Jack Kuenzle on Coaching Elites for Western States and UTMB

Jack Kuenzle returns to the show, this time wearing the coaching hat. Among other topics, we cover the opportunities and limitations of using large language models in training, self-coaching vs. hiring a coach for elite athletes, the pacing plan behind Max Jolliffe's Badwater course record, Western States vs. UTMB build differences, and the case for training levers beyond running.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome back or welcome to the Single Track Podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and in this episode, I am really excited to be joined by a good friend, athlete, and coach Jack Kenzel. If you are a longtime listener of the podcast, you probably recall we interviewed Jack way back in it was 2021 or 2022. At this point, the years sort of all kind of roll into one, but it was following an impressive run of FKTs in the Northeast Trail scene, the Whites 100, uh, the Prezi list goes on. Then we had him back on after the Bob Graham round FKT. Then he was for a short time a legendary co-host for Trail T. We got to get that green lit again someday. In this episode, he is back on, but uh for the first time in a coaching capacity. And with this realm in mind, I ask Jack a ton of questions about the state of the profession, any personal revolutions he's experienced with the craft in recent years, how he thinks about coaching for Western states versus UTMB, and generally where he, where or whether I should say, he thinks there's any room left for improvement at the front of these major races. Before we get started, a word of caution. There is a fair bit of profanity used in this episode. As usual, I don't think it comes at the expense of the content, but I did want to give you fair warning before proceeding. If it is an issue for you, other than that, thanks to our partners first, Norda, the official footwear partner of Single Track, the 055 released last month for a while there. A lot of sizes are out of stock. A lot is back in. Go check it all out at NordaRun.com. I've said this before. I think it's a great shoe. I see it being the shoe for me at races like Cocodona, Mammoth, Tor. So a lot of those like multi-day races. And then personal projects where I'm kind of out there by myself for you know 24 to 36 hours, the Whites 100, the Hundred Mile Wilderness, stuff like that. Tried and tested by great athletes in the sport. Obviously, Rachel Entriken did what she did at Cocodona wearing this shoe. Jimmy Elam at Hard Rock, list goes on. Go check it out again, NordaRun.com. Thanks to Norda. Also, thanks to Precision, Fuel and Hydration, the official nutrition partner of single track. One thing that I have been doing differently in 2026 is actually putting together a comprehensive fuel and hydration plan for all of my personal projects, ranging from a fast pack of the Whites 100 all the way down to uh getting ready for the beach to beacon 10K, which I did last weekend. And that's a big thanks to Precision. They have a fuel and hydration planner on their website. It's pretty simple. You input your eraser project, answer a few questions around goals, sweat rate, sweat composition, some other biographical info. And it gives you a really solid plan to follow. Um, really takes out all the guesswork. It's been a big difference maker for me. Go check it out using the custom link in the show notes of this episode. Thanks again to Precision, Fuel, and Hydration. Jack Kenzel at Longlast. It's great to have you back on the Single Track podcast this time with the coaching hat on.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Wow. Yeah. Break you break your sacrum. You get three pelvic stress fractures, and then Finn totally writes you off as an athlete permanently.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

I mean, that is that is the equation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 3:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Let me ask you this. I don't, I don't want, I don't want you to answer this looking out at the industry. I want you, I want you to answer this personally. For you, either in the last year or in the last few years, what has been the biggest revolution in coaching for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Um I think I think, yeah, it's it's definitely using AI. Um and the two, I mean the tools may exist, like Train Peaks and native, I don't even know. Like they're I think training peaks metrics aren't very good. Um maybe Final Surge or something has some some native AI tools or something. Certainly Strava's AI summary is useless. Um but I mean I think just AI, there's a number of ways I kind of employ it. Like uh I mean, I'm just using LLMs. Like I'm talking literally just using Claude and ChatGPT, um, uploading files to be analyzed, um, using it to develop pacing plans, using it to analyze builds. Like a lot of times the way I kind of use it is, you know, kind of just to check what I've what I've done. But it's it's it's hard because it's still deeply flawed. A lot of the data still does not exist. Like there isn't, there isn't, you know, data that's been done on like the impact of like, you know, how how many downhill workouts do you have to do before a hundred mile race to get like, you know, the fatigue resistance needed for, you know, whatever. Uh like that that data does not exist. I don't know if it's ever going to exist. Um, so it's not, in many ways, like these, it's not going to improve. It's not very great right now. And it's often just like an incredibly overly enthusiastic, very, very stupid coworker. Uh, but I think in using it, like you can kind of maybe identify your own blind spots and kind of sometimes I usually find it's like, I'll give it a build and I'll be like, okay, take something out of this because I have too much going on. And it kind of like helps like that. But um yeah, I think for a variety of ways, uh the AI tools I think are are cool. Um and uh, you know, beyond, yeah, yeah, no, I think that's that's definitely the biggest thing. I think they'll they will get better, but there's still there's always gonna be some limitations there.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Give me an example of an instance where these large language models, you feel confident in their output. Like it's helping you solve a problem, and there's like you have a degree of confidence that like you know what it's outputting is uh is reliable.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah. So I think it works. I what I always say about the LLMs is like they work really well at like making bricks. They're really shitty at building houses. You know what I mean? So like if you want to come and say, okay, you know, like give me like, you know, the uh like a heat, like a heat protocol, like an active heat protocol, or like a sauna protocol or like a hot tub protocol. Or if you draw from sports that have a lot more, you know, kind of pure quantifiable, you know, data that's been like heavily studied and iterated on, like especially like road running or track, uh, where you know, you want you want to bring in some, you know, you're analyzing speed work that somebody doing an ultra is doing. And it's like, okay, like I want this person to get faster on the flat. Does it make sense that we do speed work kind of like, you know, does it make sense that we do speed work that's like closer to, you know, maybe it's more neuromuscular and it's like closer to like, you know, 200 meter repeats? Or uh do we want to do stuff that's kind of like, you know, kilometer or mile repeats on like a longer rest, but still quite short, still fairly neuromuscular, but like a little bit longer? Or do we want to do repeats like closer to like second or first, you know, kind of lactate threshold? And it's like, you know, kind of like building out some of those um progressions. I think the AI can kind of like take just some of the some of the monotony out of that. And you know, that's personally like a blind spot for me. Like I am not, I don't have like a road background. I never personally was like a road athlete. Um, and so sometimes some of that, like especially the shorter speed work, you know, making someone faster at like you know, 200 meter repeats, it's like not something I'm very good at. Um so I think it's it's helpful for that. Uh but yeah, you have to be careful because like the biggest one I saw recently was like, um, God, what was it? Just it was just today. It was my own training. And um like I'm really working on single leg stability. Uh and so I had kind of come up with this single leg stability protocol that I wanted to do. And like, yeah, that was made a lot with ChatGPT. Uh and then I was looking at it today and I was like, I think this is really quad heavy. Like this is extremely quad heavy. And I go to chat and I was like, I think this is like way too quad heavy. And it's like, yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. And I was like, shut the fuck up. Like, you never fucking mentioned this. Um, you know, it's a little bit infuriating and you can't trust it at all. But yeah, I think it it does, again, like when it comes to like making bricks and you know, kind of like making kind of like decisions around smaller, you know, kind of like narrowly making decisions on how a workout is executed to like support like a very definitive, kind of like smaller end. It's good. It's not good if you're like, I want to train this person for Western states and like this is you know, all the this is all their data, like make me a bill. No, not it's not gonna be good. It's not good for that.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

This is a little bit um off track, but it is within the realm of AI, so I have to I have to share this with you. So Brett and I recorded a long on archives episode last night. It'll go live this coming Monday, and I think our episode's gonna go live on Wednesday, so it's okay to say this. But we did our, it was uh the coolest thing you found on the week segment. And Brett shares his screen, and it was either using Claude or Chat, Gemini, one of the one of the language models. Brett's dad uploaded Brett's 2022 Western States 100 GPX. I think he ran like 22 hours that year, and he was able to manipulate that GPX file without any recognition that anything had been manipulated to show that Brett's Strava file read like 1345 finishing time. All of the uh mileage, you know, all the data was totally representative of that 1345 finish. And Brett was sharing that to say, I believe starting today, this marks the day where the era of just submitting your Strava file to FKT for verification of a record is totally over. And that is the AI era. Really interesting. I was wondering what you think about that.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, yeah. So fundamentally, like you can open an AI, you can open the AI, you can open a GPX in a text editor and it's just like a text file, and you can edit it to say whatever. So um I've tried, it's funny you say that, because I've tried to do that, you know, for years. I mean, I tried to do that probably, you know, when did the first kind of like ChatGPT kind of model come out? I think it was 2023. I tried in the fall of 2023 to do that. I tried 2024, 2025. I haven't tried that in a while. I've never gotten it to work. So that's funny to hear it actually did it did work. Um But yeah, I mean like I think if you if you my personal opinion, like if you go for anything that's worthwhile, that's an FKT, like it needs to have live tracking. And like the two needed to be like, you know, obviously mated together, like the live tracking and the and the Strava data. Um but yeah, I mean FKT already has like cheat, a lot of cheat, there's a lot of like easier ways to cheat. I mean, that's a pretty easy way to cheat, but there's other easy ways to cheat for sure.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

So if we were to summarize this revolution, it's the AI factor has allowed has removed a lot of the groundwork in your coaching, I'm assuming?

SPEAKER_00 10:53

No, unfortunately not. Um if anything, honestly, I think it generates more work for me because uh it just it expands the opportunity, it expands the ways you can analyze data is like another really big big thing. So talking like uploading, you know, if you go, so the limitation of this is you cannot go on Strava and download someone else's GPX file, that's timestamp. If you download someone else's GPX file, the timestamps are gonna be stripped. So you have to have someone download their own file or you have to pull it off training peaks, like you need access to the athlete. Uh but if you take that file and like I just have a prompt that I run that's like extremely basic, that's just like, okay, analyze this file, like divide the race up into quarters, you know, compare their VAM on similar climbs in each quarter, uh, compare their you know, flat speed uh in each quarter, um, downhill speed in each quarter on like you know, similar grades and everything. Uh and we can kind of observe like how someone you know progresses across the course of a race. Uh and you can get fairly, you know, granular with that analysis. And so then from that though, you can make like very nuanced coaching decisions. So you're like, okay, you know, I think back 10 years ago, it was like, all right, this season we're gonna work on your flip running uphill faster, and we're gonna go out and you're gonna run uphill for, you know, 20 minutes hard today, and you know, 20 minutes hard the next day, or you know, you know, whatever the fuck. Um, and now you can get way more precise. And it's like, okay, uh, looks like your uphill speed is good, but it fades quite rapidly in the race. So we can like shift the speed works to be like more focused on uh a little bit more on fatigue resistance to kind of like support that like late race climbing and stuff. Um so no, I think it kind of almost it almost generates more work. Like, yeah, I think that'll be something once there's better AI integration into like the training programs, like training peaks, yes, it will eliminate some of the grunt work because a lot of it, you know, coaching is grunt work. Um, you know, so it'll eliminate that. But, you know, uh no, it hasn't, it hasn't done that yet. I think it's kind of for me, it fills in some gaps in my knowledge, you know, particularly around like road running. Uh and yeah, I mean, it sometimes it helps me, you know, kind of like creatively, just to like have someone just to kind of iterate with a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Have you gotten a sense, again, and I'm I'm I'm also curious if it's different across the LLMs, but have you gotten a sense that especially in an ultra context, the the responses it gives back are are biased to a certain training philosophy? Like actually, like chat is kind of like a poster child for evoke. Like, has that uh have have you gotten a sense of that at all?

SPEAKER_00 13:34

I haven't, but it's funny. Like sometimes it'll recommend something to me. And I'm like, that's interesting. What's the source on that? And it'll like the it'll like, you know, I'll like, you know, look at the source and it'll be like the most, you know, dipshit like fucking coaching outfit I've ever seen in my life. And I was like, I wouldn't trust these people to train my fucking guinea pig, like let alone train an athlete. So it's like, why am I gonna listen to chat in this context? Um But that's a good question. I I don't know. Like, I mean, it's hard because like the Roches, a lot of their data is like, or their information is behind a you know, Patreon and is like confined to their podcast, which I don't know of is indexed all that well. Um, you know, Coop obviously has the you know training the centers for for ultra running. Uh Evoke has quite a bit of like public free information. So I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if it's like heavily informed on evoke's methodology when it comes to trail running. So yeah, maybe why I don't notice it as much.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

But um last question on the AI stuff. Let's let's assume that you're onboarding a new athlete and you are you request that they give you as much information about their training history as possible. Ideally, as many of these like GPX files, all that type, like all of the files that can easily be scraped read by these LLMs. And maybe you've already done this before, maybe it's just common practice, but like have you found that if and when you take all that data and you input it, you and the engine arrive at like the same conclusions about their training history and like what you guys need to work on?

SPEAKER_00 15:07

You know, I think this is this is fascinating because uh the answer is yes. But um, I don't think that's a result of model bias. I don't think that's a result of me just, you know, being soft and just you know conforming to whatever the robot tells me. I think the response that it gives you heavily, heavily depends on how you prompt it. And a lot of times I feel like maybe a limitation of how I use it is the notes that I give it, you know, from my discussions with the athlete, um, you know, the context, the questions I ask, all, you know, guide it in a certain direction. Because sometimes I'm like talking to chat and I'm like, wow, this is like this is so smart. And I'm like, okay, I gave it like, I gave it four options and you know, it picked, it picked three of them. And it was like, you know, a pretty obvious, you know, choice. So um, yeah, I find it, I think my personal theory is like the effectiveness of the model probably depends heavily on how well you prompt it. But yeah, generally, you know, I yeah, yeah, in this in this context, I think a lot of times, yes, yes, it it does, it does have quite it does have quite good ideas, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

I wanna give you this example to to kind of support the larger question of how much of a disadvantage, if at all, is it to be self-coached in this era? Do you do you think that if Jim or Killian or Ben Dieman were working with a coach right now, they would be even better than they already are?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

If I thought I was gonna be better with a coach, I would get a coach. So I think I think Killian, like, you know, the value in uh having a coach often is like having somebody uh who's like removed from your personal bias and like removed from like the day-to-day like you know, bullshit of your life, and like removed from your ego to provide like objectively good training decisions. That being said, like I think there are a lot of shitty coaches in the trail space. There's there are a good coach in the trail space. There's a lot of shitty coaches, and I think those people that you mentioned can coach themselves quite well. And I think they can, you know, um it's the truth. Like this maybe exposes me as a bad coach. What I've never quite told anybody, but I think is the truth, is, you know, at the end of the day, nobody cares about your programming as much as you. Nobody knows yourself as well as you do. And so it's like for those, for those guys and for myself, I know that. And so like the loss that I suffer not having like a third party is made up for the fact that I think I know my body better. I think I know the programming that works for me better, um, and I care about my training more than anybody else does. And I think that outweighs the lack of perspective that I maybe have. And I think it's the same for those, for those guys, potentially. Um yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

I think this is, and I can take this out if you want, but I think it's fine to say here because I think it it it supports what you're saying. Well, you were telling me offline this was back, this was in the middle of Badwater. And you've been coaching Max Jol, if you cush him to this course record performance at Badwater, incredible. But I think at some point in the race, he was 40 minutes off the front runners. Yeah. And by the end of the race, he broke the course record by what, over 30 minutes, and he passed all those people. And I think you were telling me in that moment, like that was the plan all along. Yeah. And Max has this like otherworldly ability to just like relentlessly stick to the plan and not get caught up in the noise. And I think you were saying, like, I'm a great athlete, but I I know in that situation it would be extremely hard, if not impossible, to follow those coaching orders yourself.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the the funny thing about Max is, you know, um, I was, I was sorry, so I talked to Outside yesterday about Max's programming. And then I listened to Max on like the Choose Strong podcast and talking about his programming. And the funny thing is with Max, is like, in some ways, I took him for granted as an athlete because he's talking on the Choose Strong podcast. And he's like, um, Sally Sally McRae is like, is like, oh, well, like, um, you know, did you make any changes to your sleep or diet for this build? And he's like, no, like, diet's never been an issue, and I sleep great. And it's like that little comment is is that's fucking huge. Like that is, you know, that is something like when you're coaching somebody, you're like, wow, every day's thing just seems to be working. And, you know, but to have somebody who could just execute well on the sleep and the diet, you know, is you know, supercharges the coaching. And to say the same thing of the pacing, like, you know, anybody can, you know, write a pacing plan, but to like actually uh have the balls to kind of stick with it and execute, like that's that's that's hard, you know. And um he was able to do it. Uh, but certainly, I mean, it's been a while. I mean, the schema races are are hard, but uh it's been a while since I've done a running race because I've had so many injuries. But uh in 2024, like I look back to Jiro Demont and it's like I tried to pace that properly. I paced it so badly. Um and it's like, you know, wow, like that would have I saw then, like, wow, the section that should have been the best for me, this low angle rolling section at the end, was actually the worst. Uh so you know, yeah, I mean, a proper pacing goes goes a you know massive, massive way. But yeah, you have to be able to, you know, be strong and stick to the plan.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

So when you were reviewing his training history, I think you made the comment that his build for Kokodona was actually like the perfect preamble for his Badwater, like main primary block. Uh and you know, you I mean, I think I think you've had at least a few instances now working with Healthies for Multi-Day, like you helped Will Peterson prepare for tour. I'm assuming you'll kind of keep this rolling with Max. Let's just assume that he does Cocodona next year. Knowing what you know about Multi Day at this point, how what do you what do you think you would do for him? Like, how would you get him ready for that race?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Well, so I'll say Max's build for Cocodona, I would say looked like a classic Badwater build. Or like what I think, you know, somebody on the street would imagine a badwater build looked like, where it was like a lot of volume, uh relatively low over, and it was a lot of like marathon speed work. Um but for him for Cocodona, I mean um he's so I mean I'll say it seems like he's very strong. Seems like he doesn't need a lot of work in the gym. Uh historically, his training hasn't had a lot of vert, you know, doing a lot of vert is important. Uh and yeah, I mean, certainly, I mean, you know, like I'm a fan of the weighted work. I think the weighted work would go probably a long way with him. Uh but I mean, and I don't know. I'm not I'm not writing his coca donut build right now, so I'm not exactly sure also like what he'll do before that. But um y yeah, like in his old training, that was like the personally like the biggest hole I saw was just like the lack. So the lack of vert. You know, vert is very important in trail running. You know, um it's not trail running is not like cycling or cross-country skiing or even schemo. It's like a very high impact sport where there's a lot of uh eccentric loading, there's a lot of tax on the central nervous system. And, you know, you have to prepare for that. Uh you have to prepare for that and you have to do a lot of, you know, you have to inflict a lot of that damage essentially in training to be able to do that in a race. To include a race that's fairly flat.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

So can you communicate to this audience what uh because again I get the sense that Max is like supremely coachable. Yes. Uh and I do believe that these these relationships are a two-way street. Like you can only do so much for the athlete and vice versa. Yeah. Can you can you use him as an example for what an ideal coaching partnership looks like?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, starting off with like the first thing we talked about, like you never know like what the fuck the athlete is doing outside of training. And there have been people to give an example, like I coached this one guy, and um he for the longest time he wasn't really progressing. And, you know, I'm trying to figure it out. Okay, I'm like varying like the stimulus, you know, we're like doing different things, and like nothing really seems to be working. And after a while, I was kind of like, well, and this maybe is an obvious question to be asking, I'm like, how's your sleep? And he's like, oh, it's, you know, probably could be better. And I was like, can you wear your watch at night so I can see how your sleep is? And he's sleeping like three hours, four hours every single night. And like that was it. Like all we had to do was fix his sleep. And then all of a sudden, like this was a strength block we were in, all of a sudden his lift started getting way better. And to zero this back to Max, like the fact that Max, you know, I never really had to have a conversation with him. Like, yeah, okay, we talked about like, you know, hitting your protein, we did some blood work, you know, whatever. But the fact that we never really had to like zero in on nutrition or like zero in on optimizing sleep, that's huge. Because like for me personally, like you see, nutrition uh caused me to, you know, stress reaction, my sacrum or my ilium this year. Um, sleep was also a major factor there. Like genuinely, like the sleep and stress management are like my two biggest problems as an athlete. And for Max, seems to be those aren't an issue. So that's that's huge. And that makes it just so every single thing you're putting in as a coach, uh, it's kind of like the soil. It's like, you know, the soil is very fertile. And so, like, you know, you can kind of fuck up the plant, you know, the watering and the sunlight and everything else. But it's like, you know, it's got good soil, so you know, maybe it's gonna be a little bit more resilient in a way. So I think that's that's a huge thing. Max also uh I think it's big. Like an athlete doesn't always have to the athlete doesn't have to agree with you, but I think it's important when, you know, when you talk to the athlete, you come up with a plan collaboratively, and then it's important the athlete executes it on to the best of their ability. And Max always did that. Max like always nailed the programming. Yeah, sure, we had to make changes and stuff, but um, you know, he always, he always, when we agreed on it, like, you know, he always, he always nailed it. Uh and then I think the next thing is with Max is like beyond, I would say those are kind of like the basic things that one would think of for like a perfect athlete, but beyond that, Max also, you know, took it on himself to iterate, you know, kind of on a bunch of different stuff. And I think Max being an athlete who was self-coached for a while, being an athlete who does these 200 mile races that are longer, much more logistically intensive, like that just came quite naturally for him. So, I mean, the example I I talked about before was like, uh, you know, I think it's really important, you know, for athletes, you know, during their speed workouts to stay as cool as possible. Like we never want heat to be a limiter during speed workouts. And so often I'll encourage athletes to cool like palms of their hand, their face during speed workouts to like maximize output there, uh, because like the body dumps a lot of heat through those surfaces. And so Max kind of like took that and ran with it and was like, well, if I'm doing that in a workout, why would I do that during the race? And so he took like 50 soft flasks and he froze them uh into like a slurry, you know, before the race, and he ran with those soft flasks in his hands. And he thinks that that really helped, you know, modulate his core temperature, which I'm sure it did. I mean, um, there was an energy cost to him running with those bottles in his hands. Like, I don't know if that was unnecessary at all because you see your crew so frequently at Badwater.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

Yeah, limitless, limitless crewing at Badwater, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Yes. Yeah. But he but still, I mean, you probably want to be sipping water, you know, constantly to an extent, spraying on yourself, maybe. Um he saw his crew, I think, every, you know, mile, mile and a half, two miles, uh, you know, at the hottest point of the race. But, you know, he thought that made it, that made a huge difference. So like that is not something that's kind of like beyond, you know, what typically can be expected from a from a very good uh athlete to coach. But um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

Yeah. I've got a ton of UTMB questions, but uh like two more general questions that I want to ask you. And I I I don't know how to fra so if you misunderstand me, let me know. Because I I want to make sure I I get this across because I it's in my head and I don't know if this even makes sense. But let's just say that you are an elite athlete in the sport. Let's just say you're like Ruth Croft or Tom Evans, Jack Kenzel, the list goes on. In order to like given how and again, my assumption is that the sport is progressing year over year really fast, and it's really difficult to continue to stay relevant to be on top in the sport. Do you have a sense from like a numbers standpoint about how much you have to improve as an athlete year over year, like in your training, like in the training data to still stay at the top? Like is it, is it is it is marginal okay? Do you have to make these like extreme leaps year over year? What's your sense of this?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

I have no idea. I think I think you just have to like I think you could go and you could create like some, you know, uh an amalgamation of like the you know the Sierras and all time, the OCC time. I mean depends on what distance you have. OCC, CCC, and you know, UTMB, and you could take those four and uh trend percentage year over year, how they're improving Western states, and um you know, you could come up with a better idea uh than what I got. But I mean, certainly you see it with cycling. Um, you know, you have people, it's it's the data is you know clearer in cycling because you can pull, you know, watts per kilo and you know things are a lot more equivalent. But you know, you see people in the uh Tour de France this year, you know, putting up the best power numbers they ever have, but they're also like performing worse relatively than they have the last couple years. Um, you know, you saw that with like Jonas this year. Uh so yeah, I mean it's certainly it's trending up quite a bit, but I don't think the case, I mean, maybe I'm wrong here, like I don't think the case is so much it's trending up because there's like a turn, there's like new talent identification and there's like a turnover of people at the top that's really extreme. It's like largely the same faces, but I think their training is just getting better. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

I'll I'll add a thought here. This is and I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but we we interviewed Francesco Puppy before Western earlier this summer, and we were talking about doping for a fair stretch of the conversation. And I think I asked him, like, do you believe this is a serious problem? And he said, No. And and one of the examples he cited was he was so he was so unimpressed sort of by the level of current performance in Ultra. He's like, those performances don't correlate to doping. Like if people were doping, they'd be like, we'd be we'd be going for like sub-13 at Western stuff like that. And again, I'm I'm I'm very much paraphrasing go back and listen to the episode. But I think that was the gist of it, where it's like the performances aren't even good enough in our sport yet. There's so much untapped, there's so much potential left on the table before we could even entertain that. So again, whether you disagree or agree with that perspective, I just thought that was an interesting bit to this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

In my personal, my personal view, and like this is this is my personal assessment, and like, you know, I'm heavily biased. I think number one, Poopy is biased because in that conversation he said, I'm not talented. I think he's extremely talented. Uh, I think he's crazy to think he's not talented. And I think when you're that talented, uh when you have probably that work ethic, and like, you know, maybe some of it isn't talent. It's just like, okay, he's just like maybe well set up in his like location and in northern everything's just kind of like has gone right for him by like design and you know, um by luck to some extent. Um you know, where he can be like, well, I don't have to kill myself and I don't have to dope, and like I'm at the top of the sport, so like it can't be that competitive. I think there's some of that. Um I mean, uh I do think what Western States is is very competitive. I think kind of like going longer though. Um I think the longer ultras, I think I think even including UTMB, like it's it's not, I don't think it's on the same level. Especially, I don't think it's on the same level as like uh like Golden Trail, kind of like series races. Uh and just shorter, like OCC to even include. Um I don't I don't think it's quite there with that. Uh but you know, I obviously I have not done UTMB. I'm not claiming I could win UTMB. You know, I have a ton of respect for those athletes that do well there. But yeah, I think I think especially kind of like longer than Western States, longer than 15 hours. Like I think I have to imagine that those those performances, maybe like the top performances, the podiums, you know, won't kind of like get crazy fast, faster, but like maybe the top 10 will just kind of get more and more condensed, like as we've been seeing.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

But setting aside sleeping, eating, recovery modalities. So we're just focusing on like the physical activities, biking, weights, running that can make you a better athlete in our sport. Are we setting aside doping as well? Raid is the official equipment partner of Single Track. We've got some news here. The LF5L Vest, it's gonna be back in stock this month. Uh Henriette Albin has joined the athlete team. She will be racing UTMB in a debut raid kit that they have been working on with her. So be on the lookout for when you are viewing the livestream at the end of this month. That's yeah, really exciting. A few new additions to their trail tech range, including an Anorak shell. This is the lightest three-layer shell, I believe, that you can find on the market. Also, their race tech tea that weighs 66 grams and has an integrated ice pocket for hot days. Finally, and this might have actually launched a few days ago, but uh this month they're debuting their first women's specific kit. This includes a women's running belt and cargo crop top. Go check out everything at raidresearch.com. That's R-A-I-D-E-Research.com. Also, thanks to John G, the official apparel partner of Single Track. And I got to talk here about those pinnacle endurance kits trusted by athletes like Ryan Montgomery, the first and only American to ever break 14 hours at Western States. There's four more race forward styles built from relentless experimentation with athletes like Ryan, including their gossamer-based t-shirts and singlets. Uh gossamer is this fabric technology that uses wave-shaped fiber to mimic gauze-like construction for uh exceptional breathability. It's ultra-light, it's cling-free, cool to touch, essential for my racing and long project-based days because it is built to go the distance too. Go check out jongy.com forward slash singletrack. I'm going to give you a true or false question. True or false. From an activity standpoint, you can get as good as you want in this sport simply through the activity of running.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

You know the answer to that question. It's no. It's not. Go ask a fucking cyclist that question. No. Go ask somebody in the competitive sport that question. No. The answer's no. It's not just like not the case. Like it's just, it's, it's like, it's like a I think it's a silly conversation to be having because it's just, it's like not the case in any other sport on the face of the planet. And it's like, and and you know, and now there's many other sports that are easier to simulate in training than trail running. Trail running is an extremely difficult sport to simulate in training. Um, partially, you know, you know, if we want to talk a golden trail or something, like running downhill on remotely technical terrain, that hard is is risky. Uh, you know, I've had athletes injure themselves in training. I broke my sacrum doing a downhill workout. There were other issues there, but it did happen during a downhill workout. Um, and also like you're not gonna go out talking longer races, you're not gonna go out and fucking run 20, 20 hours and training. So it's like we have to we have to stimulate that a bit. Uh and the answer is like not, you know, running 5,000 miles a week. Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:38

So that that it is possible for that stimulus to get stale.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Totally. And I'll admit in my personal training, uh, and like the training I've done on my athletes, I think in the last year, I think I've gone too much. I'll admit, I've gone too much into all of like the high speed, you know, fucking, you know, interventions, you know, you know, if this is uh like just anything other than you know, good old-fashioned like long runs. Like I I have strayed too far from that. And I also recognize in my past when I was scouting FKTs, a lot of times I wouldn't count that as training, but I would do kind of like these mega, mega stress weeks. Uh and for me, I was like, oh, that was scouting. Like I did the Prezi, you know, I don't know what, six or seven times at a week. And I didn't do that for the physical stimulus. I was just trying to see the route. But it's like, yeah, that did have a major physical stimulus that I kind of personally overlooked for a while. So I've kind of come around a little bit more on, okay, we do need a little bit more volume sometimes. We do need, you know, kind of like longer, you know, very kind of like lower intensity, very long runs are quite important. Um, but that's not there's there's there is a narrow time to be doing that in the season. There's a lot of other things you can work on throughout the year. And there's a lot of other things that, yes, and it absolutely will get stale. It will definitely get stale. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:59

Again, let's focus on like the elite athlete at Western UTMB. Give me a list of the other levers you would pull on. The other levers you would pull on in addition to running.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

You fucker. I told, I told Finn, I told Finn, I was like, this is a question you can't ask me because like the uh all like the AI ghouls over at like, you know, Rana or something are gonna, you know, be like exploiting. I'm like not nearly as open as I used to be with my coaching because, you know, of like these AI coaching, you know, not like anything I'm saying is revolutionary. Um okay, so like the first thing we have is like strength training. And from my perspective, that's that's two, that's two kind of like large different buckets. There's kind of like big bilateral kind of like power and strength. You know, we're talking like pure force production. And then you also kind of have like more unilateral power and strength. Where it's like force production, but we're like doing it in more of kind of like a trail and running context. So like the example I'd give here is like working on getting your deadlift up versus like working on getting like your single leg like dumbbell Romanian deadlift up. Um so that's that's those are two kind of things to work on. Um then we have like I was trying to make sure I get everything here. Uh certainly then we have like the whole constellation of speed work. And like all the time I'll see people's program where it's like, it's like, yeah, my coach had me run uphill like speed work this week, and then next week we did the flat speed work, and then the week after that we did this rolling speed work. And it's like, no, that's fucking ridiculous. Like you should have the speed work should be deeply fucking intentional. And uh it should be intentional in what sort of you know slope angle you're you're kind of like moving on, um, you know, whether it's like, you know, flat, it's steep, uh, or it's like more runnable uphill. Um and it all should be intentional for like how long you're working for. So uh, you know, I have athletes do very short speed work, you know, I have athletes do 10 second hill sprints. Well, do 10 second hill bounds, you know, like a kind of a little bit different, but like the hill bounds, kind of like working more on kind of like that peak kind of like power production, like less on, you know, kind of like cadence. Um and then I also have athletes who do short speed work, you know, I'll have them do uh flat kind of like repeats, you know, 200 meter repeats on the track. Um both of those like, you know, usually on like very long rest nobles. Then you get like kind of like more into kind of like the power, kind of like at VO2 max kind of range. And this is the one that's kind of like the weirdest for ultra running because uh it really, you know, it's kind of like strengthening like this fast twitch kind of like anaerobic kind of like side. Um but I mean, like I see athletes all the time that come to me, like this is getting like a little bit more into the voodoo, you know. Um, and uh like you'll see their their thresholds are so incredibly compressed, uh, where their like pace at first lactate threshold is like right below their pace at second lactate threshold, which is like right below their pace at VO2 max, which is like, you know, there's no, there's no kind of like power band. And, you know, you could say, well, all these races are run below first lactate threshold, so why does that fucking matter? And it's like, okay, well, I think my personal take, and I'm sure this has been, you know, researched a thousand fucking times, and I'm just like, you know, talking out of my ass here, but like to push up that speed at first lactate threshold, at some point we have to push up those other that that top end. And we can't just do that via like hill sprints and like really short speed work. Like we have to, we have to at some point bring in some kind of like longer, higher intensity work.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Before I forget, because you you you reminded me, I in prep for this conversation, I listened to a bunch of the Evoke cast, and I was going back and listening to some of the interviews that Scott did on Tom Evans and Ruth Croft's training. Yeah. And one thing, and he said this multiple times, since joining Evoke, they have not conducted a single VO2 Max workout on either of those athletes.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:03

I mean that blows my mind.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Ruth and Tom, I mean, I don't want to put words in Scott's mouth, but like, in my opinion, like if I was coaching those two athletes, those athletes already have a very well-developed power band. So they may be in a position where they don't have to do any of that work because they could already run a very fast 10K to the extent that that's relevant. Like in our sport, you know, if we think about the fastest people in Ultra, it's no fucking shocker that they're largely also the fastest person in like a fucking VK almost. Like even Francois, like, I don't know how many VKs he's done, but he is fast at schema. And like, um, I was doing a workout in a resh and uh he like I guess he just like saw somebody like doing a workout in a rush and he was like, fuck this fucking punk. Like he's not doing this here. And I had to really work to drop him, you know? I had to really work hard to drop him. And I dropped him. But it like, you know, I think also like we were getting away from his friend, but it was pretty funny. Like, we didn't even say anything. He just like saw me and he was like, you know, but like Francois is fast. Like Francois is fast in a vertical, like Francois is fast in a VK. Um and the same obviously goes for Killian, same goes for Poopy, the same goes for Jim Walmsley. Like I'm just, you know, kind of like riffing off the men's side here, but I'm sure you could play the same to the women's. Um so I do think that speed at like second lactate threshold is important. Maybe it isn't important in of itself, but it's important, you know, such that like pushing that up allows to push up that speed at first lactate threshold, which is which is, you know, much more important for ultra running. So in my opinion, that's kind of where, you know, that that those higher intensity reps, especially on the uphill, come in. You know, when it comes more to the flat, I think it can kind of help bridge like the running economy. You build like doing 200s to like the running economy that you would need to like run fast at first life tape threshold. Like I think it's important to do some like, you know, mile reps, like kilometer reps, like with longer rest intervals. Like I think that can be important, even if that's like well above like ultra running pace. Um so yeah, and so then you can just kind of like keep extending that out. And uh, you know, there's different types of there's different types of like the bread and butter for like most runners is gonna be like, you know, most ultra runners is gonna be like doing reps, you know, what people would say like at threshold. Like often these will be like at first last lactate threshold between first lactate threshold and second lactate threshold often. Um, but this is like the classic, you know, uh four by eight minutes would kind of be like the shortest I would go for this, like as far as total work. I mean like 32 minutes. Um, but like hell, like I mean, I've done I've done higher, I've done workouts like kind of like in this power band as much as like I've done like 80 minutes of work in a day, like in this power band. Um and uh yeah, I mean it's it's still the intensities are are above what you'll see in certainly most like hundred mile races. Um, you know, maybe you would certainly see this intensity like OCC uh and kind of like a blend kind of between OCC and you know 100 miler. But uh, you know, working here kind of like helps, you know, stress kind of like that lactate buffering. You get stimulus to kind of like running economy and stuff, you know, working in that kind of like power band. Um so and then also like talking like doing longer runs, um not like easy long runs, talking like doing like three hour long runs, like kind of up-tempo. Um, and doing these like still kind of like below uh first lack day threshold, but um, you know, just getting like longer kind of like yeah, just like longer kind of like uh, you know, kind of like an up tempo long run that probably like mm closer to probably what I assume a marathon or more would be would be doing. Um so there's there's that as far as like speed work.

SPEAKER_03 43:51

Um I I don't know anything, but I I the lay I as a lay person, I'm still shocked that even even in the off season, you could have In any one of the systems to train. Like how how dura like, yeah, sure. Like Ruth and Tom acquired that adaptation earlier in their careers and they're in a different phase of their career, but like, how durable is that adaptation? At what point does that undermine all the other systems?

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Extremely durable, I think. I think it probably depends a little on the athlete. But like, you know, Killian has that like little anecdote where he has his little, you know, hill climb in Norway, and he took, you know, again, it depends on the athlete, but I think he took like two, it was like two months off from doing any training above first lactate threshold. And he has like this, I think, 17-minute hill climb that he had PR'd like right before Zeros and all. He went and did Sirius and all, then he took two months off of high intensity work and he ran this short hill climb again, and he was like 17 seconds slower or something. Um, and certainly if you also were to like layer in strides as well to like maintain that running economy, um, you know, some strides on the flat, maybe something uphill, like you can you can maintain a ton. Um and it's like absolutely necessary that it be periodized because if you're trying to maintain everything all year, like, you know, no, that's just not, you're not gonna fucking get anywhere. Like I see all the time people, like especially I see this with strength work, where it's like, oh, you know, yeah, I'm doing strength work now. Like I'm doing one fucking lift a little a week and I'm like running all my normal volume and I'm doing some other bullshit. And it's like, great, like, you know, you're weak as hell. If you're lifting once a week, it's not gonna fucking do anything. Uh, you're still probably running too much. You take that strength stimulus on. So it's like, if you really want to fucking get stronger, let's cut the volume down, let's lift two or three times a week, and let's really focus on getting you stronger. And then once we finish with that, we can maybe keep one lift, you know, kind of like a minimal light touch in the schedule to maintain those adaptations, and then um, you know, layer in, you know, bring in back the specific work for racing. But yeah, you gotta have like the periodization. You gotta like actually focus on something and to give something else up to like gain anything a hundred percent. Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:55

This is top of mind because one of the conversations we were having at Western States, and David Roche talked about it, and Hans talked about it too. Like, you know, Hans has this exercise science background. David obviously has been coaching in the sport for 10 plus years, and so they they sort of have a special relationship where I think they get to experiment a lot. And I think one thing that Hans was concerned about year over year was that maybe there was a little bit of undertraining in terms of volume. Like, I don't think David was prescribing maybe enough long runs in his like you know, peak weeks for Western. So I think they did change that heading into the Shears Western. And I I kind of wanted to throw this at you, like for your athletes, like especially for race like UTMB, where do you where do you draw the line between like moderate volume efficiency and under training? Like at what point do you start to feel like we're at we're at risk for being undertrained here?

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Oof. I don't think about undertraining. I think about overtraining. If you want some fucking coach that's gonna like ride the line of the minimum.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

Yeah, well, but that I do think I do believe, uh and I don't it does seem to me again, lay person. Yeah, it does seem like in that whole in the wake of all of like the hero volume we saw from like Anton and Timmel and Mike Wolf that era, there was sort of like a pendulum swing back to like conservatism and let's not like overtrain people and like burn out the sport after two or three years.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Well, so I think okay, I think there's a number of things going on that, you know, like number one, like you could overtrain someone on very low volume, you know. Like, I mean, number one, like the recovery could be compromised. So that's separate. Like, even if they're assuming good recovery, if you have low volume and you just destroy them with speed work, like, yeah, you could overtrain someone on low volume. So, like in my mind, you know, um, I'm I I'm serious. Like, I'm I typically am thinking about overtraining because like I'm never, I'm never operating like I don't want to operate in a world like, okay, we're are we doing enough? Are we possibly doing too little? Like when I've had that happen, and I'm not saying this about David, but when I've had that happen, it's like I'm not being attentive as a coach and like communicating the athlete, okay, how does this feel? Can we be doing more? Should we be like, you know, increasing the stress in some way? Should we increasing the amount of volume we're doing on the week, or should we be adding some other high-intensity session? Um So I when it comes to like how much is too much volume, um, or like how long is too long for like long runs.

SPEAKER_03 48:25

I want to know what's too little. I uh what what in your opinion would you do you suspect is too little?

SPEAKER_00 48:30

I don't fucking know. I don't ask I don't ask questions like that. Um yeah, I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 48:39

Like I saw Well, because you hear Tom, for example, talk about like doing the least amount that is required for like the best possible output. Yeah, that's not meant. That that that suggests riding a line, right? Where it's like if you are doing the least amount to produce the best result, by definition.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

To me, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense, that doesn't make sense. No offense to Tom, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense because we don't know what's fucking required. We want it, you want the athlete to show up on the race day and be like, I am in the best shape that I could possibly be in because we don't know what I need to do. Number one, we don't know what the fastest person at the race is gonna run. And number two, there's no way to test that in training. Like you can't administer some test on a treadmill and be like, you couldn't have somebody, like, I've thought about trying to develop a test like this. You can't have somebody, you know, throw 60 kilos on a barbell, squat, you know, a hundred times for time, and then run at 15% on the incline treadmill for like repeated reps and like measure their fatigue resistance and be like, you know what? This motherfucker is running 19, 14, 37 at UTMB this year. It's like, no, that does not exist. That does not exist. So we're gonna get these people in the best shape possible, and then they're gonna toe the line and they're gonna start.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Have you ever oh actually I don't want to ask that question.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

I don't want to ask that question. Um UTMB specific stuff. And and maybe this isn't modified at all for any particular race and it's just standard practice. But uh let's say you onboard an athlete well ahead of UTMB and that's their goal race for the year. Walk me through like the initial testing battery you run on them and like why for each piece of it.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

Okay, so let's let's assume let's play let's play this game where um this is January. They have no other races on the calendar, and they're only doing UTMB. Okay, so like the first thing I would do would be um ask them about their past races and ask them how they felt. They personally would assess their strengths and weaknesses and assess that, okay, like um assess that like in a fresh state, like ask them in a fresh state, like how do you view your flat speed, your upspell speed, your downhill speed? Okay, and then at the end of a race, relative to the people that are finishing around you or relative to the place you want to finish in the race, how would you assess those those things? Um, so like that's the first question, you know, I ask. The second thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go through some past races and I'm gonna put them into an LLM and I'm gonna analyze them and I'm gonna figure out like, okay, is this a pacing failure? Is this like, are they, are they slower on different types of terrain? Um, despite good pacing, they still, you know, did they still fall off at the end? Were they falling off on the uphills, on the downhills, you know, whatever. Given that much time, the first place I start with all my athletes is always with strength training. So, you know, if they've never strength trained before, some people are still very strong, even if they haven't strength trained before. But, you know, work with them to get the form dialed, you know, on especially barbell squat and straight bar deadlifts, and then work with them for enough time to kind of get an accurate assessment of their strength. And then decide, okay, do we need to work on that? Or do we need to uh, or are we good there? And maybe we should think about unilateral strength. So then assess their unilateral strength, like have them do a pistol squat or like a box step-a down or something and film it uh and kind of assess like their single leg strength. Um, assess strength imbalances between their legs to see like, okay, are they balanced? Um, so that's like the strength side, I feel like is the base. Like that's the base thing. Uh then past that, yeah. I mean, we'll do like a lot of people, I don't really train people too often with with the lactate meter. So I'll have them do just like a heart rate drift test, you know, have them do it on the flat, have them do it on a 15% inclined treadmill. Um and, you know, sometimes I'll like have people do like a VK effort per time. You know, especially with that much time, I'd probably I'd consider doing a VK effort per time. I consider doing a uh like a 5K or a 10K for time. And uh and then from there, like depending on what their issues are, it's a good idea, it can be a good idea to put a race in the calendar. And like I'm not somebody who believes in racing into fitness. I think that's like fucking, you know, 2005 like thinking. But there is like valuable reasons to put a race in the calendar. Like uh races are the best place to like test nutrition. So like if you really test and like to iterate on nutrition, like you can't really get those same conditions in a race. So um, someone has nutrition issues, boom, okay, we gotta do a race, and it's probably gotta be at least like a fucking 50 mile or it's probably gotta be 100K. Um, you know, if somebody has only ever run ultras, then it's like, okay, we really should think about doing some shorter races to see how your flat speed is or to see how your short speed is. Because if it's not good, like we definitely need to work on that. Um and then uh yeah, I mean, like if somebody, if the testing exposes, okay, this person's weak on the uphill, it's like maybe we throw a VK on the calendar. And it's like it's not so that the VK can be an assessment, but it's like the VK gives us something to train towards where there's a little bit of pressure. And it like compels the athlete to do like the training required for it. Um so yeah. Oh, and then blood work. Blood work uh is huge. Um, like for me, like uh ferritin, you know, most important. Um, you know, vitamin D, magnesium, B12, especially if someone's vegetarian. Um for you know, men, you know, testosterone, free testosterone. Um, you know, for for women, you know, something like, you know, like, I don't know, like, you know, you know, like a lutinizing hormone or you know, there's some other, you know, female sex hormone testing you can do. Um, and then also like cortisol. Um, those are all really important, especially further from the race when we can like actually resolve issues. Because a lot of times there are there is issues. And like surprisingly fast athletes often will have like horrific ferritin. Like I guarantee someone listening to this call thinks they're doing everything, but their ferritin is fucking dog shit. Like that was me until uh October of 2024. And I always took an iron supplement. And so I was like, oh, I take an iron supplement. I'm good. No, no, it doesn't work like that.

SPEAKER_03 54:47

So you just said you don't really coach people with lactate meters. Do you see value in lactate testing?

SPEAKER_00 54:54

Oh, so okay, so separate questions there. Like uh like a a lot of the lab testing I see is like really garbage. You know, like athletes will go and get their VO2 Max tested, and there's no fucking point. There's literally no fucking point in doing that because it's like, who the fuck cares what your fucking VO2 max is? Because, you know, we can maybe budge that a little bit, but it's like not relevant for ultra running. Um, and like let's say it's, you know, low, it's like, you know, what are we gonna, you know, what can we really do about that? You know, I thought about when I was in the Navy, like there was free VO2 max testing available. And my friend, Brian, uh, I was like, I'm gonna get my VO2 max tested. And he was like, you know what? He's like, why don't you don't do that? Because you seem like a very anxious person. And he's like, that could go two ways. Either you see a number you're satisfied with and your number your life does not change at all, or you see a number that's bad, and all of a sudden for the rest of your life, that's in the back of your head. So, like, that's the VO2 max testing is not so good. Um, what is valuable is doing, you know, proper lactate step testing that's slow, that's long steps, that allows like the aerobic system to like really come online to determine someone's first and second lactate thresholds and to get their paces at first and second lactate thresholds. That's really valuable. Um, but a lot of labs, fuck it up, or there's just too much focus on BO2 max testing. Um, as far as athletes, you know, controlling intensity with lactate, yeah, that could be good. Um I find like a lot of ultrarunners are already so aerobic that it's hard for them to even train too hard. Like if we have good workout infrastructure where like the rest intervals are fairly short, the amount of work is like fairly long, they're maintaining, you know, pace as well, they aren't completely destroying themselves. Like it's gonna be often in the right zone. Um, you know, I'm seeing like there's potential, like with some athletes that like really come from a higher intensity fast twitch dev background, you know, that there's more value to potentially to lactate testing. Um, because like those athletes just have a physiology where they can, you know, they can, it is possible for them to train. It's more possible for them to train in the wrong zones. Um I have a lactate meter. I find it's a giant fucking pain in the ass to use.

SPEAKER_03 57:06

You know, wait, so there there are some downsides to being fast. Like that can actually hurt you big time.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, you can be too fast Twitch for sure, you know. You can be too fast Twitch and like you're gonna have no durability. You know, you're gonna have this like massive like top end. Um, but yeah, you won't be you won't be durable at all. Like if you're coming from like a uh very short like you know, track and you know, cross-country background, like that's often I think the case. Um but just to say, like when I've used a lactate meter, like it's it's brutal. Like if you're running on the track, then okay, it then it makes sense. But especially if you're trying to train by yourself, like unless if you have a treadmill at home, also great, like then it's fine. But like if you're trying to do these workouts at a gym, like I've had so many gyms get so pissed at me for like drawing my blood, you know, in the gym. Um, you're doing it outdoors, like, oh my God, like forget it. Like you're running uphill, like, you know, with the lactate meter, like in a vest, and you're trying to pull it out, and like, you know, you're trying to get a stick, you know, you get a you get tons of bad sticks, you know, so there's like a ton of time has passed since you last got a stick, or you get a good stick and you're, you know, this can happen anywhere, but you run uphill, there's blood all over your hand. Like it's just, it's just awful. And like I try to do it schemo when your hands are cold and it's just, it just doesn't work. So in my mind, it totally ruins the workout for me because I'm like, okay, I want to be focused on like my paces and um, you know, like really just like focus on the experience of being in this workout, like not like whether like I'm gonna get a good stick and like this bad lactate reading I just pulled on the you know, bad data that I pulled on the previous time. So I just think it's a giant, it's a giant pain. But yeah, if you have a treadmill at home, then it then it yeah, it makes more sense.

SPEAKER_03 58:44

I don't know about you, but in the hour or so before run, especially the early morning training runs, I find it helpful to have something easy to grab that actually keeps me going and not feeling like I'm operating on empty right off the bat lately. That is why I have been slotting in Kodiak bars to my morning routine. I think everyone has that bar that has earned a permanent spot in their glove box of their car. This one is mine. They come with seven grams of protein per serving, and they are made with whole grains and real ingredients. I am partial to their chocolate chip in s'mores flavors. Find them at Kodiakcakes.com or your local grocery store. They are the ones with the bear on the box. Also wanted to ask you to illustrate the differences in how a build for Western states and a build for UTB looks. So if we're talking about like intensity distribution, vert, weighted work, poles, uphill treadmill, like can you just spot the differences and explain, you know, why they exist?

SPEAKER_00 59:43

Um yeah, yeah. So uh Western states obviously, you know, running a so starting off at the base differences. Okay, like Western states, you know, you're preparing for a race that's you know, you know, what, 14, you know, 16 hours, uh, you know, obviously at the elite end. And then um UTMB, you know, you're preparing for a race that's you know, you know, what 1930 to, you know, 2330 or something that's like. Um so and then also UTMB, you're it's a race with hiking and with poles. Uh and Western states, it's entirely a running race. Um and I think I think that when you're looking at a race uh and you're thinking about it, I think that's the most important way to approach it initially. It's it's like how long is this race and what modality am I going to be doing it at? Like how much am I actually going to be hiking, you know, versus running, and am I going to be using poles? Um so obviously, you know, just starting off there, you know, Western states, all of your workouts are going to be running. Like it really doesn't make sense, you know, at the elite end. Uh I mean, I can think of some narrow context where maybe you'd want to do some weighted hiking for Western states, like maybe like hiking with weight on a steep incline treadmill or steep incline like does have like carryover to like durability and fatigue resistance running late at Western states, but personally I haven't had anybody do that. Um so Western states, it's pretty much all gonna be running speed work. And UTMB, you're gonna need a blend, uh, depending on the athlete, of running and hiking speed work. Um and then also at UTMB, you know, if you're training a schema athlete, like you never have to like think about the polls. Like, okay, you could use forget about the fucking poles, pick them up right before the race and like use them, whatever. But it's like if you're training somebody who doesn't come from a ski background, uh, it's like so important to like really deliberately think about that. And that could be like doing strength workouts in the gym, or that could just be like, okay, like we really got to think about um, you know, using poles a lot, you know, forcing terrain where you have to use poles. You have to be making decisions over like, you know, when to use poles and when not, like when poles are actually gonna slow you down, because you know, they can slow you down. I think they bias someone towards hiking and away from running. Um and also thinking about like just the mechanics of using poles properly, double polling versus diagonal polling, you know, whatever. And also just like the mechanics of getting like a good sticks with the poles. Um so there's that. Um UTMB is gonna benefit much more from like longer, slower, um long runs, and also just like yeah, more volume, like less of an emphasis on uh on speed work. And so like I have or less of an high intensity work period. So like I have athletes, you know, training for UTMB right now that are only like doing kind of like one high intensity session per week, where like the focus really is just on, you know, fatigue resistance. Um whereas for Western states, like that would be you know quite unusual. Like it's it's really important, you know, that we really work on that running economy, really work on that, like that running, like, you know, lactate buffering. Um and you know, just not as not as important for UTMB. UTMB, yeah, the volume is gonna skew a bit higher, you know, much more over, uh a bit, you know, yeah, you know, longer weeks. And Western states, you know, obviously skew skew shorter. Um and then, you know, doesn't need to be said, but like the heat side, you know, I have athletes heat train for UTMB. Um, but you know, for Western states, the heat has to be a massive thought in the last, you know, four or five weeks. Um and it kind of like it dictates like how much other high intensity work that you're able to do because the heat like takes away a lot of capacity, it takes away capacity also to do the volume.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:28

What are the downsides of heat training? Like I've always wondered why wouldn't you just stay adapted all year round?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

Yeah, I'm just imagining like um Yes. So, so I like last year I I was like heat trained, I heat trained all the way from um March all the way through September. Um, you know, granted, you know, I went to Denali in there, uh, broke my sacrum, and then was just like training for recycling and everything. But it is, you know, it's it's a big, I will say there's like physically it's it's stressful for sure. Um I think it it doesn't so much, it's not gonna really like trigger a lot of DOMs or anything, in my opinion. It's gonna be more kind of like a central nervous system hit, where you know, for me that would show up like, you know, difficulty sleeping, um, you know, just kind of like a, you know, cumulatively like kind of like feeling wired and stressed. Like that's that's kind of like what heat training will do, like if you you're doing it too much. Um and then also it's just like a giant pain in the ass. It's like uh a real pain. Like if you're, you know, again, like I'm thinking from my own context, which is like a lot of travel and like living in vans and everything. Um, like if you are living at home and have access to a treadmill at home, like it's easy. But like, you know, just coaching the athletes I have, like it's a pain to uh maintain that heat stimulus when you're when you're traveling. Like, you know, having to kind of like bring a heat with you, deal with like in a hotel room or Airbnb or van, like all these soaked garments is like a giant pain. And it's like, in my opinion, it's probably a little bit more forgiving than I kind of estimate. But in my opinion, it's like you gotta stick on like that three heat sessions a week, like, my opinion, you have to stick on that. Like you can't uh you can't be like, oh, you know, well, I missed missed a couple of weeks, because like you're gonna lose that heat adaptation, you know, quite quickly. Um, and also like, especially if you're initially trying to build it, like it's one thing, like, okay, I've been doing this for two months, I'm maintaining, I missed a heat session this week, fine. But it's like in the first like five weeks, it's essential that like you keep your like foot on the gas and you're hitting it like, you know, three, four or five times a week, you know, kind of depending, um, every single week. Uh and you know, that's hard also when you're racing and it's like, okay, I'm gonna, you know, I gotta race on Saturday, I'm gonna heat train the last time on Wednesday. And then it's like the next week, it's like you're trying to recover and it's like, oh fuck, let's let's fucking put on the heat suit again. Um like not pleasant. Uh Uh so yeah, I would think that's kind of that's kind of the issue. It's just it's just a lot of physical and mental stress to kind of like maintain that that eat stimulus. But for some people, I think it's I think it's worth it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:10

So I'm wondering, and this is more about altitude. Uh I'm wondering if you've looked at, you know, especially now that we're through XM UTMB, you've seen a lot of Americans head over there to start getting ready. A lot of them are basing right in the Chamony Valley. When what is Shamsit at 3,000 feet?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:30

3,000. And then I'm seeing people in teen. Like Tom was in teen, Ruth is in teen. Teen is what, 7,000? Yeah. Do you see any meaningful benefit in like are they like are the are the a lot of these Americans going to the wrong place. Like, do you see a benefit? Is is there a benefit to that like teen situation?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:49

Yeah, so it's funny. I have athletes in both, actually, right now. Um and yeah, it's it's it's really gonna come down to the athlete. I think it really depends a lot on the athlete. And I think, you know, this is something I I'll admit, as much as I've done on altitude, um, kind of for myself, I haven't really extended that like study kind of like out to other athletes. Uh, you know, I think a big issue is like, let's imagine you have an athlete who comes over from and is living at sea level in the US, or like let's even Salt Lake in the U.S. and goes to ting. Uh I always feel so awkward saying that. Ting I'm not pronouncing it. Tigny.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:29

Tigney.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:29

Yeah. Fan, your French pronunciations on here are like fucking like my French is bad. Anytime a French word comes up on this podcast, I'm like, holy shit. Hopefully no French, there's no French listeners.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:40

Unfortunately, there are. And uh and we get it, man. It's terrible. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:45

Um not offending me, mine's awful. Um so uh the problem is is like, yeah, if you're if you're coming over from Salt Lake or from uh you know sea level, even worse, like, and you go to Ting, uh, you know, like let's say you go three weeks out from the race, four weeks out from the race, like all of a sudden, you know, you have this double whammy of you know the jet lag at a time where your training's supposed to be peaking and you're going up to 7,000 feet to sleep. I mean, all of a sudden you've blown a whole week like out your ass, and like, you know, totally that would be even way better off just going to chamony and just like stacking some birth during that interval instead. And, you know, UTMB is so long and, you know, objectively slow that it's like, to what extent, to what extent is that extra, you know, those extra altitude adaptations like actually gonna make a difference in the context of that race? You know, it is fairly high. Um, I mean, I'm sure we can look up what the average elevation of UTMB is. I bet it's like probably 5,500 feet. Uh ooh, might be higher. I bet it's 6,000 feet.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:51

I'm looking.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

Okay. Um but yeah, I mean uh Yeah, the uh 5,700. Wow. Anyways. Um yeah, so uh like to what extent I mean like I think it really see the thing is it really depends on the athlete and how they also how they react to altitude, like you know, also kind of like in a race context. But no, I wouldn't say it's a mistake. Um I think I think altitude may be a little bit oversubscribed, possibly, because there is a recovery trade-off when it comes to going to altitude. And also like you can get a ton of those benefits, you know, through long-term kind of like heat training instead, you know. So that's its own stressor. But you could do that instead, and uh you could never have to go to an actual altitude camp. And certainly, like the the average elevation of a lot of schemo races is higher than the elevation, average elevation of UTMB, and the intensity is way higher. And you see tons of people who live lower than Chamony, who, you know, are very good at schemo.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:54

So dude, I'm recording this from outside of Portland, Maine right now. I'm currently sweating through this t-shirt just to confirm that I now believe altitude is a poor man's humidity.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:05

A poor man's humidity. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Altitude's a poor man's. Usually it was the other way around, but I guess you're taking it.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:12

I believe we have misunderstood it for years. It's going to reverse it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:17

Yeah, that's yeah, there you go. Yeah, maybe you may be onto something.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:22

You didn't talk earlier about hard downhill sessions.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:26

Yeah. Um Yeah, I mean, like when we look at Ludo, like at uh Hard Rock and how like fast he was running downhill. I mean, I this has been said for years, but I have to imagine in the, you know, I'm not certain, but in the context of UTMB, I have to imagine there is more free speed still available on the downhills than on the uphills. Like I think that's probably a lower hanging fruit. I don't know if it's a lower hanging fruit for the people at the very front of the race. It's possible. But for the people in 10th, it's absolutely the downhills, you know? Like that's what people should be focused on. Um, and uh yeah, there's a bunch of different ways to train that. And it's also important to like remember with downhill workouts, like it's also important to remember what we are trying to train for. So, you know, what I like to ask people is like, okay, like like this race that you didn't win, you know, could you have kept up with the leaders at any given time on the downhill for any amount of time? You know? Um, like, oh, I couldn't held with them for 30 seconds. It's like, okay, then this is a technical steal issue. This isn't like this, maybe we have to work, maybe it's a strength issue as well, but it's not really so much a fatigue resistance issue, possibly. Um, or it's like, yeah, I could have kept up with them, but like by the end of the race, I was fading. Or you could even have an athlete, I think there's even a middle ground where it's like, um, I just couldn't keep up with like a long sustained descent. You know, it's fine at the end of the race, but it was just like some of these descents were I I maybe that middle category is possible. So yeah, there's a bunch of different ways. I mean, like I feel like downhill workouts, you know, they're very, very stressful, but in a way, they're more forgiving as far as like the structure you're administering. Like it doesn't have to be, you know, quite as precise, you know, maybe as like an uphill or a flat interval workout. Um, but yeah, I mean, like I have athletes uh, you know, do downhill intervals. I have athletes do kind of like, you know, two, three, four-hour runs where we just, you know, we just take everything easy, but we push the downhills very hard. Or I'll have athletes go to like a gondola or a chairlift and ride the gondola or chairlift up and then run down, you know, repeatedly, you know, to do 15,000, 20,000 feet or more like in a day of descending. So there's a bunch of other ways you can take it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:37

I'm gonna give you, I think, uh a fun, a fun scenario here. Let's just imagine that Jim Walmsley has reached out to you to coach him for UTMB. Fuck. And you are programming his training, and you guys have your first call to like review the first three weeks of training, and you've thrown in a bunch of weighted uphill hiking.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:56

And Jim, being the independent mind that he is, says back, why don't I just go climb more in training? Like, why don't I just go climb extra 10,000 feet this week? What do you say to him? What's your response?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:06

Yeah, so okay. So the in my opinion, the adaptations that you'll get from all that climbing volume will be different than the adaptations you'll get from doing the, well, actually, they'll probably be quite similar, but by using that, that high intensity kind of like climbing session, then uh with the weight, we then can also keep the uh amount of vert quite high in the schedule. And uh we can uh like double dip on the adaptation. Um so let's say like to get the equivalent, let's say Jim can do, you know, let's say 13,000 meters of descending in the week. Um, if we add in a weighted workout, okay, he can do uh my opinion, let's say he can do 11,000 meters of descending, he will be in a much better position doing the 11,000 and doing the weighted workout than he would be doing the 13. Um, or and to get the equivalent, maybe he would have to do 15,000 meters of climbing. And then all of a sudden you're not doing any speed work. Um, and there's this huge tax, you know, associated all of a sudden with this, like all this downhill volume that you're throwing in. Um and, you know, with the high-intensity uphill work like that, uh, we can also, you know, for someone like Jim who's never been exposed to that, there may be value in just exposing him to something slightly different. Um, and not to say like it's it's maybe better or worse in this context, it's just different. And I think it's quite effective. Um and then I think the last thing is is also you can periodize it. And you can see like, you know, I'm sure somebody would say, well, I don't care if I can go fucking faster uphill with like, you know, 40 pounds versus 50 pounds, but you can actually periodize it. You can actually observe like, okay, week one, you know, your VAM was like 975 with uh, you know, I don't know what, 35% of your body weight. And now, you know, week two, you know, your VAM is, you know, 1,000 with 35% of your body weight, you know, whatever. We can like, you know, we can very easily measure the adaptation week to week in a way that, you know, other than I guess, you know, maybe you could do all of your base work faster, maybe you could just do more of it, like can't be measured in the same way. Um, but really the idea with the weighted hiking is to like apply a training effect to the musculature without getting like all of the global stress of doing that extrovert. You know, some of that global stress is just not constructive.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:33

Is there any case to be made outside of core work to be building upper body strength to handle like pack weight, poles, stuff like that in these longer races?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:43

Uh I think poles, yes. Um again, this is a place of bias for me personally because um I have too much upper body mass. I'm like constantly trying to just do anything to get rid of it. But like I think for a lot of athletes, especially people who do not come from a skiing background, uh, yeah, it can be valuable. Like I have like a little like banded routine I'll give uh athletes to do. Um but yeah, yeah, no, it can be it can be valuable too. Uh I mean, I don't maybe I'm under prescribing this. I don't really think about it in the terms of pack weight. Um, but uh yeah, for polls, you know, some like tricep and shoulder work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:22

Maybe a few more before we go. I'm trying to think. Well, we kind of talked about it earlier. Like you were talking about whether or not there are certain skills that like the very tip of the sphere, the front of the pack has to work on. If you were to put on your analysis hat from what you can recall from last year's U Timby or previous editions, where do you typically see the biggest room for improvement among the very best in the sport? Like in also how, two-part question, how marginal versus like maximal is that room for improvement?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:53

So I did a big analysis of the biggest one I think is going to be pacing. And like especially we saw that in 2024. Um, like 2024 was like, you know, obviously was like absolute fucking chaos. And uh then, you know, Vincent just came through and just like, you know, just cleaned up at the end. And I did an analysis of, you know, you saw it. I don't know what it was, you know, I don't know what, you know, the top whatever was on Strava, you know, as much data as I could pull. Um, so like maybe the top five, like men and women from like 25, 24. And like at the very part of the problem is is like we don't know what ideal pacing for UTMB looks like. We don't know how much somebody should be degrading by the end of the race.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:34

Um and you know, it seems And you're you're also accepting degrading. You do think that that is agreed upon. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:43

Yeah. And it it does seem to me that the top men have like kind of are kind of starting to settle on a model um of how much degradation is kind of optimum. Um I don't know where this is, but I saved it somewhere. Whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:00

Um it comes up later, we we should talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:03

Okay. Um, but uh yeah, I mean I can find it. Whatever, I'll find it. Um but take your time, take your time. Okay, here we go. All right, so the Tom, according to my analysis, he slowed down by uh 2025, when he won, he slowed down by 17.6% across the course of the race. Um Joaquin Lopez, who came in I think second or third, I can't remember, in 2024, he slowed down by 15.9%. So that's like the least degradation. Uh Vincent Bouillard slowed down by 18.4%. Um Ben Diemen slowed down by 22.3%. Ludovic, uh Ludovic, Ludo, Ludo slowed down by 23.1%. Um those, those, that degradation, so that's that's assessing first third of the race to the last third of the race uh in terms of great adjusted pace. Uh, which isn't perfect because like there are outliers. Like Ruth technically slowed down by 10% in 2024 UTMB, but her actually slowest section was the middle. So I don't think she paced it well. Um and in 2025 she pasted differently, but I don't have the data. Um Strava. Uh but um all that is to say, like the men seem to be like, I mean, certainly Vincent, Vincent, the winners, 18.4, Tom, 17.6. Uh so you know, they both think, you know, Vincent run Vincent ran such a textbook race on. So, and the the the women suffer much more degradation, even at the like, I mean, I couldn't get much, like I don't have roofs, but Katie Scheid, uh, 2024, slowed down by 36.6%. And I don't, you know, I don't think, I think honestly, from a physiology perspective, like you have to imagine if it was a flat race, I think women would degrade less in an optimal pacing. I think they'd probably have better fatigue resistance, better fat metabolism. Uh maybe on a course that's hillier, there's like more like a strength and like eccentric loading perspective or you know, component that causes that causes uh that causes more degradation or like greater degradation to be optimum. Like their fatigue resistance is poorer in the mountains. So it's like better actually for them to degrade more. Um but I don't I don't know. It just it seems to be that the men have suffered have suffered less. But you know, we could run this again uh after this year's race and kinda and kind of see. Um but I think that's yeah, the pacing is is the biggest thing. And like, I mean, certainly you saw that at Western states, you know, it was like you know, blow-ups all over the place. Uh and yeah, I mean it's interesting because I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, like Ryan was the one who spent the most time up front early. It's like, is it possible if Ryan had paced it faster, he could have he would paced it more conservatively, he could have done better. I I don't know. Like again, it's gonna come down to the optimum pacing strategy for each athlete. But um that's conceivable. Um, yeah. So I I I didn't run this analysis, be uh, you know, the problem is like some of the shit, like I don't have fucking time to do this. Like I don't have time to do this. Like it's running the analysis like of Vincent at Western States this year. Like that would be interesting to kind of see like how much he degraded. Also, like Western States, is it is it too different because the course is kind of like, you know, the heat and everything and to the altitude and kind of like the way the course is shaped. Like maybe that makes it too complicated. But yeah, I mean, it would be it would be interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:37

I mean, the natural the natural follow-up for me is are you optimistic either in the midterm or long term that uh like pacing is going to be solved for to the extent that we'll see more more elites, quote unquote, in it towards the end?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:54

Well, I'm optimistic my athletes will do it well. I don't care about the rest of the field, so I don't give a fuck. Like, I'm not optimistic or pessimistic. I'm optimistic maybe that nobody will improve it. That'd be nice. Yeah, I think people are gonna get better at it. I think it's I think it's obvious. Like, you know, you watch cycling and it's like, imagine cycling. That's like, you know, the start of the Tour de France, it's like, you know what? Like, if it was trail running, it'd be like 21 days stage race, fucking battle it out every single day, straight off RPE, like, you know, total nonsense. I'd be like, fuck my dumb SD because I'm just like gonna front run this thing. Like those guys are slow as fuck. Um, you know, like that's probably the way it would go down. So, you know, I think part of it was like in the last year, I've just like watched so much cycling because I keep, you know, injuring myself. Um, and it's like, okay, yeah, or like our pacing, and like Max like was the ultimate, Max was the ultimate proof positive of that. Because as you talked about, you know, I woke up like, you know, dutiful coach I am. You know, the race starts at 10 p.m. You know, I woke up at like 9 a.m. Eastern time, and I'm like, okay, like let me check in and see how things are going. I'm like, oh shit, Max is 40 minutes behind. And like I told, like, we talked about this before. Like, I told Max, like, like I wrote a note for him, and I was like, I want you to visualize getting dropped at the beginning of the race repeatedly. You repeatedly. And that like fucking happened. But it's like, it's one thing to like imagine that. And it's obviously another thing to like check and be like, he's like 40 minutes back, and his crew is texting me and it's like, and it's like, oh yeah, he's sticking to the plan. And I'm like, yeah, great. It's to write according to my plan. This is just what I was envisioning. I'm like, God, this, I think they'd be going this fast. Um, but like Badwater was like a really good place for me to like kind of I'm not saying I'm the first person ever to write a pacing plan for an athlete, but Badwater proved it to me at least, because, and that was the perfect race because the race provides a ton of data as far as like checkpoints, how fast the athletes were doing. It's also like all on the road, so like we can really use gap really effectively. There's like no technicality. Um so it's a really good race to kind of like pace. And also, it was clear to me that everyone paced it really badly in previous years. So it was like a good race to develop a pacing plan for. Um so that kind of like proved it to me uh personally. But yeah, I mean, looking at UTMB, like I know Tom, I can't remember what the guy's name is, is Paul Booth.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:18

Tom works with somebody who develops the nutritionist, and then Joseph is the pacing specialist.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:24

Yes. Okay, okay, thank you. Um, like clearly he knows what he's talking about because like Tom, it looks like paced beautiful race in 2025, you know. Uh yeah, I mean, thinking about it now, like I just talked to Tom a couple days ago about the Bob, and like that was a huge thing. Killian paced it so badly, it's not Killian's fault, but like that was paced very badly, and like that was the only one of the main reasons I beat Killian was just pace it better. Just like go slower for the first two hours was basically it. Um But yeah, I see that as like that is like one of the biggest places to improve, and then also, yeah, downhill fatigue resistance, you know? Like that's especially when we're talking like away from the podium, it's it's it could really be improved on.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:07

For you, change in topic, just a few more things before we go. What have you found to date to be the best way to improve someone's ability to ingest carbs while racing? I'm stealing one of your questions.

unknown 1:25:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:23

So is it super simple? Is it just like eat more during your training?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:26

So, so so honestly, like I'll admit there's other people that probably have better ideas here. Like I know David has experimented around like, oh, you know, what if we take in the carbs all in like one like large kind of like bolus, like one large feeding every hour, you know, really kind of like stress like, you know, GI track kind of like absorption and transport kind of and like stress also just like the maybe the the sensation and the mechanics of just running with a lot in your body, you know, body. The same thing with like hydration. Let's take in all the water in like a large bolus, you know, kind of like I don't know, can you do a bolus of water, just a large amount of water? Um no, like generally I just I just have athletes, you know, like I think there's value to like there certainly is value to kind of like stressing these GI tracks, stressing kind of like the upper end of what someone can can intake. And it's like not so much like making them nauseous, like there's value in just doing this kind of like higher than maybe they have historically or they have at a wood at a race of that length. So a lot of times for my athletes, every long run they do, we're just I just tell them, hey, like if this was a race, like maybe you would take in 100 grams an hour. I want you to take in 110 or 120. The intensity is gonna be a little bit lower, but um, we're just gonna take in a little bit more carbs. We're gonna experiment with that. We're just gonna see how that feels like long term. Um, then also during speed work, have athletes like sipping carbs during speed work. Uh, and there's really no value from that from a performance perspective. Like the speed work is too short, like you should have enough glycogen on board. You don't need that. But um yeah, just like, okay, like, you know, we're stressing at a low intensity, taking in, you know, quote unquote, two to you know, an excess amount of carbs. Let's take in a low, moderate amount of carbs, but at a at a high intensity, kind of like stress it in a different way. Taking in carbs also while heat training. Um, that's another thing that can be done. Uh and uh then I think there's value, you know, some athletes, you know, that their issue is they just don't eat enough during training period. So like they, you know, it's not so much a matter of like, oh, we really need to like stress this and like, you know, be operating at the limit. You know, it's like, okay, how about like every time you run for more than two hours? Every time you run but for between two and three hours, you know, you're having at least 50 grams of carbohydrates per hour. You run pro from from three to six hours, you know, you're having at least, you know, 80 grams of carbohydrates per hour. And it's just like they're just that would help performance, helps recovery, helps everything else. But also, you know, just that's just that just helps, you know, with transport carbohydrates, you know, right there. Last question. Oh, sorry, the last thing I'll say on that. Yeah, yeah. One of one of the things I have experimented with with an athlete recently, which seemed to work quite well, but. I don't know, is is kind of like gut microbiome kind of stuff. So she worked with uh LiveCap, Lifecap, you know, the LifCap would make more sense. LifCap that, you know, works the uh the uh probiotic company, you know, that works with uh Killian or that, you know, Killian is like I'm not aware. I'm not aware. Oh wow. This is rare that I've heard of something that you haven't, like in, you know, like this. Um yeah, they just like they make they make strains of bacteria that are like, you know, associated in studies with like improvements in VO2 max. And it's like, I don't know if any of that is actually true or like works, but I think you know, also it's supposed to help just kind of with like ingestion and transport of carbohydrates. And and and she has said that taking in these, I always get these mixed up, taking these these bacterial strains, these probiotics, has has improved her her eating outside of training. She says, I just feel like my digestion is just way better across the board. So um, you know, that's awesome. And it's like also has it's she thinks it's helped a lot in races as well. So, you know, that's something else to kind of um yeah, to kind of think about.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:08

But I I didn't I don't know why I didn't write down the specifics of it, but again, I was listening to a couple episodes of Evoke, last question by the way, or last topic. I was listening to Scott talk about uh just coaching Tom Evans, and he said that his uh yeah, I wrote down here that he said Tom's UTMB taper was almost identical to his taper for the year that he won Western States. And I can't remember exactly what the specifics of it were, but I like does would does that make sense to you? Like would you do have over the years has your philosophy around how to taper for a race sort of been independent of what event is taking place?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:56

Yeah, it's it's it's funny because um yeah, I don't, you know, I'm gonna be like talking out of my ass here. Like, yeah, I I I probably would have the tapers, I mean, again, heat training aside, probably would look fairly similar. I mean, I think there's there's grounds, okay, maybe you should be a little bit, you know, the taper should be longer, you know, for a race like UTMB and shorter for a race like Western states, where, you know, economy is kind of like more important and we want that to be fresher versus UTMB, like it's you know, more of a slog. We want you mentally and physically like totally kind of recovered. Um, so it makes sense to be a bit longer. But yeah, I mean, um I think it would be, I mean, you could go either way. Like, I think like I look back to the Bob, you know, which was, you know, one of my best days of running ever, probably. And I was at peak mileage, you know, five days before I did that thing. And that was like not intentional. That was just a result of like, that's just, you know, I was I was scouting and doing everything else, and all of a sudden the weather window looked like it was going to close. And so I just, I, I was like, okay, I'm trying to wait as long as possible because I just did way too much. I remember that Sunday, I did it on Friday. I think it was either that Saturday, that Sunday was the last, I did a long run. And um, I got done. I was like kind of like heat, you know, ish, like kind of not heat exhausted, but I was like cooked from the heat. And I was like, geez, like this is kind of brutal. And then I like checked the weather and I was like, oh shit, like well, I probably shouldn't have done that today. But I mean, that effort went amazingly and it was an incredibly short taper. Uh so I think the taper science is still kind of like way up in the air. It's really hard to coach athletes sometimes because I think athletes a lot of times will conflate. They'll get confused. Like, you know, with iron is funny. Like you could have higher ferritin or low ferritin. A lot of times the symptoms look the same. I think a lot of times a short taper or a long taper, the symptoms can kind of look the same. Like, you know, somebody could show up to a lot of times the way I see it is I'll have, I'll have an athlete who's used to tapering less. I'll recommend they taper more. They show up to the race and they feel flat, fatigued, whatever else, because maybe we didn't taper long enough. And they're like, it's because I didn't I tapered too much. And I'm like, I really don't think that's right. But um it's it's it can be really hard to kind of like diagnose issues with a taper. I think that's that's somewhere where I could probably improve personally. But um yeah, tapers are complicated.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:29

That's pretty cool. And maybe it's just because there was like no other option, but it sounds like because of the weather, maybe you just rose to the occasion even if you were a little bit fatigued going in and like there would have been on paper a better day to start the bob.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I think someone who's kind of like a nervous gerbil like myself, like maybe it was better that I did it when I did it, and um, I had like less time to think about it, you know? Um It was like a little kid, like, you know, give them a shot. It's like, okay, I'm gonna count down from three and they stick in their arm like on the one or something. Like that was basically, you know, I didn't have enough time to get really stressed about it because it happened way sooner than I thought it was going to. So it could have been better from that perspective for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:11

Before we go, and this has been awesome, I've learned a ton. Uh, any final words? I mean, you're not taking on any athletes right now, right? You're like trying to like reduce. Um, in the fall, I'll take people.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:23

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But I'm trying to I'm trying to largely focus on elite athletes. Yeah. So if you're if you're if you're slower than if you're slower than Finn, then absolutely not.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:39

So basically, like Dan Kurtz is on the fence.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:41

Dan Kurtz is like on the fence, yeah. Yeah. I mean, by next year, hopefully, like Dan Kurtz will be totally out. Like, I'll have moved past him.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:51

We're just, I'm just joking, Dan.

unknown 1:33:54

Um cool, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:55

Well, this, yeah, like I said, this is this has been awesome. I really appreciate you. And uh, I know we we didn't talk at all about you know your health circumstances, but wishing you speedy recovery and excited to, yeah. I mean, that's you're a great coaching mind, but I also a great athlete. So excited to see you get after it sooner than later.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:13

Hey, thanks, Finn. Appreciate it.