Ultra Marathon Training Tips for Technical Trails, Fueling & Mental Toughness with Daniel Hamilton

In this episode, I sit down with ultra runner, veteran, and mental health counselor Daniel Hamilton to talk about what actually matters when training for ultramarathons and technical trail races.

We dive into how to run technical terrain more efficiently, improve cadence and downhill running, train on tired legs, and why so many ultra runners are too focused on pace. Daniel also shares lessons from his own racing career, including fueling strategies after dealing with severe blood sugar issues during competition and how mental toughness plays a huge role in endurance racing.

We also talk about:

• Ultra marathon training strategies
• Technical trail running skills
• Cadence and downhill efficiency
• Training on tired legs
• Fueling for ultramarathons
• Mental toughness in endurance racing
• Trail race pacing and race strategy
• Strength training for trail runners
• How to prepare for technical mountain races

If you’re training for your first ultra, a mountain race, or just want to become a stronger and more durable trail runner, this episode is packed with practical advice you can apply right away.

Right, that's us done. If that was useful… share it. Stick it in your club WhatsApp, send it to that mate who's always getting injured three weeks before race day. You know the one ;)

If you want to go deeper on any of this, Nick puts out videos every week on YouTube, and the entire team of coaches are sharing helpful tips on their instagram channels... links below. And if you're thinking you actually need a proper plan and someone in your corner… we've got Guided Coaching from 97 quid a month, right up to full one-to-one coaching with the coach of your choice. Either way, maximummileagecoaching.com is where you want to be.

See you on the next one.

To work with us - https://join.maximummileagecoaching.com/home-page-9835

Nick's YT - youtube.com/channel/UCgdIPeN3bF7I7-tcspyFbVg/

Faye's IG - https://www.instagram.com/fayejohnsoncoaching/

Rachael's IG - https://www.instagram.com/rachforthelongrun/

Hannah's IG - https://www.instagram.com/coach_hannah_witt/

Matt's IG - https://www.instagram.com/ultracoachmatt/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hey, welcome to the Maximum Mileage Podcast. I'm Coach Hannah Witt, and this is where we talk about building strong, resilient runners without the constant cycle of injury, burnout, or guesswork. Each episode, I sit down with runners, coaches, and experts to break down training, recovery, fueling, and mindset so you can train with more confidence and actually see progress that lasts. And if you prefer to watch these conversations, you can find the full video versions on my YouTube channel, Coach Hannah Witt, under the Performance Collective series. Let's dive in. In today's episode, I'm joined by Daniel Hamilton, who we've had on the show before, but we're always glad to welcome back. He's an ultra runner, mental health counselor, veteran, and one of the smartest minds I know when it comes to technical trail racing and ultra-marathon performance. We dive deep into what actually matters when training for ultras, how to run technical terrain efficiently, why cadence and foot placement matter more than pace, how to train on tired legs without destroying yourself, and why most runners are approaching long-run training the wrong way. Daniel also shares lessons from his own racing career, including wins at races like Stump Jump and the Mount Mitchell Challenge, his unconventional fueling strategy after dealing with severe blood sugar issues, and the mindset shifts that help athletes stay mentally strong during long races. This conversation is packed with practical advice for trail runners and ultra athletes, especially if you want to become more durable, more efficient on technical terrain, and more confident racing in the mountains.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Buckle up. Hey, welcome back to the show. Today we have Daniel Hamilton, and he's actually been a guest on the Maximum Mileage Running podcast before. So really excited to speak with him again. Today we're going to discuss a whole bunch of stuff, but mainly I'd like to pick his brain about training for ultra-marathon distances and basically what not to do. He's an athlete, he's done ultra distances, had an amazing success. A little bit more about Daniel. We go back to my college days, to our college days at King College, now King University in Bristol, Tennessee. He he was in the Army. What were you in the Army or military? What specific branch were you in, Daniel?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

I was a warrant officer in Army Aviation.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Nice. I don't want to misquote anything because that's important. But yeah, you've been an athlete, I think, for North Face, you've done amazing races, and now you are you're a mental health counselor for a largely for veterans, but anybody who who's going through stuff, which you know, we all are, so we could all definitely use your help. But newest accolade to add to your hat is you are our mental health performance professional here on the maximum mileage team. So really excited to have you on board in that capacity.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Cool. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Yeah, thanks for for agreeing to be on again. You know, you're very first off, your episode before I think that one was one of our most popular ones. And I think everybody realizes that you're a straight shooter and you don't mess around. Like you're very honest. And I think people appreciated your vulnerability in your story about being a veteran and what you're dealing with mentally and your relationship with running and how it's changed. And yeah, people really I think like that a lot. So let's definitely continue with that authenticity for sure. Okay. Yeah. So you you've had experience with the ultra-marathon distance, and you had really great results. What would you say? Well, first off, how did you get into ultra-marathon racing?

SPEAKER_00 4:05

So I went to high school in the Smoky Mountains in Franklin, North Carolina. And Franklin's an interesting place because it's a lot, it's a working class area of Highlands, North Carolina. Highlands is a really affluent area, like in the middle of the mountains. And Franklin is kind of down off the mountain. It's still in the mountains, but there's more reasonable trail systems, but still not. If you're like running high school track or cross country, you're not on trails, you're running on the roads because the roads are as extreme as most people's trails. Wow. So I trained a lot on the roads in the mountains, and I would kind of be seen around town running, and I played a lot of soccer, and coaches kind of passed me off to each other, and I landed on an adventure race team. So Special Operations has a big adventure race, or at least they did in Highlands, North Carolina. And I joined it with one of my teachers and her husband, and we did we did adventure races, and we started doing quite a few adventure races. And are you are you familiar with adventure racing?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

To an extent, but for our audience and for me personally too, yeah, just explain what those are and how they're alike and similar, I guess, to your run-of-the-mill ultra run racing.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah. So there it's more of like a European thing. Actually, Discovery Channel had had a few big ones, and there's something in Scandinavia called island hopping where people will actually run across islands and swim to the next one. Yeah. And our version of that was adventure racing. They you can do them anywhere from one day to five days. And your there's navigation portions, there's mountain biking tethered together. So like your stronger mountain bikers will pull the weaker mountain bikers like up the mountain. There's running tethered and canoeing. And you're given waypoints. You're given waypoints, and you gotta collect waypoints. Okay, so you have like pieces of paper, you get to the waypoint, and you have a a punch and you punch the punch the card, and whoever gets done first wins.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

That's wild. Canoeing. I love that. It's just thrown in there kind of randomly, but that's the name.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yeah, you gotta get to places that are in the middle of the lake sometimes. That's so you'll be running through the woods. Oh, there's repelling too. Yeah. So you'll be running through the woods and come out and do a clearing, and your mountain bikes will be there. And it's like, oh, it's a mountain bike portion. You get another court, or you get, I'm sorry, at the beginning of the race, you get all your coordinates. Okay. You go through and you plan your routes, and then you go.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

So you have do you plan before the gun goes off, or is that that's counted part of your race time?

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Part of your race time. Oh wow. So you can either it's kind of a mind game. You can either rush it and just go find waypoints, or you can sit and plan. It's very much a military, it's a military exercise put into a race.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

What was your how how did you go about it? Did you sit and plan or did you just kind of go for it?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah, so our our team captain, there was there was three of us, right? Her husband was a Marine Corps guy. There was me. I was in like middle school and high school. And then my teacher was a um she's a history teacher. And so we would sit and plan. She would plan our route, do all the navigation. And then I was the the climber. So like anytime we got to a mountain, they would both tether to me and I'd pull them up the mountain.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Right?

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Okay. I say all this to say that at these races, we kept meeting a guy named Jay Kerwin. Okay. He's like a big deal in the triathlon community. He was a world-class triathlete, and he ran, he was like high up in Nanahill Outdoor Center. He was the race director for Mount Mitchell Challenge. If it's in the adventure race or ultra running community, like he's been a part of it. Okay. And I started getting destroyed by him when I was a little kid. First guy that ever absolutely destroyed me in a race in Spandex, you know, like I'm like in running shorts or whatever, and he's in like a tri-suit. And we'd be doing like a 5K, and he'd get off the bike after a workout and then smoke the 5K, you know? And I kind of started following him around trail running. I mean, he got me really interested in trail running. And so I started training more on trail than on the road. And I got used to really technical trail, but I didn't necessarily have a coach. So I figured things out on my own. And I would get I got in trouble in high school for trail running when you know you're supposed to, you're trying to, you're trying to break 430 in the mile this weekend and you're out like pushing your ankle on a trail.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Yeah, that's the only thing that I would think that they would get upset about, like coaches, like you hurting yourself on a trail. But I mean, trail running, that's so good for like foot speed development. It tracks.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

And that's all I had. Like I have the NCM of someone that's like five, five, six, and I'm five nine. So all I've got is foot speed. You can see you can probably see it in most of my like workouts.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

Like your case is high. Yeah. So for people who don't know, Daniel's an athlete of mine, and I can see all his stuff on training peaks, and you have like a wicked high cadence because your turnover is very quick.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah, on the bike, on the bike, most a lot of your a lot of climbers' cadence was in the 110, 105 to 110 range. On the bike up the mountain, I'm at 130.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

That's I'm like trying to maintain 90 RPM, and you're doing that. I can't even like your muscular, like that quickness.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

That's that's really quick. Yeah, but I was also running like in high school, I ran like 51 in the 400. You know?

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Like I've just always been able, I've just always been able to ask for a lot of power really quickly. So trail running kind of like running on the road, I I stress out really bad mentally, if that makes sense. Like I'm not optimizing my cadence. You know, something is something feels wrong when I'm on the road.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

I think I run on soft surfaces so much and gravel and everything else. And when I'm on the road, it's like my feet don't really have anything to grip and like like almost push off from. And it's just like I don't know what to do with this smooth road, and I like end up messing up my toes and stuff. I don't know, it's just really odd, but I can relate, obviously, but in a similar context.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah, yeah. So I seeked out trail at a really young age, and I it's the only place that I could reach flow state, have you heard of that term?

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

And so I would train really hard on trail and then kind of got into more of the classic running, you know, getting good in middle school, getting scooped up by coaches, more, you know, 400 repeats on the track. But my problem was I could always fake a 400 on the track easy, but putting laps together was a little harder for me.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Do you start if it's like biomechanics? Like you just kind of need that always different kind of stimulus. And if your biomechanics are like in this unilateral, like things just kind of fall apart.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Yeah, I can't.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Um, and and so I've always thrived on the most technical trails possible, and so I seek them out, and that's how I got into trail running. It was a mental thing.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Awesome. And so that was basically an offshoot of the adventure racing that you did earlier on, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Yep, yep. So adventure racing got me into trail running, and then I started trail running on my own, and then every summer during college, I would go back to NOC, which is right in that little mountain area. Like NOC is uh Manahela Outdoor Center is only like 12, 13 miles from Franklin, but it's an hour drive.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

It's the mountains, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah, so like I could run to Franklin on trails quicker than you know, people could drive to Franklin. Yeah, and and so every summer I'd go back to NOC and you can live there if you're staff. I would live there and I would trail run. And to get out of the Nanahela Gorge from the river to any trail system, you climb a thousand feet. Yeah. So I was doing that every day, and I didn't have a car.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

I remember in college, you'd be like, Yeah, I had to go to like post office, and I just ran there and I, you know, and then you were just like, because you didn't have a car, you would do errands and just run, and that'd be the way you got there.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah. But yeah, um, I one time I in the early, like in the tap out phase of UFC, I ru I ran 18 miles to my boss's house to watch a UFC fight. Like in the mountains. So I was doing that every summer.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

That's great. Like base training. Did you ever feel like you got burnt out, or did you feel like you were thriving in every season.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Every season. Every cross country season I would come in and burnout. But I love trail.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Yeah. Um a little bit more about Franklin, North Carolina. You said that I I guess in cross-country and high school traffic fields, you were running on the roads, but running on the roads there is like running on trails. And if you were on trails, it'd be very, very technical. When you say that, I'm trying to like remember where you know we went there for camp. But is it like a lot of gravel roads like going over mountains? Or is it still paved? It just kind of rocks.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

It depends. So you've got a lot of different kinds of trails. You've got hiking trails, the Appalachian Trail. Like, if you if you showed me a picture of a trail, like just straight down at the trail, I can tell you where it was based off of the root systems and and how worn out it is.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

So you've got you've got Sali, which we ran, we ran to we ran to. It's a very famous mountain biking area. Okay. When you get like when you get like mountain bikers in there, the trails tend to be very worn out, pretty wide, and they'll have a V notch in the bottom. And and that's because of the tires, obviously, right? But they're gonna be more flowy. So like at the Solly, on those Soli trails, because there's not a lot of routes and stuff, I went like 355 for 50k.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yeah. My goal is to like break four hours four hours for 50k. No, 351. 351 for 50k. Because they're like flowy, you know, they they cater to mountain bikers. Okay, so you've got trails like that that cater to mountain bikers. You've got the Appalachian Trail, which is gonna be lots of switchbacks, lots of roots, like trees growing like on the side of the mountain with massive roots coming down. Those are a scramble, right? And then you've got stuff like we used to run on on the Creeper Trail. That's still considered a trail. It's an old railroad bed, right? And then you've got, I'm starting to sound like the guy in Forest Junk talking about shrimp.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

But different kinds of rain or different kinds of shrimp or exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

So you've got like all different kinds of trail systems, and so something I started adopting early on, and it's really easy in Chattanooga, where we'll we'll get to eventually. When I lived, when I was pro, I lived in Chattanooga. You can get a workout, but you can make the workout like optimal picking a trail that's good for it. So if you've got hard, a hard fart, like go to a really technical trail. If you've got a tempo run, do it on a mountain bike trail.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

That makes sense because it's more flowing and not starting and stopping so much for technicality.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Exactly. Practice hiking, you know, like sometimes going uphill walking is faster than running. A lot of the a lot that's lost on runners a lot. So pick trails based on your workouts.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

That makes a lot of sense, yeah, for sure. So when I think about because the Appalachian Trail passes through where I live too, and that's where I've fallen probably the most, just because like they're rough. Uh the yeah, it's really, really rough, but also there's so many little little stairs, like rock stairs climbing up. And you know, if you're descending on those stairs for any appreciable amount of time, that is a quad burner. Like I would say that was it was that's probably the toughest trail. But then I think about bike trails that I've run on too because where I'm at where I'm at, that's Lisa McCrae, and you know Lisa McCray, you've probably run on the bike trails here before, right? Behind the college.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yes, yeah. I've also been to uh Moses Cone.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

I'd say Moses Cone is definitely more similar to like a Virginia Creeper Trail experience, but the cycling trails behind Lisa McCrae, yeah, like if it hasn't rained for a while and it's very much like, like you said, like a V. And you know, for somebody who's running style is kind of like they tend to put one foot in front of the other, like very like streamlined, you know, like that's very conducive to that. But for people who are like very much like you're like running down a road and your feet are like on either side of a solid line, like that's tough. But yeah, do you feel like do you excel at a particular type of trail, or is it like you said, it's basically whatever workout you're doing, like pick your poison, that's gonna be what what you what you're good at that that that day?

SPEAKER_00 20:25

You have to be good at everything. I liken it to if you you watch motocross ever, there's certain areas in motocross where guys can only go through a technical section so fast, or they'll get thrown off their bike. Right? So when you're coming up to a technical section, you have to have run technical trails in order to kind of pick your line really quickly, because the entire field is gonna be running the same pace through that area. Fitness is only gonna come out when you hit a road between trails or you're on a on a mountain bike trail.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

I yeah, I relate to that a lot when you say you have to pick your mind, you know, like just from being on cycling trails a lot, you have to like be really quick in figuring out, you know, where like foot placement and everything. And I would say, since this episode is largely about what not to do, I guess, for ultra training, you've really got to get on trails and a know what kind of trail you're going to be on, b practice on a similar type of trail as much as you can because those little things like trying to quickly determine foot placement. I mean, you don't have time unless I mean unless you're walking or whatever. But you know, if you want to do a trail ultra run or ultra marathon quickly, you've really got to have that like instinctual where to place your feet. On whatever kind of trail surface it is.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah, one of the first big races that I won was Stump Jump 50K. And I fell probably six times.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Wow. Like, do you remember what you fell over? It's like tree roots, rocks.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

It's all for me, for me, it's always roots because I have that fast turnover. And as I get tired, my foot starts the front of my foot starts to drop a little bit. And so I catch my toe as I'm coming back over. Do you gotta know kind of you gotta know stuff like that about yourself? What happens when I'm tired?

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Yeah, that makes sense. It's especially too if you're like a hip flexor dominant runner where you're lifting your leg up a lot. Like obviously you're doing that for 50k or more. Your hip flexors are gonna be toast. And so you really have to develop like your foot strength as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Yeah. And cramps always start furthest from your your core. And so your your ankles and shins are gonna be what start cramping first, and that manipulates kind of what your what your foot does.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Interesting. I didn't know that about cramps.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah. Yeah, like if you start if you start hitting electrolyte imbalance, you start getting little little spot cramps in like your feet and your ankles. At least that's my experience. And that starts causing you to fall.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

You know, when you talk about that and you couple that with the different kinds of trail services, I think about footwear, and I think about like maximal shoes and things like that that are becoming popular with trails. Like, do you still like them? You don't like them. Yeah, we talked before. You like not for racing.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

I like innovate, innovate, like tear a claw. I would rather, I would rather my feet hurt than fall.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah, because I can think, like I can picture the like the foam underneath catching on everything once you start to get fatigue.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

You know, you felt yeah, it was always kind of uh like I when I was pro, so after like I did intermittent trail running through college, and anytime we came out to trails when we were in college, I was like, oh my gosh, thank you. Like I can like relax again, you know? Because I I when I'm roadrunning, my mind just wanders and it's never good.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

So yeah, on trail, I'm I'm like, I'm in it, I'm focused, I'm not thinking about anything else. And so when once I went pro, I was training under Patrick Reagan. Have you ever heard of him?

SPEAKER_02 24:42

I haven't.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

He's a hoke, he's a Hoka runner, he's won Javelina Jundred like five, six times now. Yeah, I can I can give you his info anyway. He'd be good on this, but he's from Savannah, Georgia, and he's way faster than like he's like a golly, I think he was like a sub-14 5k guy in college, but like he was like a road road guy. He can't, I mean, he's training in Savannah for ultras, right? And so he's always giving me like mileage, mileage, mileage, but I'm doing it on like the side of a mountain at Signal Mountain in Chattanooga, right? So he always also used maximalist shoes. Cause and and I was like, dude, it doesn't it just doesn't work for me. Like I just can't, I've got to feel the ground. Like I'm moving a lot of meat, like the like like for a distance guy, I've always been a little chunky, you know. And I need to be able to feel the ground. And so in those Hokus, I would just fall all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

What year was that like when I guess when you tried out the HOCAS? Because they've changed a lot. I will say that. Like earlier models, definitely the rocker was pretty extreme, and I know that different people that I talked to, they love them, or they're like, oh my gosh, my T-band, everything just went out when I started wearing them.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

20 or 2015, maybe 2016. I had a pair, I had a pair of their, I cannot remember, they were like lime green. Liked them a lot, but they were pretty minimalist, and they ended up not making them anymore. I was always the innovate. I liked innovates a lot, and they're more of an English like fell running shoe.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Yeah, where I used to work at a shoe kind of boutique style running store in South Florida. We had innovates, and a lot of I don't know, a lot of people who lift a lot, they gravitated towards the innovates, I guess, because they're like more minimalist, you feel the ground more and everything, so that makes sense. But yeah, I never I never ran in them, but I would definitely I was running really technical trails, definitely consider those.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, so trail has always been kind of like a a way for me to escape because I can't think about anything else when I'm running across the trail. But one thing I did that a lot of my trail running buddies didn't do is I varied the trails I ran on a lot.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Clearly, because you just explain all those different types of trails. That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

If you think about it, races go across all different kinds of trails.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

You know, you gotta be good at gravel roads, roads, technical trails. And if you can when I won when I won Lookout 50, the the first like 10 miles of it was downhill at the beginning. And so like you gotta be good at downhills. You know?

SPEAKER_02 28:13

Have you ever raced anywhere outside of the southeastern United States where we predominantly have like roofs and rocks and you know the climbs and everything like that?

SPEAKER_00 28:25

I did JFK 50. And that's like all railroad grade kind of. I mean, I think I went through I think I went through 50k at like three hours 40 minutes. It was so fat, like it was such a fast trail. But I ended up blowing up around mile 40. It was bad. I ended up in the hospital.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

What happened?

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Yeah, it was it's always been a sugar, like a blood sugar issue with me. When I text you, like, hey, I that was terrible. I walked, it's always blood sugar. Like if I had you know coffee with cream in it or pieces of candy, my day is like wrecked.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Well, I've always let's talk like talk about that. How does what does that feel like? Because I know that if I have sugar now, it's almost like I'll feel like I'm hungover the next day. Is that what you feel like, or does your like pulse really fast?

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Or what I get I get really like clammy. My mind starts racing, I I feel dizzy, I can't I I can't run. Like I can't make it's weird. I wonder what's like this. I think your brain just runs on sugar. So if you had sugar and like so when you when you eat sugar, and uh I I'm I've got history of hypoglycemia in my family.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

You release the metabolites for sugar, right? And you metabolize it so much you that your sugar tanks.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Okay, it's not like a slow, steady metabolite.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

No, like normal people can eat can eat sugar and their body just eats the sugar, you know? You release insulin and it metabolizes the sugar. With hypoglycemics, like you release a lot of you release a lot and it just like tanks your blood sugar.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

I was always one that liked Eucan during races.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Eucan, yeah. I yeah, I don't know. Is that still very popular in terms of fueling? Because I know it like in 2014 around when I was working in a running store, it's like you can, that's the way it go. You don't want to depend on sugar and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

I believe it was actually designed to help stabilize blood sugar in Down syndrome patients. That was initially what its use was, and then it and then it hit the running market.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

I didn't know that about it. That's really interesting. I'm gonna have to research that more.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Yeah, it's really good. I liked it a lot. I did I won Lookout 50 on it, I won stump jump on it, I won Mount Mitchell Challenge on it.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

When like for people who aren't familiar with these places, like Mount Mitchell, that's a high elevation mountain. What do you know off the top of your head what it is?

SPEAKER_00 31:40

It well, I mean, if you're in the Rockies, it's not like for Asheville. I think it's like 11,000 feet, if I remember correctly. But it was in that race in particular, was eight inches of snow. And so they shut the trail down. We ran on the road, but it was an icy road, and so but it was a pull all the way, you know, straight up the mountain, and that's what I'm always best at is get a high heart rate and pin it and just go.

SPEAKER_02 32:12

So, next question. My my sister actually signed up for Grayson Highlands. I don't remember which ultra distance. Have you done that one before? I think I was reading your blog, and that's the one I clicked on to, and so I was like, I'm gonna ask them about that.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

What can Yeah, it has many horses.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I remember going there as a kid because I'm from Mountain City, so we go up there. But what is what is that race like?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Uh lots of out and backs, clover, kind of like a lot of clovers, which I don't do well at work. Like I just I I like I like a point-to-point or like big loops. Um, even you'll see it a lot of my running, it'll I'll do out and backs. Because by the time I get out, I gotta come back. You know? Yeah. If I'm doing a loop, multiple loops, I'm like too weak for that. I'll just like be done after like but Grayson Highlands. So you start and you kind of go, you wind down around the mountain and do a bunch of clovers and out and backs and stuff. Uh it's pretty technical. Lots of I remember lots of cur like water-shaped rocks. I I like twisted my ankles a couple times.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

So like it used to be riverbed? Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 33:31

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

So really technical, lots of clovers.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

My general rule of thumb in trail running is if you can take 10 steps, take 20. I I I think the more steps the better.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Like to protect yourself from falling, to conserve energy for speed, or all of them.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

All of them. Do you want to move like you know, do you want to move 200 medium-sized rocks? Or do you want to move like 400 tiny rocks?

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Some people would probably say they might say 200, depending on their like their mentality, their strength. But yeah, I mean for a fish you're we're runners, you know.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

You wanna like on trail, you always want to be able to accelerate. And the only way you can accelerate is if your foot's on the ground.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

That's something a lot of people too may not immediately understand. That there's so much acceleration and deceleration involved in trail running, and you know, technical trails for sure. And if you're somebody who really thrives on that kind of road running, find a flow state, or something similar to that, you know, you're you're changing gears so much on trails and that kind of choppiness, and that, you know, that's a different kind of strength for sure.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Yeah, that's why I I think that's why I always ran like the 1500 in college because I trained like the trails got me ready for that.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Yeah, like for 1500, how would you dissect that race in your mind, like in terms of uh laps?

SPEAKER_00 35:24

First 200, first 200, you're trying to get position. It's always easier to fall back into position than than to go up into position. Get in the pack, disappear until like going into the second lap, there's gonna be a little push. Try to hold on through the back stretch, third lap, hold on for dear life because it's gonna start feeling like you're running in wet concrete, and then just kick. I was a big kicker, so you know, move out to the second lane and kick as fast as you can.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

From trail running, that's that acceleration. Yep. I think about running 5k on track, and it's like I can picture Coach Dalton like yelling at me, get in that front pack, because you know, always separate into two packs, like in the first K are even quicker than that. And if you weren't in that first pack, like you didn't have a prayer, you know? Like you have that first pack, and yeah, it I I enjoy track racing, like it stresses me out to think about it. Like, if I when I think about even like running on a track right now, I get I get pretty nervous. Like, I don't know. I I want to normalize that because I want I want to be good at um speed work again, but yeah, that it brings back memories.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

No, I I I'm the same way, like the track's sacred. I always liked track more than I I I didn't really like cross country.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

Really? You would think that you would kind of gravitate more toward that, giving it just made me think about trails, like you know, like I and and I got I mean I almost needed that acceleration to to um thrive.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

So in cross country, you know, I wasn't one of those like top top dudes. I was just trying to survive a lot of the time. I was also really, really tired from all the extra runs during the summer.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Yeah, you probably came in overcooked, and that's why cross is just kind of like a chore, you know, and then by the time you got to track, you were you were like revived again. I I recently had a podcast with Nassim. You remember Nassim?

SPEAKER_00 37:51

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Oh yeah, and uh we were talking about like our tendency to kind of well, for me at least, I get to cross country, I wouldn't feel fit because summer, I don't know, I would just do bass training and I didn't know about like doing strides, at least trying to do some kind of speed in some form so that you don't come come in slow, but and then I would finally kind of come to life indoor and then by track like outdoor I'd be injured. So it just is some nightmare.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Yeah, yeah, I I was always I was always wrecked during cross country, but I loved running um I loved hills. I I liked hills, they were just never long enough.

SPEAKER_02 38:36

I think about for cross-country courses that we did. You well, let's see. We did Louisville together, right? And McAlpine Charlotte, right? Those are the two that stand out to meet them, but maybe Spartanburg too. Do you remember Spartanburg? Spartanburg is like grass fields forever. Louisville's pretty similar with the grassy fields, and then you went to Boone together. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

That was you know I always loved that meet. I was always peeking at that time.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

Because that was that was like in August so soon. But yeah, that was that pretty good hill. You probably like flew up it then flew down it, and then you were home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

That's a good yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I I I remember I just remember smoking the seam.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

He's gonna listen to this and be like, okay, I'm gonna have to get back on the podcast and myself.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

No, but that was like the only race that I did because they're the only race that I did, because after that I was just completely destroyed. And then I remember it hit Coach Dalton when he brought everyone out to NOC. Because I was like, we were riding out to Solly in the van, and that Solly was my favorite place to run, but I had to ride my bicycle like eight miles to get there from the cabin I lived in. So anyway, he was like, he's like looked at me like, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Like you're riding your bike, yeah, and you rode your bike. Wow. No, I remember like I enjoy those trails that we went to at camp, you know. They were just I was like, this is single track trail running, I've not done this before, but it is it's all it's all like muscle proprioception, like your brain has to adapt to it.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

That's why I think people need to run technical trail if they're gonna race trail. Because it's really dangerous if your brain hasn't done that, like problem solving a lot.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

And also, too, like get your blood checked if you feel like anything is off, because you have to be so on when you're on trails like that. Like, if you're anemic, if your cognition seems off, like you could have magnesium deficiencies, so many other kinds of deficiencies, and yeah, just make sure. Like, have you had anemia before? Like low ions?

SPEAKER_00 41:26

No, I I I've always been kind of like like I said, diet was never really my problem.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

It was the hypoglycemia that you mentioned, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Especially when I cycled, I had to I had to be eating like every 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

I mean, that's not unusual now. It's like for runners, if you're doing long run, if you're doing a workout or anything that's higher than just an easy effort, take some kind of fuel every 20 to 30 minutes, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Cyclists are different. I I rode, I when I had an IT vein injury, I was a I worked at a bike shop and I rode for them nothing crazy. I just like cat cat five, cat four, I was almost cat three, which in cycling there's a cat system. And those guys could ride forever without eating anything. Oh, I do it blew my mind.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

Well, why do you think it is? Were they like just staying zone two most of the time, or were they really pushing?

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Yeah, they just stayed in fat burning like all the time.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

You think about it, like your lactate threshold, you've got your zone two, which is you're like, like you said, fat burning. And then when you start to work really hard, you switch from that fat burning to carbs. Do you feel like I mean, I feel like you're a pretty thick guy, but do you feel like you just thrive more on carbs in general?

SPEAKER_00 42:58

I think I yeah. I mean, well, I think for me, it's really hard to transition from carbs to fat burning. Like I don't my body doesn't do it well. I think when I did look out 50, I was in zone, I was in zone three for like up until 50k, and then I hit zone four and zone five like the last couple miles.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Do you think that was just heart rate drift, like from other factors, or were you just did the heart?

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Oh, you're right, you're right. I drank Coke. I drank Coke the last couple miles. And it just like, you know, because I knew I was like, there was a guy, there was a guy named Cole Crosby, and a guy who's actually I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but he's finished Barclay. Have you heard of Barkley? Oh, yeah. Barkley marathons.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

I'm from Tennessee. I know that one.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

Yeah, he's finished that like two or three times. But I beat I beat both of them, but they were chasing me. They were trying to they were trying to get me.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Have you ever thought about doing Barclay just like randomly? Why? I mean, it's so much navigation. I almost feel like you would do really well.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

I like a course that is laid out and planned.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

They're kind of just going through the woods. You're literally not a path, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:32

Correct. They call it call it bushwhacking.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Yeah. It's a whole nother thing. There was some of that in adventure racing, and I hated it. We did that in the army and I hated it. You're just like so uncertain all the time that you're going the right direction. That it's a real it's a real psychological struggle.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

That makes sense. So for listeners who are thinking, okay, I want to do an ultra marathon. I live not in a place that is anything like what I'll be running on. What what should they what should they do to kind of simulate that their their race? Like, do they have a chance, do you think? Can they can they use other tools? Can they do incline treadmill? Or like what would that athlete do who doesn't live in the conditions that they'll be racing?

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Stairmaster is amazing. Max out incline treadmill and just get used to doing it as long as you can.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Like what percent incline would you suggest?

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Maxed out.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

As high as it will go.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Yep. Yeah, like I did with you know how I said do a workout that's on a technical trail. Let the trail be your barrier. Let the let the treadmill be your barrier. So like I had a buddy, Scott Breedon, who was from Kentucky, and he was in med school when we raised. He beat me. I got what's the Huntsville race? I did I'm completely blanking on the name of the race. Anyway, he anytime somebody beat me real bad, I would try to get to know them and figure out what they were doing training-wise. That dude would do three hours maxed out on the treadmill.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

Okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

I mean, he he and he how he started was walking. He just worked his way up. But you never take that maxed out treadmill down. You're you know, the treadmill's your barrier. Because that's the way trail is. You're presented with a you can't adjust the trail.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

So maxed out treadmill. You think of any kind of like biometric type drills or any kind of wall sips. Wall sits. Yeah, tons and tons of wall sits. That would help with the downhill pounding your quads for sure.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

That's what always blows people's mind is it's not the uphills that hurt the worst, it's the downhills, especially in hundreds. I I crewed my buddy for the the Grand Slam. Uh for three of the Grand Slam. Vermont 100, Western States, and another hundred, oh um another hundred in Alabama. And sorry, all these race names are like old brain cells. Um and Pin Hodi 100. I crewed him for those three races, and in crewing, there's a certain amount you can pace people. And I I did 70 miles of Western States, 70 miles of Vermont 100, and like 60 miles of Pinhoe, I did twice, and it was always the downhills that would wreck them. They would start struggling real bad on the downhills, like knees going, knees and quads, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

So I guess the best thing you can do is do the wall sets. But would you even say to somebody who is anticipating a lot of downhill in their race that they should make a plan right away to like walk the downhills, or what would you say?

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Do what you feel. You know, have little win. You know, in the military, we used to call it hunting the good stuff. You've got to create a game for yourself to where, like, okay, I'm gonna walk the next two downhills, but then I have to run the next one. You know? Yeah, that makes sense. That way it's not like a question of am I gonna finish? It's it's what it what can I control right now.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

That makes a lot of sense. Ultra, I'm a control freak, you know, so I can definitely see that being appealing is controlling what you can, because obviously ultra running presents so much uncontrollable variables. So that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 49:17

Yeah. At Lookout 50, I had the race broken up into sections. Down the mountain, across the bottom of the mountain, you're at 50k, you go up the mountain. You cross this, you cross the finish line, and you're halfway done, or you're more than halfway done with the race. But the the the next part of the race is the hardest. So the race just started. You know, I'm just on a tired start of a run.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

And did the next section and then the last four miles. Okay, now whatever diet will get me to the finish line, I start it. And it won me the race. You probably read in my blog, Mount Mitchell. I just wanted to be in the in the race across the top. I just wanted to be in it. And I was in second, caught first, and just tried to hold on to him until the last 5k, and then just you know, smoked him because it was a road section. He had he had only been running like he was a good downhill runner. So I was like, okay, this guy's just gonna smoke all the downhills, I'll just hang on. But then he's gonna have nothing for the the road section, you know. So we hit the last I think I put four minutes on him in the last 5k.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

Do you ever race with poles?

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Uh no.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

Dude, that's surprising. A lot of people always ask me, should I should I race with poles? And are they gonna help me or are they just gonna be in the way cumbersome?

SPEAKER_00 51:04

Try it. If you don't like it, don't. If you if you do, do it. I mean, trail running is all about what makes you most comfortable because it you're going to be uncomfortable. You know?

SPEAKER_02 51:18

When you were seeing, like in Franklin and you know, in China Batoon, you were on trails. Did you? I mean, I guess you would know like the distance of whatever trail system that you were running, but in case you were on a trail that it didn't have marked distance, did you use Garmin or did you just assume a certain minute mile? Like, how would you track mileage?

SPEAKER_00 51:39

I did it. I ran off time. On trail, mileage doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 51:47

If you are okay, I'm racing a 50k or whatever, and I need to be able to handle this amount of mileage on this kind of trail. I mean, does mileage come into play at that point or what?

SPEAKER_00 51:57

A time. So a lot of times I would do like a two-hour run on a Saturday and an hour and a half on a Sunday. You don't ever want like a lot of where where my path with a lot of my trail running buddies in Chattanooga kind of veered off was that they would go out for these five and six hour long runs. That's just making you tired. If you're training for a hundred, I can see it. But you need to be able to do four hours the next day at least. Like you want to tag, you want to tag shorter runs together because that second run is going to feel more like how you'll feel in a race than the first run.

SPEAKER_02 52:48

It makes sense. I think of like doubling, like it's always harder to put your shoes on. You know, if you're like, I'm just gonna bust out, you know, longer run in the morning and be done with it, like you can build off of that momentum. But if you do like take some time and then come back to do your double in the afternoon, like it gets harder. You feel heavier, so I can definitely see that being beneficial.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

Yeah, so sometimes on a Saturday, I would do a two-hour road run in the morning, hour technical run in the afternoon with my tired legs, and then Sunday another two-hour run. That's better to me than running all that at once. Because there's less trash mileage in there.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

You know, maximum mileage, we definitely for people doing ultra distances. You'll see, like we'll have maybe four to six weeks out. Do do a test four to five hour run, but we're not doing that every weekend, right? We're doing, like you say, we're stacking days. Maybe do 13 to 15 miles on a Saturday, and then the next day on Sunday, you're doing an hour of the 90 minutes, and it's not constantly pounding out these four to five hour long runs because that's just gonna build up fatigue and you're gonna be wrecked for days and you're gonna feel like garbage until like probably mid to later that week. So, you know, it's better about just consistently doing like streaming days together and having consistency.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

And you'll your form won't suffer as much. I'm such a big form runner, you know. When I first started running, I it was always coaches would always be like, whoa, you know, I wasn't crazy fast, but I looked good when I ran. I think it was because of the turnover. And when I'm super tired, I do I you'll you see on my resting pace is like 15-minute pace. Because my short legs can't fake, you know, a pace. If I'm going easy, I'm doing what they call the airborne shuffle in the army. That's where you're running with like an 80-pound ruffsack, you know, and you're just like shuffling along. That's me when I'm resting. Because it takes an equal amount of that power to get my you know, big legs moving.

SPEAKER_02 55:17

That makes sense. Do you have any other advice for ultra athletes? It's been really enlightening and helpful, and I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

I just harp on get on technical trails. You know, make your brain get used to the trail, not the other way around.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

You know, trail's not gonna change before you break it.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

Exactly. Get on technical trails. You'll go through sections where people aren't ready and their pace falls apart, or they get hurt, or they get demoralized. If you can run through the technical section of a trail fast, people are gonna start disappearing behind you. That's a lot of don't don't freak out about pace, just get out and run on technical trails. Yeah, I think that's something people watch skillion journey videos.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Oh, yeah. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

But that yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:23

For people who say, Well, I have a 13, 15 mile long run this weekend, and I I want to do trail running, and they get so discouraged when they see the pace just drop off, and they're like, I was out there for like four hours, you know. And it's I guess some people are just like they they really want that pace to be high so they can post it on Strava and feel good about it and stuff, but you gotta you just gotta put your pride aside and just get out there and do it because you're gonna have to if you're signed up for an ultra marathon and technical trails.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

Yeah, you can't rest on, you know, jets aren't good. Jets are not good passenger airplanes. You know, you're trying to be a dirt bike, you're not gonna be able to ride around like a road bike. You're trying to be a dirt bike, you gotta train like it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 57:24

That's great. Thank you, Daniel, so much for all this information. Appreciate it. I'm sure we'll have you on again at some point to discuss some other nuance of training or maybe psychology mindset, that kind of thing. But I certainly appreciate your time today.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Cool. Thanks for having me.