The GOAT Formula, Female Durability & Cocodona's New Record

(upbeat music) Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to 1% better where we take a look at hidden stories in sport, I'm Zarlene Fneik, and I'm joined today by Dr. David Lippmann, his medical question for us to verify that he's a medical doctor is, what organ uses 20% or about 20% of the body's total energy despite being only about 2% of body weights? - Brain. - Clearly using yours. - That's a classic one. - Yeah, it's a very classic one. - And I'm guessing that's because of the important role that it plays, and I have this not a theory, I think it's actual science. Do you know, often people don't full in context, in conversations, in marketing, briefs, they just expect you to know something. I think it's because the brain is trying to conserve energy, the brain, so what you already know, the brain falls in the gaps, not knowing that you have not fooled in the gap for the other person that you are asking help from. That's why we often bad at bringing context, I think. - No, I think it's just because we're a bad at communicating mate. - Was it an exercise I did behind Creek, previous guest, had me do this exercise when he was running a course for us, and he got us to write down how you would make a slice of toast with butter on it. - And so we talked about this, yeah. - And the point is, there's assumptions. So you'd say cut the bread, put it in the toaster, toast it, put the butter on it, say, where's the butter from? Where do I get the bread? How do you want to cut, how many slices, how long is a toaster on for, how thick do you want that? So there's all this context that is actually really important for how you make the toast. Right, if we think of the toast as not one homogenous thing, do you want it completely charred, or do you want it almost still fresh? Is it frozen or is it not? Where did you get the bread from? What type of bread is it? How am I doing that? Is it just butter on my adding stuff? Like how much butter am I putting on it? - Context. - Am I making it a sandwich? Or yeah, well, that's all that stuff, right? So there's an assumption that you just think the people see the vision the same as you. I've worked and we talked about this offline the other day with people in our previous role, where I would give them almost no context, because they would give me 10x anything I could give them. They would bring back something better. I'd be like, hey, I wrote roughly this and they were so good, they would bring back something that was better. So some of it is about communication and part of communication could just be an implicit understanding that we have. So we might, in sporting contexts, it's a look, right? They often talk about this, like, I play with him a lot, I just look at him, we know. So it's that. That is still a form of communication, which is an implicit understanding, and it's the assumption that there is an implicit understanding that I think is the issue, not necessarily about conservative brain energy, but the reason the brain uses so much energy is it's just very metabolically active, man. It is basically doing everything all the time, it is regulating everything that we're doing at all times. You know what that's all about? You do an endurance event like a marathon or ultra-marathon or whatever. The maths goes out the window towards the end when you're very fatigued and you're very tired. Is that because obviously you have limited in the amount of energy you use and the brain's literally just using it for what is really, really important, like to keep you alive? - Well, I think fatigue is manifesting that. So if you think about fatigue, without speaking specifically about different types of fatigue, but we think fatigue globally, you make bad decisions when you're tired, right? Like that's, and you struggle with basically when you're tired. Now that's irrelevant of the source of the fatigue, or if we keep you up for 48 hours or if we get you to run a marathon or something like that. Interestingly, there was a paper released, I believe it was from Toronto marathon. It was certainly, I think it's Canadian marathon or maybe not, maybe it was somewhere up, anyway, it doesn't matter where it was. But they looked at, they scanned people's brains, post pre and post marathon, and they found there was a significant reduction in some of the myelin in the brain, which is basically the only thing about the brain cells and the neurons in the brain, is that they're like a wire with insulation around it. The insulation is actually fat, and it's called myelin, it's a myelin sheath. And the myelin actually reduced in size. So there's like a reduced white matter in the brain. Post, post marathon, which recovered, but there's a significant energy requirement for running a marathon and the brain uses a bunch of it. So yeah, it's fascinating to see that. - Yeah, my wife actually texted me last night 'cause she's in Mauritania at the moment, and we are doing renovations at home Mauritania. Up in North Africa. - Where is that? - Very North Africa on the board of. - I've never heard of that. - Yeah, never Mauritania well. I mean, I couldn't point it out to you before she went, but I definitely heard of it. Anyway, she's doing some public health work there, and we're doing renovations at home at the moment, and you might hear in a second or two building crashing things in the background if you hear. Anyway, she texted me about some budget stuff for the building, but I've had an exhausting week between managing the building, balancing client work, all while looking after a little puppy that is now fast asleep at my feet, 10 week old, well, a shout out to all the listeners who asked about well, by the way, I didn't redirect them. I think the two episodes ago, right at the end of the episode, she makes an appearance, a shout out to the listeners who asked for that. Anyway, my point is, - I'll, Pablo, made a comment to that effect. I think he came to YouTube. - YouTube, really? - Seriously, it's specifically, Pedro, I'll made it. - Yeah, that's what I said. Did I say Pablo? - Pablo. - Oh, jeez. - Oh, I'm so sorry. - Oh. - Pedro, I'll made a cave specifically to YouTube to see that where he usually listens to audio-only, and he can't see how red I am in the face at the moment, which is good. - To give him this context, we made that mistake genuinely a few weeks ago, and we apologize, calling Pedro Pablo. And that's just that, but again, anyway, quickly, I'm telling a very boring story. My point is, she texted me, "I've been exhausted this week, managing building, looking after a puppy and client work. Last night, she wanted to talk about budget seven, I was just like, I'm fatigued, I'm exhausted, I'm gonna make mistakes, like in this state. I'd rather do it first thing tomorrow morning when I'm fresh. Did the budget this morning, I was alert, I was fresh, bang on." So to speak to what you were talking about, making bad decisions when fatigued, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, we've gone off on a tangent and a medical question, I love it when that happens. I did mention ultra-marathens, and the math goes out the window. We spoke to someone about that recently. Rachel Entrican was on the podcast, representing precision fuel and hydration, one of our partners on the podcast. She gave mine a couple of weeks ago to talk about defending her title at Cocodina 250 and dead. She defend her title, David. Yeah, you know, I watched portions of this. I was definitely not watching on the tracker, all that stuff. It was pretty crazy. I mean, so Elis DeCourtney actually asked, he commented on the episode and he said, "New Cocodina 250 record holder now would be good to get some post-race feedback after this. We haven't reached out to Rachel. She is doing the podcast rounds at the moment." So there's a couple of reasons for that. I think just to tell people how the sausage is made, I don't like to rehash stuff. I want people to do a unique interview here, 'cause it's not exciting for them. It's not great for the listener. So I haven't listened to any of our post-race stuff yet. I know precision did some stuff with her, so you can go check out the precision YouTube channel. She's also been on all the major trail running podcasts, a single track. Can't remember what Dylan Bowman's one. It alludes me, but yeah, Dylan Bowman's one as well. So if you look up Dylan Bowman's podcast, he's had her own as well. So I think those would be good interviews. So she will do that there. We're probably not gonna get her on, but for those reasons. And so, and look, candidly again for her, it's much better for her to be on those ones. They've got much more sponsorship and reach in the trail running space, so that's great there. But it's interesting. I got a lot of messages about this. I was so surprised at how engaged our listenership was with her. - I'm believe it. - And that story, which I think is really cool. So just for context for those who maybe didn't follow, she ran 50609. So the last year, the record was set by Dan Green. That's the overall record, which she broke, at 5847. That's always, by the way, for anyone who's tuning into this podcast very, very, that's 56 hours. - Consecret. - Yeah, well, it's a 250 mile race mate. As I said before, so hopefully she's not doing in the minutes anyway, but that's an average of eight minutes, 13 per kilometer, which is surprisingly quick. - Wow. - That's insane. - Yeah. Anyway, so in the women's race, Courtney DeWalter came second. She was sick overall in 61 hours, 58, Megan Eckert, who's also a precision athlete. She got third overall, sorry, third women, nine overall in 6309. So it's all under last year's record from Rachel. So all under Rachel's record from last year, which is crazy and awesome. Heather Jackson, for those who are familiar, so Heather's done Iron Man. She's done a bunch of cyclic cross, so she's like an all-around endurance athlete, which is quite interesting. She was in second, she was second woman from most of the race, to be honest. She was right up there. And then she, all of a sudden, apparently, the four miles to go is off the trail, hallucinating and all sorts of stuff. So back to the brain energy and the sleep deprivation thing. That's pretty classic of sleep deprivation. There's this theory, and I don't know how well it's supported anymore, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong listeners. But one of the theories is you kind of, hallucinations follow a bit of a pattern similar to REM sleep when you deprive the body of REM sleep. So it's quite interesting. So you have these kind of dreams, but you're awake. So anyway, fascinating stuff there. Killian Corp was the second overall. And obviously first man, Cody Poskin was third overall, and DJ Fox was the third man there. - Such a cool man. - DJ Fox. - Yeah. - It's also just really crazy to watch how big this got. Like this got onto ESPN. It got onto ABC in the US. Like that's when Ultra and Ingo's mainstream, it's pretty crazy. And part of this has been awesome for me to see. I'm also a little bit like, a little bit sitting. about some of this in terms of how much people have wanted to, like very, you know, the best example is LinkedIn. Rachel, Andrew, can did this thing. Let me tell you what that means about that thing, right? Is like, sort of doing that. There's been a lot of like secondary people trying to, sort of, I wouldn't say profit, but like, use it as a starting point. And I think, you know, it's not always in good faith, but it's great that, you know, when that happens to you, it's a great thing. It's great for Rachel. And it's, you know, it's great for precision, of course, as well. And if you do want to be like Rachel, you can see her fueling plan. It's been shared on social media, which is amazing. The amount of work that goes into capture that is ridiculous. So like, could us the precision team on capturing it is unbelievable. And putting it out as content. So could us then. But if you do want to talk to some of their sports scientists, you may even get Emily that worked with Rachel. She is available and it's not, you don't get to choose, but, you know, they sort of TV them up, but you may get someone like her. You can talk to them. We have a fuel and hydration plan on link. That is either their actual fuel and hydration plan, which you do by yourself, or you can book a call with one of their sports science team, which includes the likes of Emily. You can do those five links in our show notes. And if you do indeed do that and want to purchase, you can use the code better 2026 and better is all in capital letters. The other thing to notice, if you follow those links, it may automatically apply that code for you, probably will. That is for 15% off your first order as well. And if you use those services, there's no obligation to buy. So I think it's just a great service that precision do as part of what makes such a good company that we love working with. This is the part of the podcast where we talk about ourselves. Indulging ourselves and give list is a bit of that. I already spoke about being at my absolute limit with live stress, work stress, all of the above. I am now about four months post, I'll five S1's final fusion. And as far as rehab goes at the moment, I'm just doing what I can just to take over. Good news is I don't know if I told you I had an assessment with the bio last week to see if I've increased in strength and flexibility. She says she usually looks for 10% increase in most of the things and I hit 20 to 50% in most of the trips. She was super stoked. So we've progressed to phase two now. But with all of that live stress, I am just trying to at the moment do what I can until things become easier again and then can be more on a regular schedule in terms of rehab work to get the back back to strength. What is that noise in the background? Is that more? That's hail mate. That is hail. It is hail here. It was sunny before we were talking how it's hailing. Whether here today is like it's wild. This is the week in May that we get every year where it gets back down to single digit Celsius temperatures. Welcome to London. In the 30s for those who use the non metric system. I saw a thing. I didn't realize this is a sort of comedian on social media talking about the system that they use in Canada, which is just an absolute mess. I can't even explain to you what it is. The British use a bit of a mix, but it's pretty simple to work out. The Canadians, I don't even know what they use. So you deserve all you got from South Park if that's the system of measurements. What's happening with you? How is your running going? Good. Surprisingly, well, not surprisingly maybe pleasantly surprised. How's that? I went for a run with my physio, which was a good thing to do last Wednesday and ran home from that. Usually I would have used a line bike to get home and my Achilles wasn't too bad doing that. So that was the first time where I was like, I've really turned a corner from like what this means for my life standpoint, like a real functional corner that I turned there. And it had a really good run yesterday. It was feeling really, really good on the treadmill and a nice run today on the trail. So try to keep I'm trying to be both conservative enough to not get greedy and change too many things in a week because it's easy to do that. But also not be too conservative because that can be also the way I get. So like trying to do things like no Dave, you can actually go run the same distance, but you know with a couple of hills in it this week. That's not a big change for you to do that. So today I went to the trails out here thankfully before it rained. And yeah, so it's gone well. All progressing pretty happily. Strength is progressing really well, which is nice. So can't complain mate. Good to yeah. Let's get through a couple of community shoutouts, listen to questions. We love you engaging with us all of the time. You can do so by DMing us on Instagram. We are on their 1% better pod. We also have an email address down in the show notes below. You can also join us Traver group that is growing very nicely 1% better on Strava. We got a question in from Gabriel, Borno, I.O. Q. You say it. Hey mate. Question potentially for the next episode. I have been running with Garmin foot pod HRM strap and watch for the past eight years from I. AA. If races I have done Prague, half and full marathon. I've always had much more distance than the official one. Is this common? Can I trust Traver for a PB or would you only consider the chip time asking due to this controversial account I've been following recently at official and official time. Hopefully I can make it to the pod again. By the way, a one month from my first 70.3 check man, a race in the Czech Republic obviously is looking forward to your support. Do you have some insights? So many so many. Official unofficial is where they're calling out influencers for telling different times here. So for those who don't know, it's basically calling out people who lie about their times, whether they say that they're basically claiming Strava PBs don't exist or stopping their watch and then spinning up or whatever. So you just quietly hear Gabriel, you can do what you want. You're an adult and I'm not your real lad. You're allowed to do whatever you want. Having said that, the chip time is a real time. Like it's it's actually very simple here. Chip time is a real time. The way to think about this, if I'm running a 400 meter race against or an 800 meter race against you or a 1500 meter race against you on the track and I write decided to run in lane eight, I don't get to stop earlier. I still have to go past the finish line. I've run further distance, but I don't get to go past the finish line. Really good. Just because you are just because I chose not to run the shortest line is not the problem of the race and it's certainly not my competitors problem. So then the next question is, are you actually running further or not? And a couple of things get happened here. Firstly, you're using Garmin. So all bets are off because Garmin's a trash. No, I'm joking. I really struggle with their software. Their hardware is actually good. It's fine. Zyland's married to his Garmin. So he's role-exise at me. But the way to think about this, the way GPS works is you ping to satellites. So your satellites in the message down your watch sends a message back and they talk about where are you in space. This can be variably accurate based on a number of things including buildings around you. It can be because of weather and all those sort of things. If you are moving slowly enough and the data acquisition frequency is high enough, there can actually be a lot more noise because if I can put you, let's say my accuracy is two within three meters of where you are, like a three meter circle around you, which is pretty accurate. You can be within a circle of radius of, let's call it 1.5 meters. But if you're either side of that circle, standing dead still, if I ping you to either side of that circle, it says you've moved three meters when you haven't. Right. So there's an amount of variance that you'll get in that. Then there's also aspects of like, are you actually running the shortest line? And the chances are you probably are particularly in big, big erases. Whether you're going around people or choosing tangents, we talked about a Boston marathon. The elites decided to run on the left hand side of the road and went around the right hand bend. I'm like, why aren't you running a tangent here? So there's lots of those things. And I think people are generally just don't understand and aren't doing a good job of. So that's also why you probably shouldn't be using your GPS. It's a guide, but you should be using the mile markers and the kilometer markers on the road more so. So that's the second thing. So you can also set to use more than one like so you might be using GPS. If you go into your settings, you'll watch it. You can actually choose to use multiple satellite systems or at least I can on Coros. So there's different satellite systems. There's BDS. I think it is, which is a Chinese one. There's Glonis, which is Russian and then there's GPS, which I don't know where it is based. But like you can use different satellite systems to improve accuracy. But I mean, this is the whole thing and this is part of why we're talking about this now. It's like the easy answer here if you really want accurate stuff like this is actually what stride does. So strides precision and accuracy is actually probably better than GPS in some respects for how far you've actually run. So when you can go on your settings, well, it's measuring how far you run. It's measuring your footpath movement. So it knows how far you run. It's on your foot. Yeah. Exactly. It's 100% on your foot, which is much more accurate when you get to things like moving between treadmills because again, you need to calibrate treadmills and they may not be well calibrated. It's more accurate when you've got bad GPS. So like New York City is a classic example or through Canary Wharf in London is a really good example as well. So in those contexts, you might be better off using stride to get a reproducible distance. I know Marco Elteini got so fed up with GPS. He now uses stride for distance. He just goes like, this is my distance measure. I know it's the same every time. Now he may run further than distance of the race, which is a different problem, but he knows that at least he's run the distance he's run. So that's the setting you can change your watch as well to use stride for distance rather than GPS or something else for distance. So yeah, there are no dead spots essentially. It's not it's not using a signal. Yeah, it's measuring from your your feet. So that's a key thing there. So I think yeah, no dead spots in yeah. So thank you to stride. Thank you for the question, Gabriel. And thank you to stride for sponsoring the podcast and the two of us well there to explain the difference. And so he's got a Garmin footpot. I'm sure it gives some dynamics, but I don't know if it does a distance measurement in that context. I don't know if you have that ability with Garmin. I'm not familiar with the footpot from Garmin. If you do want to check out stride, we do have a link in the show notes down below. By the way, we had a really good conversation with them and they're absolutely loving this community so please show them some love click on the link and check. out. We do have some community shoutouts to get through first one with previous guests on the podcast professional triathlete Eloise de la Wart race in Italy over the weekend at challenge Cessinatica 70.3. She got fourth there. Also shout out to Laal Rockman who raised the VW half marathon in 142 as a training run over there. Yeah, I think you did an event recently as well like maybe two weeks ago something like that. Then we had a Martin Bach around the Copenhagen marathon in 343. Apparently he had a really tough day and bonked so apologies there Martin but if it's a fueling issue and you feel like that then go check out precision but otherwise fingers crossed back to the drawing board and hopefully things go a little bit better for you next time. If you do have questions please do reach out to us. You can email us if you want us to try and if you think we can help, happy to try and help if you think we could add anything there Martin. But email us DMs on social media. We had Johanna de Clue as well so she got third in the Elmerda to try 100 triathlete so great work there from Johanna. Shout out to Rudy Beco got 30 Nise age group at their GP Bern. And then Emmanuel Katzinas the podcast's senior data specialist, Rada Toronto 10K in 4433 which is his best 10K in 13 years and his best 5K this year so apparently he didn't warm up. If you look at his splits he sort of said he warmed up as he progressed along and if you can see he gets progressively quicker at his splits and so I reckon that's actually not a best effort for him. I reckon he's got a little bit of me on that bone. If he could have run a little bit faster earlier I think he'd run a little bit quicker and then also shout out to Phil Coleman here in the Terranio 5 Mylar in 3349. We got a question in here from Luce Tham Kozyud, DMs who said hello James based off of some of the episodes I've been listening to. Is there something I'm missing in terms of getting sick with the flu virus post marathon? I know that the body is under massive stress immune system is vulnerable etc. I've just had four friends post marathon get sick so I'm wondering about this. I just wanted to know is there anything like any signs behind the fit to you or the more vulnerable you are to catching a virus? If you'd asked me this maybe a month and a half ago I would have said yep so there's a sort of J-shaped curve and your immune system go you're at higher risk you know a little bit of exercise reduces your risk and then it goes up again right I don't know sort of J-shaped. I've got a newsletter dropping soon on this exact thing where talking about the immune system actually looks like that's not the case is the sort of long and the short about but the question or there's two different questions here one is are you out of your immune is your immune system compromised and it looks like the answer to that is no but the reality still exists which is you are more likely to get sick now the question is why so if my immune system is good why am I likely to get sick post marathon and there's lots of reasons here so you could indeed be an energy deficit that's pretty common in endurance sport in general particularly at a higher level and doing more volume and that needs to be like if that is it's not the exercises compromising your immunity it's that you don't have enough energy for the immune system because it requires energy as well so that's one aspect that it could be the other thing is when you're running these events you're you're generally in like around a lot of people who are all breathing quite hard so your risk is higher you're generally traveling to them so there's a risk there and you're generally indoors to make up bibs and stuff like that so again more risk there then if we think about the anatomy of it the reason your nose exists is to humidifier and to sort of catch particle and it's a particulate matter so you certainly at a more chance of getting sick with more mouth breathing and certainly if you're moving more air as you are when you're exercising at a higher risk because it's just more exposure and certainly dry air and dry airways is a risk as well so yeah there's lots that goes into it and I think those are probably the reasons those are contributing factors as to why we see it you certainly have a higher propensity but the question is is it the immune system or is it everything else around it I think the answer is the second one interesting thanks so much hopefully that answers your question loose as we said keep engaging with us we're having a steady stream of comments on Spotify as well lungisa over there said such amazing episode definitely with every millisecond to listen to and I'm always listening extra careful when David predicts something so many takeaways filled with so many one percent better moments awesome thanks appreciate that right let's have a look at what's coming across my desk this week some quick bits for you Jimmy Grecia is going to attempt the one hour world record now this is he's a middle-distance runner right and he broke a European 5k with 10k record recently yeah so I mean most people call that long distance but yeah I mean he runs 5k 10k sort of half marathon type of races I don't think he's on a marathon yet I don't think he runs many 1500s but that's sort of where he runs a lot of roads with Kipron so yeah he's I mean this happens once a year roughly and in the Belgian in Brussels at a diamond league meet usually they have a one hour attempt oh they have a one hour race it's often a world record attempt because you know they don't run many of these so I know it's a farm tried this I'm really mad about this I really don't care like the problem with the elites is it's too close to a half marathon so in you or me it'd be interesting because it's different but in them it's like it's a half marathon it's just not different enough so it's a much less popular record because it's not common and it's you know it's too close that so it's currently for those who are interested it's currently 21.33 kilometers or 13.25 miles is a world record it's set by Moffara on September 4th 2020 in Brussels so yeah well what it's worth Jimmy you'll probably run that he'll probably run further than that you know he's got better technology at least so yeah and then I found this very interesting I'm gonna keep an eye on this I think we talked about it before there's going to be a trial of changing the rugby ball size in women's rugby that sounds interesting yeah and the I this discourse has been fascinating to watch there's been lots of very impassioned discourse around it in many ways and I want to be sensitive to it because there's lots of like yeah strongly charged feelings around it basically the current rugby balls that are used by basically I think teenage boys I don't know what age exactly they start using a size five all the way up through professional men's and then women after I don't know when they start using bigger balls either I haven't done a lot in the women's game but it's a size five they are talking about making a size 4.5 ball four and a half for women and it would be the same weight the reason is that it would be smaller so their hands would better match it they'd be able to hold it with one hand more so the handling would improve we'd see better continuity the game the product would be better that is that is the thinking behind it and there's certainly precedent for these things in different sports so this exists in other sports as well now some sports it doesn't and they'll be the argument oh you know they don't do it in football and don't do it in this but in other sports they do use a smaller ball I think cricket they use a smaller ball etc so like the question is should they be doing or not I hadn't argument probably 10 years ago now with USA rugby sevens coach that they should not do this I said why why would well at the time I was like he was saying we should definitely do it in improving handling and all that stuff I said well the Australians don't seem to struggle and he said yeah well they all grew up playing touch I'm like so you're going to penalize them for being better because you want everyone else to not struggle so you want to you want to like drop the standard there and that was my take at the time right and we all get to change our minds that's the nice thing yeah right and so on that note you know I'm starting to think this might be better because we will see better skill execution it will be the the counter argument to this is a couple so so Harrison who's an England fly half has come out and she's really concerned about her kicking and the sweets won't be coming smaller which is true it would do and I get that and that's very true that's the only skill that I think will be harder with a smaller ball every other skill and feel will be better so you know there's a discussion here about how much we penalize her for being a good kick up right and does that affect her contracts has affect her selection all that stuff right and there's a valid argument there then there's certainly arguments around like whether this will actually improve things and probably the biggest argument against it is the cost so now every club can't just have size five balls have to have size four and a half balls as well for the women so at a community level this changes the cost significantly so in that context I'm I actually think that the four and a half is probably up yeah I just it feels funny to me like it almost feels like it should be for professionals only and that we use a four for the for the women's game I mean it's always we bring the four and a half in as a standard size for younger people so that there's more four and a half around I don't know if it's such a if I'd be so concerned at a community level I do think it needs to be trial at a professional level and if it finds that there's bearing and this is the way to go over time I think it'll fall to down and you'll see that change through community levels but I do think it's worth trying out it's interesting that they want to change the size of the ball and keep the weight the same which I guess addresses some of Zoe's concerns but like you say it doesn't address the sweet spot the surface of the ball concerns well the problem the probability level though is like there's no clubs have enough money and you don't want to have to decide okay well at the moment they can buy 50 balls firstly a four and a half is probably going to be more expensive but so and even if it's not then then you have half your balls a four and a half's half than the fives now actually I think that's great I used to have different size and shaped balls that I used to train I used to coach people with but not everybody is the same with that not every club who's doing that so I would see that as an advantage I would teach each like boys to play with that I would do that because it changes the constraints, right? This is what we call the constraint space model. So you change the constraints to change the situation. I might go to, hey, let's actually use four and a half, but now we're only allowed to use one hand to improve handling. So it could become a coaching tool and I would certainly use it. I would use it with kickers as well because like, again, this would be a coaching tool I use for kickers because if you can kick a four and a half well, you'll kick a five really well. So I think there's some serious coaching advantages here and we do see this. I said, as I said, I use different shape balls. I would use a soccer ball sometimes to coach rugby and they play with a soccer ball because it changes everything. So yeah, I think there's certainly some potential upside here as well, but it's been a pretty impassioned discussion online. It is a trial that's going to happen at the top level in women's 15s and 7s. And so let's see it happen. And like, listen, I think there are multiple stakeholders in the game that need to address this. So there's the players. Do they enjoy it more? There's the product. So like we're talking about, I guess fans and administrators and then there's certainly clubs as well. So we need to bring them all in and discuss what that is. But you know, what does success look like? It looks like better, continue to play less handling errors, more expansive game, those sort of things. So we get feedback on that. We'll see how it goes. One thing I think World Rugby do do is they do do the science well. They do it. They test it. They get a data and then they sort of make it whether or not the decisions are right. They do make decisions, hopefully using that data. And that's what needs to happen because you're dealing with so much baggage here, you're dealing with other emotions that people have and trauma and history that goes into it. The moment you start talking about gender issues and changing certain things for certain genders, it can become very touchy. So you definitely need the science and definitely to be tested. So let's keep an eye on that and see where that goes. We also just don't like change. I remember when T20 cricket came in and people were like, this isn't cricket, this isn't pure cricket. It's not on its own. It's an incredible product now. And it has not like actually doing better for the rest of the game because the longer form game is more entertaining now because people are better at scoring quicker. We just don't like change. I always say things are worth it. Try and speaking of worth it. Try. This is disappointing news. The IOC has killed the idea of bringing cycle across and cross country into the winter Olympics. Now, I didn't even know that this was happening, but totally against it, totally against them killing this idea. This would be a brilliant idea, don't you think? We talked about this on the podcast. So another situation where you won't listen to the podcast. I know. Yeah, but not yet. Right now watch it. So she just woke up and devastated that she's going to, I'm dreading that she's going to win ours, but I left the door open for and she's 90% high strain now already. So rolling the dice. Very good. Yeah. Sorry. Come up snake ice. No. So from what I've read, this is money related. I think this would make a lot of sense to do this, to have them in. They call them non-commercial sports. It's very true, but like you need more eyeballs on this and this will bring basically a bunch of summer, summer sport fans to the winter Olympics. So it's only going to be better. And again, that gives these athletes another opportunity. Sure. And it's sports that I'm more interested in. So I'd be more interested in seeing that. So I actually, they're also easier sports to put on than snow sports up. So you don't need snow. Like anywhere that there's winter, this will be fine. You can put these on. Okay, you need some mud, sure. Okay, well, worst case scenario, we have to use a couple of eye hoses, but the reality of the situation is you probably don't even need that. Generally, where there's snow, they'll be mad if there's no end of the vicinity. I'd imagine. Yeah, well, it, again, depends on timelines and how high and all that's a bit. Regardless, this could be done and it could be done much easier than many of the snow sports. And so I think this is narrow-sided by the IOC, but they haven't closed the door to it happening later. They're just not going to do it for the next ones in the French Alps. I think that's Toronto Peace people, but we'll see. You mentioned that you were going to watch Transylcania with a weekend. What is Transylcania and what happened? So it's a fairly high profile trail race. It goes across the island of La Palma in Spain, or a Spanish island of La Palma. These guests pet a $1 running there. He talked about doing that with me when we had the interview there. This was a really good weather day, but certainly a good weather year because I had the race earlier. So basically every course record fell. So that was, there's shorter races. There's the 21K, then there's a marathon distance, and there's the full distance, which is like 672K. There's also a vertical kilometer race, and every single record fell, men's and women's across the whole weekend. So really, really good weather day and by quite a bit. So in the men's, David's in Claire one, that was more than 20 minutes under the 11 year old course record. 20 minutes, which is huge. Pada Angada got second, also under the previous course record. Third place was 10 minutes under the previous course record. That was Ndea Mugrat. So the first six were all under the course record, and there was eight minutes only between second and sixth. So it was really crazy racing up the front of the men's race. In the women's, this is the long race. London Irondale won over Lucy Bathallon in the Australian. She just tore past her on the downhill. It was pretty crazy to watch. They were both under Ruth Croft's course record, and they were the first two women under eight hours. And then Kilianjone's lovely wife Emily Forsberg was third in her return to racing after a couple of children. So she sort of returned a few times between children, but this is after her latest child. So it was cool to see Emily back there. Thanks for that. And then Tara Davis would all the Olympic long-jump champion has laid down an impressive performance in the hurdles. Yeah. So for those who don't know Tara Davis would all she's been dominating the long jump. She was undefeated for 2024 and 2025, including the World Championship's and the Olympics in the long jump, where you can always foul out or not jump as far or all those things. So she has been dominating. So in 2024, she ran a 60 meter hurdles and got third. But her, she was actually previously a hurdle. So 2021 was the last year she really focused on the hurdles prior to the Olympics. So she recently ran 12.99 into a one meter an hour ahead when her PV is 12.75. So she's obviously doing a bit of hurdles now. So I'm interested to watch her progress. She's got a great Instagram worthwhile checking out if you're interested. She's really good on that. And I think this, I was thinking about this in terms of like, is this going to be, is she just returning to the hurdles? So she just want a hurdle again, which is a distinct possibility. I think we're seeing this a little bit from athletes who, you know, like, chemical balls going to 800s, and the clock, and it's going to 400. We're seeing a little bit of this. And some of that's a little bit cycle related. So they do it for a little while and they can go back depending on how bad it is. I mean, her herdeling is probably going to help her long jump with the exception of if she gets injured, but you can get injured jumping. Jumping's quite high force and therefore high risk. But it may just be that she's going back, but it also could be just like phase the season, keep it fresh, keep training and then head back to it, right? Because most track and field events are similar biometer abilities. Like the skill is different, but in terms of like speed power, most track and field events require speed power. There's very few that don't require it. Like even the, to some degree, the long distance stuff does. Like if you can't run a 50 something second 400 to finish off your 10k, you're not within the 10,000 meters as a man. Maybe it needs to be like, so yeah. It's so interesting. She must have been impressive for a while now because I just googled her and I was like, oh, yeah, that's who I thought it was. She's like, I don't follow it late, exactly. But I was like, yeah, when you said the name, I was like, this is what I think it is. I googled the picture came up and I was like, yep, it is her to show how good she must be and how visible she must have been in the last few years. Well, I mean, she's been as such underfit for years in the long run. So like anytime you watch a long jump competition, she's just dominating it across the, you know, most diamond league across world champs, Olympics, et cetera. And then also shout out to Paola Blasi, who won the Vault of Women in the first women's grand tour of the year in cycling. I know you've had some dealings with the UAE team, women's team and you were talking about how impressive I was with him and how professional they were and I'm very, very impressed with their talent at identification and how they've developed athletes and very impressed with Paola Blasi so far. Yeah, well, I didn't know anything about this. I saw her, she won the Amsel Gold and that was like a big thing. It was like, it was a bit of a surprise. She could call up a couple days before and it was like a few interviews. She's like, yeah, I just turned up and like rode and it was all good. But she also had a podium performances at the Tour d'Ona under earlier in the year and then at Flesh for Alone where she was on a podium with Cassie and David Doma and Debbie Volary. So like, arguably she passed the sport and her. So we probably shouldn't have been too surprised by this and then looking into it, she's also the Euro under 23 champ and third in under 23 world. So she's very young. She's born in 2003 which made me feel positively prehistoric. But she's obviously there and she's been pretty public. I mean, she's got a history of as a middleist and a drummer and then a duathlete and a triathlete and then you know, standard story, good injured, cytocycling and got really good. So she's been publicly saying she's not quite there technically yet and we were having some conversations off air about some other stuff, about basically like power up with only one part of this puzzle, right? You have to technically be in the right positions, make the right decisions from a tactical aspect. So there's lots to this but she's obviously come along. As you said, like you're obviously killing it with her. Like this is really impressive stuff. I never heard of her, Nell, so she's won a grand tour basically in one of her first couple years as a pro. I watched the last stage. It was up the Engluru, which is one of the hardest mountains you all find in all of Europe. And you know, television cameras don't always do the justice in terms of gradient and whatever. This was like, you could see the road was at a 45 degree angle on the television camera. It was insane. So super impressive. from it to get that win there. Just last week we were talking about the go-to debate and the difficulty of determining who the go-t is. You know it's always heated discussions etc. And various different factors can be seen as great but some scientists are trying to solve this now. I guess they're trying to solve the Ronaldo versus Messi compensation and other sports as well. Well I wish it was Ronaldo versus Messi that would actually be harder. They were doing running only but so this was 16 high profile sports scientists including like Steve and Siler and Andy Jones. So Andy Jones is the one that sort of helped Paul Radcliffe famously predict it to her time in London etc. But anyway in this article it's called greatest of all time. Development of a ranking system to determine the most successful Olympic and world championship runners since 1896. So they basically these guys got up at the European endurance conference and surveyed 63 coaches and they basically asked which of two criteria they believe was more relative to determining the go and basically 71% favor becoming a Olympic champion. Where's only 29% of these coaches favored having like setting a world record. So this is context for how they're going to weight things. They then used yeah they then asked some other questions so regarding the minimum thresholds there was a more even split so regarding whether the go-to had to be an Olympic champion it was 54 yes 46 no respondents were very much in favor 95% of a den of the go as per main running distance which I think is right you can't just say you're the best runner it's like well sprint turtles distance etc and that they should be separated men's and women's which I also agree for lots of sociological factors in terms of like women have had less time competing at a high level based on you know historic biases so you can't really love them together we're we're a ways off that so they ended up also waiting world records including for longevity so like how long those records stood for and they obviously waited Olympic Games World Championships they also looked at competitive dominance which is reflected in doubles or triples athletes were included if they had one at least one medal at a major championship or set a world record which is ratified these also included some obsolete events like 60 meters, two meter hurdles etc the these steel chase races etc so yeah anyway basically what they ended up with was achievements of 1294 men and 824 women who won at least one medal we talked about already in different distances of whatever since 1896 or set a world record since 1912 because they didn't start keeping world records in for then so there's all sorts of the scoring system you know you can go to the paper and see it but basically they if you won the Olympic Games gold was 100 points silver was 50 bronzer 31 and it goes down from there world championships was 70 for a gold indoors was 40 world cross was 30 you know etc and then they they waited a world record as 100 points they gave an extra waiting of a world record in an Olympics of another five points and then plus two points per year for the world record duration you mean a world record in an Olympic year or I know what a good example of the Olympic Games okay yeah so if you won if you won an ante the record because that's much harder to do I think you're waiting there and then they they grouped this by error which I think was correct based on different things so they had the early error and this is all based on Olympic Games as well so the early era was like 8096 to 1912 then they had the interwar era which was sort of 1920 to 1936 then they had the post war amateur errors in 1948 through 1968 the early professional error from 72 to 92 and then the contemporary era sort of from 96 onwards kind of how they they did it there so I have you looked at the document because you haven't I'm gonna ask you who you think got the goat I want the goat I saw it so in your message I'm watching it as well here but yeah so I think listeners could guess well in the men's it's pretty like simple as like Usain Bolt but interestingly from there like other people can it use the bikili so again I've always said he's a better runner in many ways than Kipchogi you know Kipchogi is a better marathoner but bikili is probably a better runner and there you go how the gap or Celeste he was there Michael Johnson the sprints it was fourth some OGs Pablo Nermy from Finland so he was fifth Mo Farah was sixth my favorite Hisham El Burrige was seventh chapter guy the contemporary was eighth Carl Lewis ninth another OG and how all these maybe I've come to this for the later how are some of these people ahead of Kipchogi anyway keep going we'll get there we'll get we'll get to why Kipchogi hasn't isn't on here okay Carl Lewis is ninth Emil Zadapek the OG that check is in 10th Justin Gatlin 11th Lassi Viran another OG is in 12th I'm not going to read this all out but those are some really big names other people people might be interested in Marie screen was 15th no alliles was 17th Seb Co is 19th Jacob Ingerbritson 21st Bernad Legat is equal 22nd with Edmund Moses and then Ilya Kipchogi is 24th so that's how are we okay let's point out thank you okay this is objective mate then I care about your feelings anyway the women's goat faith GBA gone tear nish the barb is second shalean phraser price is third Safana son was fourth we'll talk about why I don't agree with that necessarily who also we've got gal divers is in seventh I'm just looking for names people might know Beatrice Chabette is in 10th she's contemporary Allison Felix in 13th we talked about her a few weeks ago flow Joe from us for the joiner 14th Sydney will be left in 22nd correct that's the other big one there and then Elaine Thomas Thompson Harrah in 25th so in both groups 22 of the 25 were Olympic champion at least once right and that's just by the way the scoring worked the exceptions in the in the men's list were Paul Tergaat Bernad Legat and Moses Kipchogi and then the women's exceptions were Merleyn Otte Gratz Vates and Jamila Kraschkova Kraschlova oh I don't know isn't European so I'm really sorry he just went at her name oh you're not being able to announce anything you're like say that to her I'm talking about my announcement not a thing I'm so disappointed in myself but then we get to the events specific stuff so in the sprints Usain Bolt Michael Johnson car Lewis no one surprised hurdles and when Moses Kastin Vorholm and then A Johnson who I don't know middle-distance this is unsurprising Elgarouj Seb Cohen David Rdisha we won't do steeple because people don't really care too much about steeple although Elbacali is there in third and then we had Bikili Gabrasalassi and Mo Fara in the distance and then the marathon a D.V. Bikila beats out Ilia Kipchogi and then Trichprinsky and then cross-country Bikili Tergaat and then Gugi we won't do indoors we don't really care about indoors let's skip that I'm trying to make sure this is you know good enough for radio then women sprints Shelley and Fraser Price Allison Felix flow Joe which I think would be controversial I think flow Joe is probably just you know she died young so it's unfortunate hurdles McLaughlin leveroni is there of course Sally Pearson from Australia was third and then I don't know who D. Muhammad is but she is from the USA in second middle-distance Kippiegon Kazan scene Kazan Keane and then Kassas Samenia in third the middle listens we want to steeple long distance to Ernest Ababa Beutritcha Bet and then M. DeFar the marathon in Deribar from Kenya Paris-Jeptichia and then weights from Norway so that's interesting weights was the Norwegian in cross-country Laura something L Jennings in USA and then an Ethiopian whamy in third so they what it did here was interesting they basically looked at the scoring system they had then they ran a bunch of scenarios so like what if we changed the waiting of these things and pretty much this state robust you can see all of the papers amazing what they've done here it's a great read for data notes they had to suit and this is where it Kippchoggi comes in they had to exclude certain things like basically diamond leagues and world marathon majors so Kippchoggi then just like falls out of it completely because he's just has a he's one two on the big goals but that's about it okay I think he might have I think he want to track bronze or something like that in the 5,000 I'm up your wrong there but point is he hasn't won that many like things that weren't well more of the majors so whilst we prioritize those like yeah it doesn't uh it doesn't really help they also excluded non-running events so Carl Lewis could have been higher because he was a good long jumper but it's not this is a running go so he doesn't get the thing that the thing that bothered me is they didn't really consider range or longevity and what I mean by this is like it's actually who said about running getting gold one and that's one hundred and two hundred it's like it's impressive don't get me wrong but that's way different to winning a five a fifteen hundred five thousand double or a fifteen hundred ten thousand double because that range is different yeah and then with regards to longevity I was watching an interview today with one of the men's united players Kassamero who's won like five champions leagues down at all plays for Brazil he was saying people underestimate missy and Ronaldo in terms of what it takes to be at the top for that long because he's played with some incredible players in his life having won all those things but none of them have been there for that long he says people just don't they underestimate what it takes the longevity conversation yeah agree um so I think Sir Farnasson probably needs some extra loading I mean like performing at the marathon in the fifteen hundred and the ten thousand like that that range is particularly impressive um I think I also think the longevity is there as well and the big one that I think was left out that I would have loved to have seen in there and you know she's got certainly an argument in my mind for for you sort of some of the claims to be up there as Helena Beary Why why why does she what is she what is she do we'll get we'll get there But she's probably out of it because the world marathon majors right so she just for context in the world marathon major She's one Boston New York Boston New York silver in New York silver and Boston silver in London right so there's seven medals Golden silver that she you know doesn't get which is fine, but so she's silver in Rio 2016 And Tokyo 2020 in the five thousand meters She got bronze in the Paris marathon 24 she won world championships in the five thousand in 2017 2017 in London and 2019 in Doha she got silver in the 10,000 at 2022 Eugene and Bronze in the 1500 meters in 2013 Moscow again. Let's talk about longevity That's 2013 through today and across 1500 Yeah, 1500 5000 10,000 But she also won some world indoor championships. So 3000 meters in Istanbul in 2012 and support in She won she got silver in the 2014 Then she's also won world cross which is probably the hardest race to win because you've got the most people competing in it You got six people from each country right so she won that in senior race and the senior and she got silver in the teams in 2019 and I asked in Denmark so because of the rain because she's won a world cross I see I think she needs to be up there as well Interesting discussion for the day to know it will link in the show notes below To that paper so go and have a look and another paper we will link to is one we're about to talk about We talk a lot about what drives success in endurance sports and David You've mentioned before that things get longer the gap between men and women seems to close to a degree and of course We saw what Rachel entricken Dead recently we talked about that but you also find an interesting paper with regards to this thing Yeah, this was called highly trained female runners show greater durability and physiological resilience than performance match male counterparts Right so that kind of tells the story as a good paper title should they took 11 men and women 11 men 11 women and then match them for the itra index And age so the itra index is basically like how well you've performed based on the international travel running association They've got the scoring system and they looked at similar competitors competition there based on them which Is one way to do this we'll talk about some of the challenges there But they also mentioned them for age which is really important because I think age plays a role in durability to some degree Just based on what that allows you to do from a lifetime mileage perspective They had three lab visits in 14 days so they basically did they came in day one they did a granted exercise test Which is like just a step test on the treadmill Then on 72 hours after the first test they came in and did a 12 minute uphill time trial at 12% So how far can you get at 12% in 12 minutes go go home try that it is disgusting. That is a yuck Then they came back a little while later you know presumably towards the end of that two weeks and did 180 million minutes on the treadmill three hours in the treadmill At a modern intensity just below their first threshold It dispersed with every 60 minutes they did time trials uphill All right, so one thing they did do here What to note is that because of Relative abilities right because we've matched them for relative ability not absolute ability They don't run the same times they're they're a roughly similar proportion of performance in men's and women's fields So that women covered 36 Plus or minus three kilometers and the men did 42 plus or minus three kilometers So you can see there's a difference in distance there They were fueled at 90 grams an hour and they tested isometric strength pre and post Both this and their fresh uphill time trial to look at that So unsurprisingly time trial performance declined across three hours zero percent surprised by that but females showed smaller speed decrements in men and that was a one percent versus 10 percent change So that's a that's an actual magnitude Yeah And then smaller changes and this is probably part of what's driving it in carbohydrate oxidation rates and respiratory exchange ratio So they were burning similar amounts of carbs whereas the men's amount of carbs dropped Right, so it's probably that the women are oxidizing fat a little bit better at baseline is my take on that males displayed larger reductions in peak blood lactate which will be related to the carbohydrate oxidation and while p-cart rate and oxygen uptake remain the same in both groups again Looks like men are more carbureline and women oxidized fat better So during the prolonged run female showed greater resilience for maximum isometric knee force heart rate and perceived exertion Whereas the running economy decreased similarly so basically they're more durable in this context Biomechanics change across the run they actually use stride for this so shout out to stride again They're being used in research here So likely what we saw is a fatigue manifestation so we saw in them a decreased leg spring stiffness and ink and a decreased stride length Right, so they're probably going to try and limit muscle damage there and limit 10 and use to some degree and increase ground contact time and cadence so they're taking shorter steps there And then one thing here that I thought was like these are super hard comparators comparisons we talked already they they've relatively matched them for performance and effort But men ran further so it's like well, do we actually need to control for that right and ideally you'd want Three arms here and you'd have a performance matched men with a women So you'd have relative and absolute performance matched So you don't 11 women and then 22 men 11 of those men look like the women in terms of Actual performance and 11 look at them relatively the same performance But even in this group here If you had three arms you'd have 66 lab visits Like think about 66 lab visits and 33 33 of those are three hours long Oh, like the amount of time taking it to a woman hours. Yeah That's just it's too much so They are powered that you know the study was powered I think I think I read the analysis the power analysis. They only needed eight people so they did 11 not eight In each arm so you know they did a good job here, but it's just it's science is hard man But it's really interesting to see that and you know speaks to Rachel's results as well Yeah, exactly Well, interesting we've talked about that before you know and that seems to check out More we the more data that's coming out there from it Um anyone in the doctor's office this week Yeah, sadly previous guest Phil Sessman He's had to forego his European champs Marathon entry that he gained So he's had pains since the start of the year he said he releases all publicly on social media And he said he's got a plan to plate tear which is actually pretty nasty Of his second tone is right foot and with some bone marrow dima Which would make sense of that metatarsal head so the way to think about this um Understanding if you're looking at you know for those who are on video This is your plan of plate is equivalent of the ball of your foot here And so you got the head so the big bone here is where he's got some bone marrow dima And then the plan of plate is what holds us together So it's a band of five restitioned holds it together. So he's had a bit of a rupture there So he said he's got four to six week off and then he'll be okay He's obviously doing some time in a boot. I would assume in that time and not running So it mustn't be too bad because you ran London on it He said pain for a while And you know he'll be back in four to six weeks. It can't be like terribly bad But it's quite a nasty injury to deal with from what I understand. I haven't treated a lot of them But it's not great. So yeah Oh wishful everything of the best hope he comes back. He did a great video on Instagram Explaining everything. So hopefully he heals up quicker And we've got something for scene on social this week It is where we see someone put something out on social media that maybe needs to be just double checked What have you found? I've actually also got a corrections corner from earlier that I forgot to mention shari Stuart commented on commented on last week's episode Correcting me about I mentioned the scapula Four joints of the shoulder and the one I couldn't remember was the one between the scapula and the and the spine Which is the scapula thoracic joint and she corrected me there and I was like oh she's I love you Come back to you like it's very easy to think about it off here like it's very on the moment So I know it is especially on the spot So yeah anyway, but so outside run posted this about killian corth the guy they got second to reach luncheon And they mentioned basically something about him using ibuprofen At the time and I was like I saw that was all that's on the nose you can't be doing that because it's a super risk Particularly an event that long Are there some subsequently corrected and made a note of it? Which I think was the right play and I just wanted to highlight It's not because they did the right I mean, okay. Yes, they should have done that fine I agree, but I do not use anti-inflammatories In endurance races we talked about this with Amy Bosch September 27 2024 go check it out It's called competing safely in endurance events Do not use these there is a risk that you basically go into kidney failure now the the reality is that risk Whatever they are, but do not do what it is not worthwhile So if you need to use pain relief the question is should you be continuing should you be racing and if you do need to be using it It should probably be a seat of benefit or parasythimal not ibuprofen and teemflametries.clothenac any of that stuff should not be doing it Is not if you need it to start then you do not do not need to be starting in my opinion unless I mean even if you're a professional I would be given that advice Right before we get out of here. What are we watching this weekend? I'll be watching the Jared Italia Formula One football seasons almost done in terms of the Premier League Did I tell you that smatias kopezky is are racing the jury to tell you do you see this? He's an athlete that worked with the last few years who lives with type one ibuprofen super cool to have an athlete with diabetes racing the jury With the rockets yeah, yeah, you're new bit rose rockets They're like everyone's second favorite team was a so good on social yeah They're excellent, so they've had a bit of a shocker with the Lone Lech and unfortunately But yeah, it's cool. That is cool. I didn't know he was doing that. Yeah, I'll be watching him in the giro I think I haven't watched much of it since I hated it starting a Bulgarian man. That's just like that's all all wrong They have to find ways to raise money. I get it. I understand it. The last week will be cool. The third week is just mountains. I mean, you and I are going to go won't have any competition from that standpoint. It's my prediction, but still, should see some cool mountain stages. Yeah, that's good take. Where's it finishing? Is it in the dolmites or is it in the Ostevelli? Where is it? I don't know. I haven't looked at it that closely. I just looked at the profiles didn't look at where it was. Okay, let's get out of here. If you haven't shared or subscribed to this podcast yet, please do so now. We really, really appreciate every single one of you. We drop a new episode every single Friday. David, thanks so much for putting this together. Thank you, mate. Talk soon. Cheers. See you on the next one.