this far before, but just a few times relative to what you would normally do for just a typical long run or a training session. But if you think of it like if you go and do short intervals, say you're doing something in the neighborhood of 10 by two minutes or something like that. So a pretty tough short interval session no-transcript too.
Speaker 2:When you have that mind creep up and think I don't know if I can sustain this for the rest of the race, you got to bring yourself back and be like why am I worried about the rest of the race?
Speaker 2:I need to be worried about the rest of the race. I need to be worried about the next objective to the next aid station or the next benchmark that I put on there ahead of time. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff you can do in training In the long runs. One thing I'll do too is if I'm out for a long, long run, sometimes I'll just do some visualization where I'm like, say, I'm doing a really long, long run of like 30 miles or something like that. That a few times I sort of have like dress rehearsals built into my, my mindset so that when I get there on race day it doesn't feel like, ok, I'm in this new territory or this relatively unexplored territory. I have like maybe half a dozen experiences from my training where mentally I felt like I kind of went through the paces I wanted to do and was able to better drive it towards positivity than negativity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. That's something that a lot of people don't focus on is the visualization aspect, like, do you do any meditation or mindfulness work? That's one thing that I realized has helped me, like let go of the nagging thoughts of like I can't go because you know I'm no endurance athlete yet, but in my long runs, one of the nagging thoughts of like I can't go Cause then you know I'm no endurance athlete yet, but in my long runs, one of the things I've, even I have to work on is that wondering, thought of like okay, how many more miles? It's like, no, just stay here, stay here in the present moment, focus on this, because ultimately, like, that's what's helped me get back to the point where I'm, like I'm enjoying this again yeah, yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 2:I had a. I had a podcast guest on who's done some really cool stuff. His name is akshay ninavat and he, uh, he's done like some art. He's like an arctic expedition explorer. He does like these multi, sometimes multi-week things in like really harsh temperatures. He's done I think he did a, if I remember it, like a 10-day darkness retreat. So he's really refined the mind, like he's got the mind figured out as much as one can. And he told me like, yeah, when you get into that spot like it's easy to think of things as good or bad, like I'm doing great, this is awesome, or I'm doing terrible, this is bad how do I get out of it? He's like you got to kind of separate those polarized polars and just be like this isn't, it just is.
Speaker 2:It's like he's like you got to be in the is-ness so it's like if you're in a rough spot, it's like it's not bad, it's not good, it's just it is. You're in a rough patch and then you need to kind of come back to it and think, well, why am I in this rough patch? What can I do to get out of it? What are the next steps? And I think the brain craves short-term objectives that it can wrap its head around, versus long-term stuff which creates an environment of potential doubt. So when you bring yourself back into the moment, you have a lot better of an opportunity of figuring out what it is that you want to try to solve, to kind of keep things moving in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is what it is. That's the added advantage, like it's, stay in it, and I think more people need to challenge themselves. I don't care how old you are, age is not a factor If you can get out there and move, if just to jog, just having the ability to feel your own power and move your own body. Look, I will tell you right now. Everybody knows I love a good gym bro session. It's still my favorite. It's it's buys day. I'm never walking away from my trainer, terry. We're working out it's buys today. We're doing that. But in the mornings when I run I still. Now I've been able to get back.
Speaker 1:Like I said earlier, like the subculture that I come from, in special operations we, especially on the free fall team, we used to always just say, hey, running breeds cowardice, and we hated running. He just sounded like we did what we had to do. We did our five miles, did our 10 miles. Like God forbid, we have to run, but on the backside. And this journey where I'm at now, where I'm seeing my friends at and that's the thing that's really empowering is seeing your other friends find a joy in running and say you know what, let's do an endurance event. There's just so much more fun when you're doing things as a group. Do you find yourself still like rallying, like you said you mentioned, with a running group? Do you find yourself enjoying like rallying, like you said you mentioned with a running group? Do you find yourself enjoying more of those, that atmosphere, or do you find that it's more enjoyable when?
Speaker 2:you're going up against that like daunting hundred mile run. Yeah, yeah, I think there's a balance there. It's it's and it's going to be somewhat individual. I think some people they thrive under group training settings and it's just you send them out on a solo run and they're just like this is terrible.
Speaker 1:I don't ever want to do this again so they're.
Speaker 2:So they're like going to probably have a heavy portion, if possible, of their training done with groups. And then there's people on the opposite end of the spectrum who just would run. They could do if they could do all the runs by themselves. They would do them all by themselves. I would say like I like, especially when I'm in like a structured build, I like a good portion of my running to be done solo, so I can really manipulate the variables and I'm not necessarily getting influenced by what the group is doing.
Speaker 2:We joked around in college about this, because you get a group of like 15, 20 guys running all at once and inevitably one or two of them felt great. So like they're going to push the pace because their pace on and even an easy day is going to be quite good because they feel great. And there's gonna be a couple guys who feel miserable, who get drug along. So you never want to be the guy who feels miserable but you kind of get that like there's. There's a benefit to that, but there's also a downside. It's like sometimes you do need to just like, kind of like wrap your head around something that doesn't feel as exciting or as good as you do on your own and kind of push your limits a little bit. But you also want to be mindful of like, if you did that every day, you're going to start breeding like, just a mindset of like this is torture, and then you're going to associate the activity with torture and you might just physically and mentally burn out from it and stop doing it.
Speaker 2:So it's not necessarily like, it's not a good or bad thing, it's just it's. It's an option, it's an opportunity, it's it's. It's something, it's a tool to look at as like, okay, do I want that group there? For me, you know, it's probably like something in the neighborhood of like 78% of my running is solo, and then I'll jump in a group a couple of times a week just to kind of have that kind of group atmosphere, the camaraderie I find. Like if I start pulling away from that group, I start, like you know, it just starts getting a little bit less like, like, like boring to the degree where, where, where, I feel like I crave that. And then if I get in those group settings too frequently I'm running with groups every day I start craving like you know what I'd love to go for a long run and just like, go exactly the pace my body feels like and dial that into so. So I think there's a balance there that most people are going to find, with some combination of solo running and, and, uh, group running.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you mentioned something that, uh, it's important to understand variables and metrics. Do you use a whoops trap or an aura ring, and what metrics do you track the most?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker 2:So I'll track metrics, I'll track sleep data and stuff like that to some degree, for, like I think it can get a little messy with that stuff.
Speaker 2:But I think directionally, especially once you start getting like a base of data, you can start to connect some dots in terms of like, oh, you know, like this is kind of low for me or this is optimal for me within kind of a framework that the that that data is being produced. I tend to pay more close attention to like resting heart rate, so like, if I'm wearing, if I'm wearing my watch at night, then it'll be like I'll wake up in the morning I can see what my resting heart rate was down. That might be a better indication to me whether there's like lingering fatigue from the day prior. I also have the benefit of going through like tons and tons of training programs over the years where my intuition is pretty strong with it, where, if I feel run down, chances are the watch isn't going to say I feel great or the data is not going to say I feel great, and if I, if I feel awesome, it's chances are that's going to be something that shows up in that too.
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Speaker 2:In terms of training metrics, I really like using perceived effort as like the primary guide, which takes some learning. But once you learn it, then I like to apply the other stuff as like kind of secondary guides or progress monitorings, if it's something where, like at my perceived effort for like what I would call like a base run, which is kind of the high end of that easy category what pace am I producing now versus what pace am I producing in six weeks or 12 weeks or whatever the trajectory is with that measurement point. So that sort of data I think is important too, because once you learn how you feel at these different intensities that you're going to train at, you can start using some of that other data to measure, like, is there improvements and adaptations taking place that are going to promote improvement from a performance side of things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you know. Looking forward into the future, are you training right now for something? Is there? Is there a race in the in the near future?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm going to do a flat, runnable hundred miler this fall. I'm deciding between two there's. There's two really good ones in October, november the canal corridor, aor 100, and the Tunnel Hill 100 mile. So I'm leaning kind of towards Canal Corridor just because that one also has a Western States qualifier to it, which is a lottery system race and one of the hardest races to get into. And if I do that one I'll have a qualifier, whereas if I do Tunnel Hill it won't be a new qualifier for the next years.
Speaker 1:There's an avenue where I could do both of them, I guess, but my, my history tells me pick one and get that one done first before you start thinking too far ahead now are you, are you ever gonna do any of the uh like super, like weird wazoo ones that uh like you know the leadville or the badlands, and uh take it that way yeah, so I I've been getting really interested in like the multi-day stuff, like these last man standing races and some of these like six day type events and things like that.
Speaker 2:So, um, I think I'm probably gonna do. I actually had nick bear on my podcast recently and he does this last man standing here in austin. Now, this year was the first year and it kind of blew up uh, not entirely unexpectedly, but in unexpected ways perhaps. So he's looking to really ramp it up for next year and he talked me into doing it so technically I'm signed up for. Signed up for that in april next year, so that'll be my. I'll dip my toe into something that's more than one day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's uh, that's gonna be insane. I don't think um, I'll never say never, but let me, let me get my feet wet and actually like complete one and finish it before I try to fill up my plate Because that's right, that's insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, my advice for a lot of people too is like there tends to be kind of different personalities within the ultra world, where some people they find a type of event they like and they just want to really refine it. And then there's people who, once they finish an event or a distance, a lot of times they're like, okay, well, what's the next step up from that? And then they end up doing like these really big, long, multi-day type stuff or some of these 200 plus milers that you see popping up now, and they kind of have that trajectory of like all right, what's the next, what's the next? Duration based kind of experience. So they kind of chase that like unknown of I've never gone this far before or I've never gone this far in this type of terrain before, and that's where their kind of curiosity goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's gonna be exciting to watch you knock these out. Man, I can't thank you enough for joining us today. If people want to join you and actually become a client and have you coach them, where can they go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my website kind of has the best hub for everything. I'm up to podcast, social media, coaching services, things like that. So if they just head to Zach bittercom, Heck yeah.
Speaker 1:But if you guys do me a favor, go ahead and pause. If you are like me and you decided to jump into a sport that is completely uh impossible for some and just absolutely grueling, uh, check out zach. Uh, you can't do this alone. Don't do what I did. Uh, I'm coming back next year for the savage loop. My first attempt, I got injured and I didn't train 100 like I should have. Next time, this coming year, I will have a coach. So if you're like me, jump, jump on there. Check out Zach's uh coaching, get signed up and take on a new hobby. Take on something that's innately human, that all of us can do for the most part, which is just get out there and run. Man, zach, thank you so much for being here One more time. Where can people find you online? And, uh, your Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, thanks a bunch for having me on. It's been a blast to chat. Yeah, website is ZachBittercom, Instagram's just at ZachBitter. There you go folks.
Speaker 1:Check them all out. Thank you all for tuning in. Do me one more favor Head on over to YouTube, spotify, hit that like subscribe button, leave us a comment Right now you can use the text in feature. Sends a message directly to my phone. So if you like this episode, let me know what you like, let me know what you enjoyed and I will take that into consideration. Thanks again for tuning in. We'll see you all next time. Until then, take care. Securepodcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head over to the episode description and check out Titan's Arms today.
