323. The Theory of Zone Compression, Surgery (Oh No), What Comes Next, and The New Big Supplement!

- Woohoo! - Welcome to the Some Work All Play podcast. We are so happy to be with you today. - Happy Tuesday. - It's Tuesday. - And we are firing up some ludicrous on this Tuesday. - Oh yeah, we are. I fired up some last week and surprisingly, ludicrous is not the guardian angel I expected. - I think it depends on his song. I feel like if it was Baxi, Windows Up, that one not have happened. - What's your fantasy? - Yeah. - Yeah, okay. So taking you back to last week, right after the podcast, I got an MRI. I thought, oh, it's probably not gonna show anything. I joked about it here on the podcast. And so when I go into the MRI room, the MRI technician, who is probably about 55, and a woman, which I think is important for the context of the story we're about to tell you, comes in and I'm like, you know what? I've tried everything. I have had a series of bad MRIs. I'm gonna say play ludicrous in the MRI machine when they put the big earphones on you. And so I did that. And she brings out the headphones, puts them on the table. They're blaring out the first song on Spotify, ludicrous collection, which is tonight, I'm fucking you. (laughing) Which is not a ludicrous song. He just features on it. And she just looks at me like, okay, I'm gonna leave this room right now and righty ate the hell out of you. - I feel like that was a rough sign from the universe that that foot was gonna be full. - Yeah. - Oh my God. The universe came and just flocked the foot right then and there. - Okay, so worst case scenario happened, but things are great. So my fifth metatarsal is broken. There's a stress fracture in my fifth met, most likely from compensating for my healing plantar fascia. Essentially, I just ran on the outside of my foot. As a heal, and I thought the sprained foot that I had in June was not anything to worry about. That might have weakened it a little bit. And then I just continually felt this little thing. I was like, oh, that's perennial tendon. It got better at the end of runs. And I was mainly going in to check up on the plantar fascia, which guess what? Healed, but just in time for me to have surgery. - It's so rough. I feel like it's hard to because like, fifth metatarsal factors are relatively rare. And perennial tendonitis, so common. But I feel like this shows you that you are a master compensator. - Master compensator. - We talked about this on our Patreon episode. And you really need to say that with an NPR sex voice. - Oh, master compensator. - Look at you. Thank you for not making me do that at the time. But like, it's actually somewhat impressive that you were able to like, I feel like one of your skills as an athlete is figuring out ways around things. And you found out your way around that plantar fascia so well. - Yeah, I got myself pretty fit for having this injury. So yeah, the fifth metatarsal stress fracture, my first ever bone injury, my first surgery. And it's gonna be going down probably tomorrow morning. So Tuesday morning, as you hear this podcast, I'll probably already have had the surgery. And I'm excited now because, you know, I deserve this. I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean, I've been going for it for a long time. I went for it really hard this year. And I ignored signals from my body. I was just a doofus. And I'm not beating myself up about it. It's more of an idea of, look, this surgery is a chance to reset. And the ways we've talked about on the podcast too. And I think it'll be healthy for me. I don't know if it'll be healthy for you because you're gonna have to lift up our children a lot when I can't do that. - Actually, you will be in non-weight bearing for two to four weeks. And so I'm actually strangely excited for the parenting ultra that is about to come as I do a lot of the lifting. Granted, Ollie actually is starting to walk, which is amazing. - With one hand, so he's not walking on his own. - He's close. - He's close. - But my thinking is that maybe he will walk tomorrow for the first time. And so as you are unable to walk, you might just be giving your powers to Ollie. - Oh, yes. - And this is ludicrous coming back to us. - Or am I giving it to him or is he sapping it for me? (laughing) - A glass have full or have half-empty moments. That's a good question. But I feel like I want to push back against that idea of you being a doofus because I think this is just, like this is your first phone injury, your first real injury ever. And I think this is a side effect of being an athlete and going forward at a high level. And you're a master compensator as we talked about. But I think you've also like science the shit out of your body in a way that like, you've gotten so much out of yourself. And in that process, like you have to take 500 little risks along the way. And sometimes that doesn't pay out. And I just like, I'm so proud of you and the version of you that's like decided to go for it. And that's been kind of a new evolution in the last three years and sometimes shit happens. - Yeah, and I've been going for it forever. I was reflecting that this will be a forced layoff for a long time. I'm not going to do anything. And that's very similar to, I don't know, I can't even think of a time that was like that. Since I was 11 years old, maybe even 10, I've been working almost every day. And even the rest days were intentional. Where when I was 11, I got into running and then got pretty good at that, but then stopped due to some things we've talked about in the podcast in the past. And then I got pretty good at football. I'm mediocre at football. Good enough to go to a bad college football team. - I mean, the fact that you were good at football, and like it shows you were science and they showed out of this from a young age. - But pushing cars every single night for an hour, I would do a sprint protocol after dinner at like eight to nine PM. - Okay, actually give me the details. What kind of cars were you pushing? Are we talking like a Suzuki Reno? Are we talking like Chevy truck? - Oh no, no, no, no, no, my dad's Ford Ranger, which was on a flask like, anyway, it might have been the fastest that Ford Ranger ever went. - Yeah. - And in that time in high school, I broke a hole in my parents' wall by putting my head through it when I was doing my jumping exercises for sprinting. And then after I quit football, I biked up and down a hill in Central Park for four hours one day on my clickety, clackety old piece of crap bike and then got very good at crashing bikes, but not very good at racing them. And then eventually got into running and that took almost 20 years of hard work for things to manifest the way they did. And so yeah, I mean, when I say I just deserve this, it's also a realization that I've earned the other good stuff too. And for me, that's a good moment to step back because I'm 38, you know, I'm not sure how many more shots I've got after this surgery, you know, eight to 12 weeks off and then I'll be coming back and try to put more days on the board. And I want to give it the best go I can, but you know, if this is kind of the fading light of the top end group, obviously I would be doing this forever, but then I'm proud of going for it at least. And so yeah, the surgery is a little moment of reflection on that process, I think. - What do you think is the hardest part for you emotionally? Because I feel like there's a lot that goes into a surgery especially navigating like last week, we were trying to put together the surgery logistics of like getting in to see a top orthopedic surgeon, getting an estimate back for the surgery. That was jaw dropping. - $22,000, my friends. - Which we have lowered down. We got it covered by insurance. - But do only do to the kindness of strangers that just helped me in this process that didn't have to. And I mean, that part has been so exciting to me is just seeing how amazing humans are. You know, like this is me at a low point. Like, I mean, I make jokes at a low point. So there's gonna be a lot of them in this podcast. And to see so many people see me struggling with the finances of it. And then the next step in stepping up was just so cool. And then the surgeon going out of his way and then all the doctors helping me. And then now I just told the world about it on Instagram and so many people making kind comments in the process. - Including an amazing comment that are you going in for hog reduction surgery? (laughing) How I was like, ah-ha. (laughing) Actually, we were up and dead this weekend and we were up in the mountains and you were in your boot and we actually had a date night thanks to your parents. They gave us just that like wonderful time to get to connect for 90 minutes, which when you have two small kids matters a ton. And I feel like that was really healing and therapeutic for both of us. But I was like, walk that red carpet. Give me an Instagram post for your surgery. - Megan had me do a little photo shoot. And I'm like, you know what? They do engagement photo shoots. I can do a surgery photo shoot. Say yes to the knife. (laughing) - Say yes to a few knives actually. - You're probably true. - I'm just, and maybe actually I don't think there'll be a saw involved in this one. - Oh God. - Sometimes there is a North Feedic surgery, but this is a small, small enough. - Yeah, I'm kind of worried about negative outcomes from the surgery. I'm mostly just worried about being a worse parent in this time. Like you're gonna have to take a lot of the slack up as I go through this process. - Yeah, I'm so excited for that. Like, I mean, that's a weird thing to say. Like I'm obviously not excited for your surgery. I'm not excited to support you and to be like the best way. But it hurts me that you have to go through this. - You wish I could have ate surgery. - Yeah, but I like, I'm gonna show up. I'm gonna be the best parent. We're gonna go through the parenting ultra. And I'm actually like excited for that challenge. And so like, I don't want you to think about that. In this process, plus like you've supported me. I've been in the hospital with my heart. I've had hamstring surgery. I've had shoulder surgery. I remember actually once when I had shoulder surgery, you slept on the floor as I was sleeping in the couch when there was a bed like 50 feet away. - But I need to be right next to you. - Yeah. - Yeah. And you actually woke up an extreme pain after that. So I have no like glorified notions of surgery or the recovery process. It's mostly just understanding that it's day by day. And that's gonna have to be the way it is. And bookmark this podcast because if my history is any indication, next year, maybe around this time, we're gonna be seeing some really, really cool things. And hopefully it stems back to the things I'm gonna learn in the next eight to 12 weeks. And the things I've learned in the last year, going through the terrible foot issues I've had. And also the other thing I had a little reflection on, everywhere I'm getting injured every single time. They're like, oh, there's no blood flow in that area. (laughing) The human body seems like there's some evolutionary mistakes going on. There should be blood flow everywhere. - Why have this surgery actually might be reclaiming that process? It's like you just need to screw in it and we're gonna move on. It's gonna be so great. Everything's gonna heal. - I just needed to get screwed. - Yeah. - Okay. Literally. Actually on our date night, we went into a bike shop and I got some gels for the weekend. And the guy in there said something that I thought was really helpful for anyone navigating a surgery or a major process. It's just like, you get one shot at recovery. And I think like I'm excited for you to follow this. I think sometimes when there's an uncertain process, you're kind of like, okay, well, this week I'll return to run and it's kind of a little bit more haphazard. And with surgery, it's a very set process. And I think that's gonna be so good here. It's like, follow the steps, do the recovery, right? And I think both your fifth met and your plan tour are gonna come out well. - Oh, you're lecturing me on the podcast. - That's a lecture. - I'm just taking the words from the guy in the bike shop. That's his words, not mine. - I know. You're a mansplaining. Yeah, yeah, I was watching a great documentary on Peacock called Warn, which is about Warn Michaels. I actually have dreams about Warn Michaels making him proud, even though I've never been a comedian in my life. He's the head of SNL. And so I watched this documentary and was just so into it. And he had a quote about the times when SNL had fallen on hard times and had to change everything. And that's his superpower over 50 years, just being willing to shuffle the deck and move with the times and evolve and not age in the sense of his sensibilities. Like he will always listen to what 24 year olds like and like 18 year olds like. And he said, I was back to being an underdog, which is a much more comfortable position to be in. And that's where I'm comfortable too, you know? And so this is just a chance to start over again and, you know, maybe have the most fun science experiment of all, which is finally, I get to see what happens when you truly start at zero. So yeah, let's go to zero and have some fun with it. Are you going to tell that story? So you shared on Instagram this morning about the surgery and you actually didn't want to do that. And I was like, David, you probably should because they feel like where your best in life is when your story telling, when your story telling authentically. And sometimes I think that's easier for you when shit is going wrong because you're like, it's easy to make fun of myself. Look at this. But I do think it would be really like healthy and productive for you to tell the story. And do you think you're going to? We'll see. And director Cody's coming to the surgery. So I think we're going to put out weekly videos on it just every day to either, you know, do something really cool or, I don't know, something not very cool, but it'll be an interesting story to tell. So okay, let's finish up this discussion, which I had some music lyrics I wanted to read really quickly, which is that I've really thought about in this. Is it from Possum Rock? No, here it is. She had dumps like a truck truck. Five like what? What? What? Baby move your butt. But, but baby singing. Actually, for reference, there are no lyrics on the paper. We're going to start by talking about some zone compression theory. Something that we really think is what's driving training, but might not be talked about in a specific way that much. And I think actually a lot of training does center around this, but it's fascinating to me that we don't have conversations about, like, you know, how we think about this in terms of racing as well. And it's really fascinating from my perspective, because, you know, as I'm coaching these runners that have like Olympic potential, I'm trying to be like, well, what is the thing that will give them the edge? And I keep coming back to this as what is driving it. So we're going to talk all about that. Then a study on stretching in blood pressure, a wild few days at the Tour de France fans, blueberry supplementation as the next frontier. I'm wondering if you put this in here and this was a scientific study because you just came home from Trinor Joe's with a bunch of bags of frozen blueberries. I read the study first. And then I bought a bunch of blueberries. And yes, I am not going to be training, but I still want that top end performance. It was like which came first. So cool though, if it's blueberries, do you make the difference in the study? We're talking about it. It was blueberry powder. So I mean, I mean, and people are snorting it, goofing it, it's going crazy over there. A paper on negative social ties. I talked about on Patreon and it resonated a lot with people. So I wanted to bring it here. Then a hamster on Strava. So doing surprising amount of mileage. Yeah. I was just rising to me. Average of 10K a day for a hamster. Makes sense. Yeah. Hamster's run. Yeah. Yeah. Then questions on Pee D's, naked sonas, regrets, competition and more. Okay. So before we get to the zone compression idea, a quick promo for the feed. Go to thefeed.com/swap. SWAP your first order, you get 40% off, which is crazy. Then every $100 spent, you get $10 back, best deal on the market. Okay. I have been loving the feed labs creatine. It has been amazing. I swear I've been taking fake creatine. So I was doing, I was convinced that like creatine powders bothered my stomach. And so I went the direction of creatine pills. But for some reason, I was like, these feel like a placebo to me. And so sure enough, I switched over to the feed lab creatine. And I feel like I'm getting like, I feel like I'm just like in my legs on the bike. It feels like I'm smashing the pedals a little bit more than I was before. And I think it might be the creatine. Yeah. Everybody that's looking to try creatine should go this mixture. It's wild to see your progression. So yesterday on Sunday, Megan did a bike on peak to peak. Which is this really notorious highway, you're bolder. And every time that you've ridden it in the past hard, you've been with me for the most part. And so you've been getting a draft. And this time you come back from your ride and you got a fastest time. You got a QOM on one of the main climbs on this route, which is just such a big power increase. And it does coincide with when the feed lab creatine started. And I also was experimenting with this and saw bike power gains in a short period of time that boggled the mind. And it was just truly insane. So I'm coming around to this, especially for cyclists or anybody that's power limited, the feed lab creatine is kind of wild. Actually, it was fun to go out for that ride. And typically when I go and get segments, it's usually on your wheel, which has a draft component to it. And that's the tricky part about bike strap up. I mean, most of the women's segments are like that. Yeah, but I was like, I'm going to be my own empowered woman. I'm going to go do this solo pedal smash. And it was really nice to be out there. Just being like, I'm empowered. I'm solo out here. I don't need this hobbling, hog deficient little bitch. I don't need that wheel. Actually, it did help me though, because one of the times was an e-bike or some kind of like weird situation on Strava. And I was like, I'm never- I'm not a second initially. You got a second place trophy. And I'm never in the business of flagging Strava. That's just not my jam. I'm like, you know, I'm just going to have to be better than that e-bike. And you came and you flagged the shit out of it. I flagged it so hard. I just think I went in thrusting with my fingers on that flag. I was like, are you even confident on this? I'm so confident. Yeah, because I did compare efforts and this cyclist was 14 seconds behind you early in the climb and then accelerated unrealistically. It would have required just such a massive effort. And they had done a gravel ride earlier in the day. So it'd be impossible to do that on a gravel bike. A bike that could do the other routes unless they literally changed to a motorcycle. So yeah, the feedback creatine is rocking and rolling. And then beta fuel gels are still on sale. So now is the time to get them. I think they probably have a surplus or something in the science work data field gels are amazing. They are so delicious. And I've got gels this weekend. I was taking 22 grams of carb gels and it is depressing to do put so much work into a 22 gram gel. And it's like, give me the 40s. You're just doing that sub-tweet on the 22 gram gels. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just like, make it twice as big maybe and also not as thick. I don't know. I rarely say make things less thick. But with those gels, I think they should be. I feel like twice as big and not as thick. It sounds like it belongs to the moon or Chris. I mean, maybe. I don't know. No, maybe. Yeah, I feel like we kind of need both of those. Glitter Chris likes there. Okay. And then finally, the first endurance multivie. I think that this multivediment is the best thing on the market. I got away from it around this injury timing. I'm pretty much blaming the injury on getting away from it. So we'll see. It's such a good option just every day. If you're not doing any of the other stuff we talk about, the first endurance multivie is a great way to just get good blood work. We see it all the time. Okay. Last thing. I feel like the thing needs to have crutches. They need to have scooters. They need to have boots. Let's get this at the feed. Maybe it could be my brand. David Roach branded little bitch crutches. What do you think? I got so excited because we did this Amazon package that was massive coming in. And I was like, what did we get something for our house? And I opened it up and it was two pairs of crutches. I can't bring myself to do the knee scooter. Yeah. I think you got to work. Make it work on this crutches. Oh, I see. Yeah. I mean, scootering is just not putting out any wats. It's like with crutches. You want to build your upper body. Right. It's Megan's way of getting a little bit of training in. So good to the feed.com/swap SWAP. Now, a quick discussion on zone compression theory. And one to talk about this on the podcast because we've teased it for a while. And on Patreon last week, we did a champion plan for half marathon to marathon that shows how this works in practice. Like everything we're talking about now, you can go look at that plan, just dig into the little details and see what does this actually look like in the field. And the reason that this has become so much at the forefront of our minds is as we're trying to guide these athletes to unthinkable places, right? Like maybe even Olympic medals if we play our cards right. The idea is, okay, well, how is that possible? And the answer is you're able to push harder in terms of a physiological sense for longer. That's the very simple way to put it. And how do you do that? I think that digs in to the basic idea of zone compression. And I think training theory in many ways accounts for this, but doesn't talk about the effect of accounting for it. And I think when you talk about it, there can actually be some slight wrinkles in training theory. Oh, this actually improves zone compression. But I think for us, this has been a big conversation since coaching athletes that are performing at the top level in the road marathon, because there you're essentially compressing or trying to compress LT2 into marathon pace. Yes. So making one hour effort, a threshold effort, be sustainable for two plus hours, like two to, for these athletes, two hours, 20 minutes for the women. And that's a tricky scientific question, right? Like LT2, this, the turning point for threshold where efforts get less sustainable, basically holding it for a time that does not seem rational. And that's a really clear way of looking at zone compression. But it also applies in other places. So in half marathon, you'd have VO2 compressed up into LT2. So something that's sustainable for 10 to 15 minutes up into an hour. And for altres, this is the place I've had a lot of experience. You're trying to compress LT2 or marathon pace. So like something within that general framework into LT1 or the top end of zone two. So making these harder efforts actually way more sustainable. By the time I got to the 100 mile start lines, I was able to run 530 pace at altitude and probably 515 to 520 pace at sea level in the top end of zone two. And the weird part is my LT2, so my one hour pace would make zero sense. And so I think when people said, like on ritual, I said my zone two was one of the, I think I said 545. And I've gotten more confident with them since I've gotten a lot more data. I remember actually after ritual, you panicked. Yeah. Like is that number okay? And I thought people were just hating for saying it, right? But it's true. I mean, it's in fact, it's faster. Yeah, but the thing is I think the reasons some people glistening against that, especially people that don't like me, is because they're like, well, he wouldn't race a marathon that fast, as fast as that would indicate, because that zone two would seem to indicate a sub-210 marathon, and I could do nothing close to that. But the idea is that I had compressed my zones so much in this stupid human zone compression trick, essentially, that it made the hundreds able to go out at sub-six minute per mile pace at GladiVille and not fade off that because my heart rate stayed in the 140s. And so this is just a weird, weird thing that applies to all distances, basically. Maybe the 800 miles, a little different, but the same idea as apply, because essentially you're getting mitochondria that are more economical to utilize and shut a lactate, and that will make someone faster at any endurance vent. - And I think it is interesting, I think one of our primary roles as coaches is being talent identifiers and figuring out where does an athlete have the most talent in terms of discipline, in terms of resistance, and how does that apply? And I think there are some athletes, I think you racing 100s, really tapped into this unique talent of compressing LT2 into LT1, and making that more efficient, whereas I think before when you're racing sub-ultrace, I think you were super talented at that, but I think your compression of VO2 into LT2 is slightly less efficient when you're thinking about it, and so it's like, that is something that's important to identify from a talent perspective too. - And figuring out how to game the system. I mean, I think you're very similar in that your ability to run zone two is very close to your ability in zone four, aka LT1, LT2, which is going to translate really well to altars eventually. - Well, do you think that's changed a little bit based off how I trained for the heart? Like right now I'm having a hard time doing VO2 efforts with my heart. Thus it's actually making that sub-ultra the VO2 compression down into LT2 a little bit tricky. - Yeah, so let's do four background principles just for baseline here. One, no matter what zone you are compressing on race day, so whatever distance you're trying to optimize for, it starts with top end power ceilings, and the ceiling has to stay high even for 100 miles. So now we're just talking basic training theory, because essentially what zone compression is, is what have people been doing forever? And now we're just answering the question of why, like why does it lead to that outcome? So top end power matters. - And this is where like VO2 matters for 100 mile events. And like, you know, obviously we're not like designing workouts to specifically increase VO2, but a lot of the stuff that we're doing is actually touching VO2, and that's relevant for thinking about that zone compression at a lower level. - Yeah, which is why power limited athletes, so let's say if any 60 year olds are listening or honestly just about anybody, hill strides are a thing that is ubiquitous in our training, is that's trying to increase your power. And what I'm so excited for now is, yes, this foot is a nice reset. But man, I'm gonna be doing hill strides when I'm 80, I hope. - Yeah. - Because I was having regrets about the surgery, I should I do it last week. - Well. - I wanna be doing this stuff when I'm old. And if I wanna do that, you know, I'm probably gonna have to get the surgery, otherwise just don't know what the healing outcomes are. - And I do think in some ways you're in a nice spot, because like sometimes there's orthopedic surgeries that are a little bit more elective. It's like, you know, it can be a difficult decision. Like, do I go a conservative route? Do I go the operative route? And here it's like, we've had multiple surgeons look at your MRI and be like, you know, you're really probably not gonna be a high level powerful athlete going the conservative route. And it's at least nice to have had that like clear direction. - Yeah, absolutely. Optimizing for power is so important. Number two, it mostly looks like normal training theory of aerobic development. So whether you're talking about Kenova and his mixed-paced tempos or you know, Jack Daniels, even like it's all kind of similar. Number three, fueling is the key since it makes harder efforts more sustainable for longer durations, along with hydration and all the supplements we talk about. So this is where fueling really hits training theory. Because as you're pushing your body to be able to stand harder efforts, you absolutely have to have the substrate on board. And that's kind of what I figured out in 100-mile hours. Like getting back to VO2. I was always gonna be limited on that versus Matt Carpinder at Leadville because he has the highest VO2 ever recorded for a runner or at least one of the top three ever. But because of this principle along with fueling, I was able to push harder. And so that's the secret. Is if you don't take in a ton of fuel, you won't be able to push harder. - But I think this is where BiCarb helps and NOVO helps and other things that are helping to support that overall lactate profile. And it's kind of fun to think about the intersection of all of this. - Yes. - And then finally, number four, mentioned it briefly before. This is all based on improving lactate shuttling and lactate utilization. So the lactate shuttle where you're using lactate as fuel and not having the fatigue byproducts, the hydrogen ions accumulate. So you're making your mitochondria more efficient, essentially. And the way you do that exactly is mostly just normal training theory, all the good stuff we always talk about. But then there are fun wrinkles that we've been theorizing and now we're stepping purely into theory. Everything we just talked about, totally agreed on by almost everybody. The next part is how we've been trying to solve that equation, which is uncertain still. And I'm learning all the time personally because every single time I get a new data point, especially the surprisingly good ones. I'm like, what the fuck just caused that? And then digging back in and trying to see where we might be getting some zone compression signals. I think the curious thing is I think these are principles that we've kind of had throughout training, even as younger coaches, but weren't exactly sure why. It's like, oh, we're seeing some signal here. But now it's like we can actually more clearly point to the zone compression theory. And for me, one of those points is having a lot of steady running or tempos after faster efforts, especially like threshold, like speed or hills, and then tossing in something like 10 or 15 minutes steady or even just a mile steady. And that's been a key principle of workouts. And a lot of that is centering around zone compression. But I was doing this as a young coach. I just was like, hey, this seems like it's working and kind of found that data point. But now it's kind of nice to be like, okay, here's like a hypothesis as to why. - Yeah, essentially, when do you get the Gakti-T shuttle to be most active? And our theory, which is tracked in a lot of other types of training approaches, is you do something faster powerful that generates a substantial amount of high-take. It doesn't need to be a huge stimulus, like, eight-mill moles or something. It just needs to be something pretty fast. And then after that, you do essentially whatever you're trying to optimize for with the shuttle itself. So let's say you do 15 by one minute fast, one minute easy or something like that. Some simple approach. - I thought this week actually it was super fun. - And then after for you, you did one mile steady. And some of my more advanced athletes over time might be doing three-by-mile threshold if they're trying to optimize for a half marathon or a marathon or something like that. So you're doing some sort of quality running, but not hard after your faster work where you're getting the lactate shuttle to activate. And essentially you're trying to get better at lactate utilization where your body takes it in, create ATP, uses energy and goes. And you see this a lot, like Mike Smith does a lot of threshold miles after his workouts. That was one of the first clues for me where this signal started to become a little bit like, "Oh, why would you do one mile, just like one threshold mile after this workout?" And the more I dug into them, like, maybe this is why. And that kind of pushed me as I was thinking about it. - Actually, we saw Ed Einstein doing that to you on some of the YouTube videos, except Connor Mans would see that steady a mile and be like, "I'm gonna race this all out." - Yeah, which over time, maybe he compressed his own so hard that it seems all out, but it's not really, because he has this freakish lactate shuttle going on. Okay, so that was the first one. Number two is Page-Change Generals. So the training plan on Patreon has so many of these and how they work. So it changes a lot based on exact details. I don't wanna get into too much here. So I wanna make more jokes. - Yeah, yeah. - And we're getting a little bit too freaky with training therapy right now. - We're like so into it right now. - I know, this is everything though. - Why are we five things so hard with like, we're five things so hard with zone compression but like we can't even step out of it to make a joke. That is so rare. - No, we need brain-haul reductions right now. - We really do. What is happening? I actually thought about that. I was like, "Ludor Chris needs to come somewhere back here." - Don't force it, but it's slow. - Yeah. - Backseat windows up, that's the way I like to talk about exercise physiology. - Really, I mean, this is like our love language. - Okay, so first, for Vio2LT2 compression. So these are people that are doing half marathon and under faster start or faster finish intervals, where it varies on the exact structure in the training plan. Sometimes see things like the first 30 seconds of a mile interval at 10K to 5K effort and then a mile at threshold. Essentially what you're training the body to do is shuttle lactate off faster paces and have changes in paces not associate themselves with lactate increases. Like essentially you're not getting the acidity increases from the pace changes. And so that brings me to the most important one for marathoners, which is LT2 and marathon paste compression. So there you would alternate threshold in marathon pace or 10K in marathon pace, where the goal to just summarize it in an intuitive way is to get it so that whatever an athlete's marathon pace is, they can recover at that pace, which is weird. But before Boston this year, Jess McLean was able to recover at 520 pace, essentially in these workouts. So it's not a huge amount of work in these sessions, right? So we might be looking at two mile windows where they're having to shuttle lactate in this and recover. But when I saw that, I'm like, well, that should be race pace for her at this point. Just given the idea that we're not having fatigue accumulation. And so that basically summarizes the whole idea of zone compression. Your goal is to be able to shuttle lactate at these really fast paces. - Well, I feel like that's exciting from my zone compression standpoint. But it's also important in two other ways. One being that in the top level of marathon racing, you're actually responding to a lot of surges. And you need to be able to respond to a surge and not be able to like shuttle lactate off of that and then return back and just did that so well at Boston. And I think the second point too is like for athletes where you're really dialing in marathon pace, it gives you a very clear understanding of marathon pace because if you're going out too hot, you essentially can't hit these pieces. And then you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we need to like readjust your-- - Yeah, am I most like curious thing ahead? So with Jess and some of the other women that I've been coaching, I've seen that, oh, well, this clearly works even at the Olympic level. For men's marathoning, you know, the paces are so fast, does it work in the same way there? And thankfully, we're getting to partner right now with some incredible athletes like Charlie Sweeney and Alex Baston and others that are capable of those things of like the 205 style marathons. And it's been very cool to see because every single week, someone like Charlie Sweeney will drop some workout on his long run and I'm like, oh my god, that would kill me eight times over at my peak. Like there's no way I could even hang on to one of those intervals. - Isn't that kind of-- a peaceful actually like in coaching these like very high level road marathon athletes. I'm like, you know, I could just chill out all over here like going to surgery. I'm like, you know what? I should really give this recovery a chance. I just want to be a happy, happy boy. Like maybe I should just invest a little more energy into being a parent over here. No, no, but the point is for all of us, we can do things that are so incredible. And that gets back to the third point that also I think is the most fun one, which talks about float recoveries. And the reason for me, this is fun is all of this idea of zone compression, even if you don't care about the peak end of athletic performance in the pro level. If you do this, it makes it so that you're able to have those moments in a room where you feel like you're just pushing so hard, but not feeling it like a kid, you know, like you feel as if you're weightless. And I think the reasons open pressure is so cool is you get more chance and ends from running. And that is really emblematic in float recoveries where you have a more constant strain on the lactate shuttle. So I'm very sick. Like we can go back to the 15 by one minute on one minute off example where the off isn't an easy job. It's just a little bit faster than your normal easy pace, maybe progressing to 50k effort for advanced athletes or even faster for less advanced athletes. Those float recoveries are the most simple way to do this. And they are maybe the the one that you see across training theory at some points for athletes that aren't just doing five Ks in below. And I think that's often an area where you can see progression the most is seeing your heart rate come down during float recoveries. And if you haven't done this for a second, like for me, I'm really cautious with my heart at VO2 efforts. And I did this workout and like literally was not clearing lactate. And the point that I was like, is there something wrong with like my heart or my body because we are not clearing lactate over here? Or maybe my Dacondria, you know, with the autoimmune condition or who knows where the heart medication on something was weird with me clearing lactate. But also maybe I just haven't done it in a second. And I'm curious to get that next data point on float recoveries to be like, you know, is my heart rate actually dropping down in a reasonable way? Yeah. And you get so creative with all this stuff. It's so fun in coaching and thinking about training here. So a good example would be 15 by woman on woman at float. That's basic. But you could also do something like four by two miles if you're a marathoner where one mile is at, you know, threshold and one mile is a float. And then it's interspersed with a half mile easy. So like the floats don't have to occupy the whole workout. You can just occupy some of it. And so look, if you want to see all this in practice, go to patreon. This is just now for patreon now because I think digging into this anymore and we'll just confuse people. Okay, I'm really distracted though. I feel like you're talking with your eyes right now in a way that we see like the YouTube science stars do when I talk about the stars like literally like the galaxy. Are you comparing me to hankering right now? More who's the YouTube science guy that we watched? Look, I appreciate the pushback. That's a very specific. It's a very niche hankering reference. Yeah, yeah. Well, if people listen to podcasts last week, you'll get it. And yeah, I have so much energy right now. So you're like, David, it's like I feel like we're just like over here talking about zone compression in a way of just like you are really feeling it. Well, this is my thing, right? And so many listeners have said we need a bigger deep dive into this and I'll write it up while I'm injured because I think that it'll just be a great opportunity to like put a training theory where I actually think we're pushing it forward just slightly like if you want to know why the athletes are doing crazy things. And this is also altress. And so much of ultra training theory is trying to get zone compression at zone two, but for mountain races. Like even the way you think about the like how pure mountain runners are training and they're like, well, they're not doing any workouts like well, they are. They're just doing it so that they're going just above zone two and on the climbs and then just below it on the descents, they're doing these weird float workouts. They're basically doing over unders that are dictated by the mountain. Exactly. And it's the perfect way to optimize this though they might be reducing their top and power over time. Thus, that becomes a limiter. And so that's where the swap training theory would come in again in pushback slightly. Okay, you should use I feel like this has been based on your eyes. This is like some kind of zone compression foreplay that now you need to go right it up and use this energy. You're going to go take it somewhere. Yeah, take your eyes somewhere. Dude, I'm going to four hours of thinking about zone compression. I'll get the surgeon to operate on that while I was there. Okay, so if you want to You want to see that training plan or other things, go to patreon.com/swapSWAP. There are tons of articles like that. We're going to have tons of training plans on every distance, on every level, including starting at five or 10 miles a week. Heart rate zones at the $10 a month here. And as always, if you can't afford it, just let us know, and we'll get you a free link. And we've been having so much fun with podcasts on there. Just answering and listening, listening or questions, and often doing like now at this point, 60 minutes because it's just fun to talk to each other. Do you-- you can get so sick of me in the next few weeks. No, man. I have so much energy, Megan. Actually, my mom is coming into town, which is like amazing timing. And I think she's going to watch the boys tomorrow night. And so we're going to have a date night. Well, I mean, it complicates the story a little bit. I'm still not sure I'm getting surgery tomorrow. Yeah, we're figuring it out with a hospital situation. Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, because they're really pulling strengths. It's the coolest thing that they're doing it for us. Oh, shit. We have date night. I know. We're going to hang out and watch some shows. And you take such good care of you. Oh, my gosh. Oh, shit. Yeah, I can't take off my dressing at all as the wound heals. So I can't sweat, really. So I can't do anything, which is good for me probably. I like that you're parlaying this into date night. You're like, I can't sweat. I can't make it work. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Wait, oh my god. We've talked about, in the past, with Hunter Milders. Oh, yeah, the fuck I found. Yeah. Which one of our podcast listeners mentioned to us, which is finishing a Hunter Milder and doing the deed within a certain amount of time. We kind of did that when you got hit by a car. And then that's how we had an Ollie. Oh, it's true. Yeah. It was a little special. OK, that was like a week, I think. Yeah. Something like that. But the surgery at the law. Yeah. It's an option. OK, so a couple of messages from listeners. You recommended the Power Builder training plan, which is so good for everybody, involves cross-training and auto-hills. Because I had poor fatigue resistance, especially on hills. And my bike zones seemed way lower than my run zones. So their bike power was lower than you'd expect. Four weeks in and hot damn. My efficiency and FR. FR? I'm not sure. I'm just sure. Power? I'm not fatigued. Fatigue resistance. Fatigue resistance. Fatigue resistance. Wow. Have improved so much. Just did my fastest ever half marathon study run and ended it with a mile at my 5K personal best pace. Now that's a good workout. They felt comfortable. What? Thank you so much for your coaching and guidance. And then next for the new half marathon champion plan. That's the one we just talked about. I'm going to give it a shot in my own world here. I'm curious. How much would you generally think the plan could change an athlete's potential in eight weeks? So the half marathon part of the plan is eight weeks. The marathon plan is 12 weeks because it all builds on the top end. And IE, all variables controlled in a perfect world. Same conditions, course, fueling and 90% execution on the plan and an intermediate level. What improvement do you think you could be expected for an intermediate runner? So for them, 135 half marathon. And how about a newer runner? Let's say two and a half hour, a half marathon or similar on the lower volume part of the plan because they have huge volume ranges. What do you think? Oh, it can improve a ton. I think for that like two, two and a half hour marathoner, like down to two hours, 150 even. That's actually such an exciting place because that's an area where you can just really grab a lot of gains, especially if you're relatively new to sport. And then for the 135 half marathoner down to like, you know, 130, 128 at the start, but then like thinking like, you know, what happens if you stack those blocks progressively? And we just don't even know. We give the same numbers five to 10 minutes versus 10 to 30 something like that. So go to patreon.com/swap. And now on to a little bit with Palette cleanser study. Megan didn't really want to talk about this, but I do. You always want to talk about stretching and I'm like, now man, well, this is just cool physiology. It's on stretching and blood pressure. And so the big thing here is that six weeks of stretching of the lower legs for people with hypertension reduces their blood pressure. And by a pretty substantial amount, it was by about four to six points, which not nothing. And then most interestingly, that improvement got reversed as soon as they stopped stretching. So stretching seems to have some sort of benefit for people with high blood pressure. And I like their hypothesis. And this is where I was kind of like, this is neat in some ways. It's neat. They're theory was that it was due to improved vascular responsiveness in the stretched arteries. And then also combined effects of other mechanisms as you're thinking about that vascular responsiveness. But also the other neat part. And this is like pointing towards, okay, like maybe we actually are seeing something here. Sometimes when you see these studies, you're like, really, okay. But the. I can tell the study isn't really activating your research hog. No, not so much. I need this study and ludicrous combined. Yeah. And they found that actually the benefits dissipated once the stretching intervention was stopped, which like, you know, but has like some mechanics this theory there. Dose in response, essentially, but my favorite part of their conclusion is they gave their idea of improved vascular responsiveness in the stretched arteries. And then and the combined effect of other mechanisms that cannot be identified individually. It's like chat to you to give me a sentence about how vague this class will be. It's not chat to you. It's not I mean, I feel like doing that all the time about training theory. In fact, I just did it at a hundred times on zone progression, which is who the fuck knows? Why I feel like it's like a lawyer meets a scientist and like we need to channel this and who the fuck knows right. A sentence about it. But I think stretching is complicated, right? Like there's a lot of exercises, you know, just that say don't do it. It's done by a lot of people in the real world, much like the cold plunges we talked about last week. So in reality, I think there probably are benefits of stretching for some people, but it depends on the individual. And so if you have high blood pressure, it might be something to try. Maybe yoga is the next thing. Like my dad is obsessed with yoga, like he gloves yoga and he's not the type of guy who would ever have been into yoga. You know, he was born in 1952. Not exactly a thing. And he's just gloves it. And guess what? Also very high blood pressure at baseline, like that runs in the family. And so yeah, I mean, maybe what he's seeing is partially this type of mechanism where it makes him feel better because of this. Have you seen the assisted stretching session? So we go to lifetime gym, which is like the most bougie gym in Boulder and they granted us this like free access to it. Well, Megan, that's not a great thing to say when they grant you free access. It's the gym you should go to if you kind of want. I mean, it's objectively bougie. Do you know if I've been to a bougie or gym? Yeah. Megan, what do you think bougie means? I mean, I mean, I talked about the French. evolution here. The bourgeoisie. I don't need to, I usually do astronomy facts like I do not want to have to give you French revolution. Yeah, you're like, I feel this comfortable with that term. That most people do that are Gen Z nowadays. Okay, fine, fine. But it is objectively that way. Yeah, yeah. And point in case they have like assisted stretching where you can get like 60 minutes of assisted stretching. Have you seen how like it's like this vibe going on in the dark corner of the gym and I'm like, holy shit. Yeah, you put someone puts their ankles up on your shoulder. Yeah, this is all thing and I always walk by and I'm just like, wow. Yeah, yeah, this is a good gym. I was going to make a joke about, you know, right next to the electrical is the the guillotine machine. No, stronger. In fact, athlete came in a pro road runner. It's been so gonna be so fun. I'm going to be cheering on some of their workouts on crutches to Boulder. And our big gift for their trip was one month subscription to lifetime because what a good place to be. And so maybe they need to be getting assisted stretching. Yeah, they could come out and be like, that was great. Okay, so consider stretching one of those things that probably doesn't hurt unless you're hyper mobile. But I think it can often help especially aging athletes. Okay, next up, we're just going to talk about stuff. That's the big title here is stuff underlying. David's stuff corner. You know, I actually really enjoy these discussions. You bring out good stuff. Good stuff. Yeah. Yeah, all week. I'm on the lookout for stuff. I've been adding to the stuff column too. Yeah, I had a serious conversation with you asked because like Megan, I need stuff assistance. You're like, I need more stuff in the podcast. I like first thing is we're going to talk about Tour de France fans. It's been incredibly exciting. In fact, way better than the Tour de France men's this year. And the homes. Yeah, yeah, just Tour de France men's. I think that the reason for that is partially just there's more of a focus on it now. Like it has become so big that now you're getting teams and athletes dedicating so much to it that all it needed this whole time was attention to be the beautiful sport it is. In fact, I think it's maybe one of the coolest sports in the world is women cycling. And I imagine this is kind of the tip of an iceberg where everybody is going to start being aware of just how cool it is. And from a performance perspective, it makes me so excited to because I think for a long time, like women cycling and men cycling to kind of made me accidentally sad from a reds perspective. Oh, yeah. Like a lot of the athletes were succeeding. You were just like, it was like this is and he would talk about it openly about like how much weight they were losing for the tour. And it was like a huge controversy last year that we talked about around the tour with Pauline for around Perot. And she didn't finish the tour this year. She had a really rough tour getting spat out the back multiple times. But I think now carbs and how we're fueling training and having the conversations are making cycling a healthier sport to the point that like you actually can't compete now at the top level without being a grown-ass woman. And I think that for me, I'm like this increases for me the experience of watching it so much. It's like we're watching a sport that's becoming more healthy and more powerful. And that makes me excited. Yeah. There's still stories where you're just like holy bull for sure. And this is bad. Yeah. I'm talking up on so many words. First holy balls. Yeah, the other is going to be spat out the back multiple times. I'm bougie. I am just not. Lots of lots of terms going on. No, I totally agree. In this year, it was one by Demi Ballering who's been very vocal about being the strongest ass woman you can. And you know, getting a healthy menstrual cycle. And she just ripped the pedals off the bike. It was remarkable to see. I mean, we've almost never seen anything like what she's done on short times. From a dominance perspective. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely incredible. And there was this amazing moment that I think shows women cycling reaching this place of like competition and pettiness that I love so much. So pettiness. Oh, this is petty issue. I mean, I think this is just pure competition. No, this is dislike the word petty being used with women's women's. Come on, come on. Come on. You come at me for bougie. I'm coming out here for petty. Tell me this about the page. I'm the biggest supporter. You really are women. You're like Tadeau over there with a hob shirt. Yeah. Yeah. Shearing on his partner, or she's amazing too. Yeah. And last year, Tade refused to go to the Olympics because they didn't take Erskah his partner for the women's team. Even though she deserved it, it was kind of a political thing and what a good partner he is. Okay, but on the second of last stage, Kashiya Niyodama Finney, who's our favorite athlete in almost all sports. She was leading after the day before on Monvantu. She did the best climb in the history of women cycling. It was remarkable. She bet on herself went for it and was, you know, heads and shoulders not just above the field, but above any women's cyclist in history. And to her, this win was so important because she's previously won the Tour de France, but without having won a stage. And so to see her win on Monvantu and how emotional she was winning and on the podium, I just was there. I was just crying. I was like, what a cool moment for Kashiya and for women's sports in general. In the way she did it, everybody needs to follow her. She's our favorite. But the next day, so she's in yellow. She has, I believe, a 15 second lead, 19 second lead, something like that, which was going to be tough over Demi Ballering, who's this power monster, especially on short climbs. But it probably wasn't going to be tough the next day. So this second of last stage was going to be this like nice rolling stage with one little kicker at the end, but just a few hundred meters. Nothing serious was going to happen. Or so we think. And so Demi Ballering's team, FDJ Suez, who signed Kate Courtney, who we've talked about in the podcast before, can't wait to see her race at the tour, hopefully next year, did a major lead out into the bottom of this climb. And Celia Gary, I believe is her name, was the one doing the lead out. And after Demi came around as the downhill was finishing, Celia Gary accelerated into the curve, which Kashiya Niyoidama, who was on Demi Ballering's wheel, got kind of pushed into the curve. And Celia Gary didn't need to do that. She ended up finishing two minutes behind. She was clearly not planning on pushing. She was just trying to block Kashiya. And it's gotten very controversial in the world of people saying, are you team Kashiya? Are you team Demi or what? Well, actually feel kind of bad because it's like, are you team Demi? But Demi had no doing in this fact. Well, I mean, it's a team strategy. They were planning on this. I mean, it's a team strategy, but I feel like in the team strategy, you're not like, oh, we were going to force a rider into the barrier. Yes, it didn't get fined, right? Like it's not it's on the fence of whether it's actually illegal. Did you see that got fined for peeing, by the way? Oh yeah. Yeah, we're just hilarious. Like we're like doing the side short peeing. Public urination. Yeah, Demi Ballering got fined. But it was, I think, unethical. Oh, it was for sure unethical. I just don't know actually the question is is like, I don't know if that was accidental or unethical. I mean, it was so on purpose, she had to put bigger power into the pedals as they were coming around the corner in order to cut off cashiest run at the outside wheel. What do you think she was going to be like, oh, we're going to do exactly this. Like I feel she was trying to like create some kind of barrier, but maybe not exactly where she's called dropping the wheel and cycling where the goal, if you're second wheel and your riders on the front and the third place rider is someone you don't like, you want to be petty with this. You drop the wheel in front of you. So you make it so that the person behind you has to come around and then close the gap and not get the draft benefit. But in this case, it wasn't a straight line. They were coming into a very steep climb. And so as she dropped the wheel, she accelerated in order to make cashier have to go wide, but the problem is there were barriers. So she couldn't go wide. So, cashier had to put on the brakes and then accelerate back up to Demi, which she did. And then, but that acceleration takes so much power that by the top of that short kicker, Demi was able to get over the top with the gap and Demi is so powerful that she was able to push it over the downhill to the finish and get the yellow jersey back, which then she solidified the next day. It wouldn't have made a difference. Demi would have gotten the yellow probably on the last day of the race no matter what. But to me, Megan, that's good old-fashioned pettingness. So I'm like, this is exactly, we don't need pettingness, but we need that level of fire and competition. Competition. We're then women cycling kind of reminds me of indoor soccer. I'm just like, give a little nudge into the wall. Oh, that's true. And cashier came back and was like, they blocked me into which I love, right? Cashier just stood up for herself. You should absolutely. And then she also like, from a performance perspective, if there's some kind of penalty that gets assigned to that, she should do that. But then FDJ Suez, the team that was doing the strategy was basically like, cry about it. Hey, well, not about men too, but they do not gender everything. Come on. Give the them some respect. I mean, I don't know that's the thing. It was these are my good acting. I'm getting these favorite athletes in the world. We love cashier so much. I'm just giving you a hard time. I mean, you don't have to say you're kidding. My listeners know. And if they don't know, come on, I'm getting surgery tomorrow. They're going to come to slag today. They will. Okay. Number two is the blueberry study. Seven days of high-bush blueberry supplementation impuase trail running performance and experienced runners without elevating physiological or perceptual stress markers. Nine runners, seven days of freeze-dried blueberry supplementation or placebo. From the high bush. High-bush blueberry sound very boosh. Yeah. Yeah. I've been in the locker room lifetime. There's some high bushes. There's some high-bush blueberries in there. I don't know if that's even reasonable to say. I haven't been looking. Are you going to edit that out? No, I'm not going to edit anything out today. Okay, so the blueberry group significantly had faster race times. No differences in heart rate or RPE. Their soupine heart rate and feelings of tiredness were lower. And then interestingly, the day after this effort, which they did faster, it was a 22 kilometer race was the effort. Their drop height jump was maintained a day later. So their ability to recover was essentially better too. So blueberries seemed to be doing something interesting. It was kind of, I saw this and I was like, no way blueberries are doing something. When you looked at all these variables combined, you're like, okay. Are blueberries the next no meow? There was actually, whoa, there was, did you see there's a different study that they actually studied in this study of looking at blueberries and the impact on lactate mechanics or lactate kinetics in athletes. And so that was interesting. There was no effect on performance, but it did impact lactate. Maybe high bushes are the secret to zone compression. It's just really letting your brain inspire. Yeah, so now I don't think there's that much on this. We'll see if blueberry supplements come out. I think because this was just blueberries, you know, probably just get more blueberries in your diet for now. I mean, people have been swearing by blueberries for centuries. So, It's not like it's any miracle here, but you know, at Trader Joe's you can get frozen blueberries on the cheap and seems like a great thing to just mix up in a smoothie or put in your yogurt or just like thaw them out and just you know playing like, you know, it's healthy for you and seems like this could be an interesting thing. So I wanted to talk about blueberry very badly today. But I want to talk about drop height jumps really badly is be careful with those I feel like the number of times that we get messages from listeners who are doing drop height jumps with a red history and then they're like, oh, I have like a sacral or a fan next track stress fracture. It's like be careful with any kind of plyometric where you're jumping off a box. I think I lost my stress fracture privilege first a little bit here. I mean, you're that was purely caused by compensation. I feel like maybe you should get a duck. So in some blood work done to be sure, but like, you know, given the location of that and your plant our history and how long you ran on the side of your foot. Yeah, think about all the runs. We would be doing runs where I'd be on one side of the road and you would run to the other side of the road to run on a specific camber. Yeah, and you're like, this is my favorite camber for my foot. And like, maybe we have a problem here. Yeah, Megan, I've learned a lot in this process. Actually our last run together was an aspirin. Yeah, it was so fun. It was so great. It was like, we were just like really vibing and all of a sudden I saw a snake, which was surprising for like 8,000 feet. And I was like, snake. And you're like, you jumped and you're like, Megan, I can't do that with my foot. Yeah, like I said, I deserve this. No. Okay, finally here is a negative social ties paper, just very briefly, the title is called negative social ties as emerging risk factors for accelerated aging inflammation and multi morbidity. So from the study negative social ties or hasslers. I love that it's in quotes are pervasive yet understudied components of social networks that may accelerate biological aging and morbidity. And what they found was that having more quote hasslers was associated with accelerated biological aging and both rate and cumulative burden of that biological rate aging. And then each additional hassler corresponded to approximately 1.5% faster piece of aging and roughly nine months of older biological age. And so I don't want to delve in too much what a hassler is or who qualifies. I just think this is a very interesting thought experiment. So one more quote here. Our result or some more over not all hasslers exert the same influence. Kin and non kin hasslers show detrimental associations, whereas spouse hasslers do not. So Megan, you give me a hard time about saying all those words. It doesn't cause me any issues. So there's a theory there was that spouse hasslers are actually easier to leave. Oh, you can just abandon them if it's like super bad. You're just like, yo, I'm out. Whereas kin hasslers like it's really hard to do that to like a mother or a father or sister or a brother. And so thus there's a higher burden because you can't just piece out of that situation. Well, maybe we should. Maybe that's the key. Then if spouse has worse don't bother you because there's the option to leave even if you don't leave. There's also like oftentimes even if there is kind of a mixed component of like, okay, there's some like some stress here. Oftentimes there is some level of support. And so sometimes those can balance. So it's tricky. Yeah, sometimes you give me a hard time about words, but then you are my light in love. And the reason I wake up in the morning. So it really does. Yeah, but I mean, that's an interesting thought there that if spouse hasslers even when they're rough don't cause the same issues in this study, which obviously isn't dogma. Well, I think they would if like the signal or stronger for people staying in those relationships. Maybe it is or maybe it's just the idea that you could theoretically, you know, it's not a choice right on some level. So you're opting in. Or maybe it's evolutionary that you're designed to just kind of have some conflict with your partner and just part of it. But maybe it points out that like setting boundaries with your family is important sometimes like you know, maybe it's just that simple is that you have some option there. And I mean, that's becoming more of a thing where people are being told that look, you can set boundaries with your parents, let's say. But that's obviously extremely tricky. So just a vote to be aware when people are causing a shit in your life. And you're doing the best you can. And maybe like this isn't just in your head. Like it's something that could affect your long term health if you don't like work through it, whether it's with them or your therapist and figuring out strategies to handle it. Honestly, I see the burden of like caring for family members or even just being in tricky family member situations and how that interacts with training on a consistent level and coaching. It's like that's sometimes such a hard situation that feeds into training and how you feel and recovery and grief and so many different emotions and you know so much love to anyone out there who is training and grief or struggle because like that can be a hard context. And often in a like non-linear extended period of time way. Yeah, so much love to everybody going through that because like behind this type of paper is so much trauma. Not just with your family, but like think about your boss that causes you shit or whatever. And I don't know. I always come back to like love and kindness and generosity. And I think that's the only thing that I can say is that I'm not going to be being the answer to most things because it's almost like a non resistance to the hassle. But then I think about when I've had these types of people in my life life and how many runs I've spent wasting away thoughts about oh my god, this terrible things can happen. Like what have I done wrong and all of that and like you know it's so so hard when it happens. And I think that's the only thing that I can do is to get back to the point of like love and kindness and my point is get the fuck out of there if you can if you have the ability to like change the situation. Do so because like you know it's kind of like fascinating to think about that like you know there are some productive situations whether it's like a friend or a boss or something that you can move on from it's like do it. Yeah, Megan wants to spit it right out the back. Very quick one here. Sears and all was this past weekend. Very great race. Coach the top American since awesome. Okay, on a Gibson on a Gibson. Christian Allen the best and there were so many great athletes. I just isn't to talk about them or the coach or whatever though on a Gibson is doing the 1100 this week. That's going to be crazy. The mountain bike after racing Sears and all and I love that. I just am so excited. We'll be talking about that next week no matter what just what we learned. Okay, she's going to crush the bikes at the start of the race. They push the bikes. You it's like a running start right. Oh, no, that's the silver rush. This is over us. Yeah, yeah, there's a hill with the start of silver. You were to carry your bike. No, not 100 in hundreds of different course this year which avoids power line just like the run will might be a very fast course on the bike. I'm curious actually the run course might be very very fast this year. But at Sears and all the point I wanted to talk about biggest chargers in the world by far the most competitive it's insane. It's like entity like cross country on you know just jacked up. But the mascot of Sears and all which I don't know exactly what this thing was. This is like a mountain goat or a ram something with like horns. Yeah, it's got some horns going on. But it was so strange at the finish line. It does this every year. It chases the runners down and does like moves behind them. It only jumps jumps and kicks. But it's literally in every single finisher photo. And also I feel like a times there was people that were like close together and I'm like get out the way. Yeah, move bitch. Get out the way. It's a house ludicrous. It's a house. See you as an ocean move on from the sassler. Yeah, I just think we should get rid of it. And because this feels to me so much like a man like you know to make this about the patriarchy. This is like the patriarchy in a ram that like it's running down this like this is my accomplishment. This is me and everyone's thing. I don't know. I felt the same way. I was like why are we seeing this ram over and over and over again? I had to vent about that. So you know what I put that in the stuff thing too. Did you know that? Did we both put that in there? Yeah. Okay. That's all we need to talk about. We did it about the hamster. The hamster. Yeah. Oh hamster ran five to six miles a day on Strava. Yeah. There was some scientists that you know coded and basically created this like little computer on the wheel. And then we had a magnet with a magnet and then uploaded it to Strava and this hamster is going viral. People are really into this. Yeah. Hamster going viral. Yeah. Feel like that is a contagion risk or something. We're having a pandemic from a hamster going viral. Yeah. And I kind of love it. Uploading it to Strava. Interesting. I wonder how many followers. Yeah. So do you a lot? I mean this. Does hamsters get like a thousand likes per file? Whoa. Which is quite a bit. So listen to try and hear that. But Megan you're stomach just made the biggest growl. I have ever heard. You're hungry. You're hungry. Oh, yeah. We got to finish this podcast. Really? I know we got 30 minutes left. I'm going to eat some serious some food. Yeah. Yeah. Trigger just spaghetti. Uh-huh. That's been my jam. Um, yeah. So hamster. Very cool. Um, reminds me of when Adi I put my garment on her back in like 2014 or whatever. Just to see how far she ran and then forgot that I had my garments set to auto upload to Strava. And so Adi finished a run. I stopped the watch. I wasn't going to upload it anywhere. Um, but then Adi had a Strava profile that I had made as a girl. Yeah. A girl talk. Yeah. And then it uploaded every activity on the watch. Including all of my old runs. Including the US mountain running championships that year. You were taking so many segments as Adi. Adi took thousands of segments in one go. And actually reminds me there's been some stories of like Rob Carr has all this like GPS data. And then he suddenly joins Strava. And he sends out like 4000. It was like the Rob Carr apocalypse. Yeah. The Carapace of 2017. Yeah. That happened. I feel like this happened with some other pro athletes too. Yeah, but a dog doing it across genders probably a little bit less. Actually, someone has dropped a reach out to you after that and was like, your dog just took my stuff as I got the top person that Strava Strava Strava and I've been through a lot. Okay. Let's get on to Q&A. I don't think there's anything to talk about. Right. Before we get there. Let's get to Q&A. All right. First one. This is more of a comment. I forgot to send this last weekend after my run. But I want to send out props to Megan and you for talking about it for the side shorts. I thought I could possibly do it with the seven inch John G trail shorts. But then I heard Megan describe doing it in her bike shorts. So my long run. I decided to give it a try. Total success. It was way easier to stretch those types than I expected it to be. So here's to try new things. His on has a for the side short. Actually, the John G tights are amazing for that. They're very easy to just move to the side. And guess what I always wear black tights because you know, there's like swamp. There's body fluids. There's side short P and then like you kind of need to like obscure those things. But they came out with this really new truckways color. And so I got truckways color tights. It's just like short tights while they're coming. And so now we're just I'm going to have to like uplift all my body fluids. So you know how there's DC Rainmaker that does the gear reviews. - Uh-huh. Megan, for your reviews, you'll have the swamp ass rating. - Uh-huh. - Yep. - You have to just gotta own it. Like, I feel like I have to own it in this color, and you know what, the color way is worth it. - Yeah, and I just love how much the side-trots be has resonated with people. And it's interesting to me that people have never thought of it before as an option, because we get a lot of messages like this on my channel. - We actually get so many side-chewer-peam messages. - Yeah, and so why aren't people conceiving of this in advance, right? Is there a reason? Is this the patriarchy? - I don't know. I don't know what the reason is. - Demi, if I'm wondering, maybe could have saved yourself a fine, how'd you done this? - Interesting. - Can you get a sign? - So are they squatting on the side of the road? They're not doing the side-trots, V? - I mean, I assume they're squatting, yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Okay. - But I wonder, like, would you get a fine if you were doing the side-trot P, because you could always argue against it, I feel like there's just water coming out. - Oh, yeah, yeah. - There's this, like, if you're like fully stripped down. - Interesting. Well, we have a lot more theoretical development to do on this. - This might be how you avoid fines. - I would be saving some women some money up here. - Some Swiss francs from the UCI fines. Okay, the next one, a little bit interesting here. Just putting two and two together, we talked on the Patreon bonus episode this week about that I was getting surgery, probably. I'm a foot dietist. It sounds like you're going to have a screw put in your fifth met for a Jones fracture. Similar, it's zone three for any foot doctors out there that are interested. Certainly something that is beneficial if you're an athlete and want to the bone to heal and get back to training faster, I believe. I just wanted to relate to something that I've been wanting to talk to you about for a while, which is peptides such as BPC 157 or TB 500. - TB 500 sounds like Tom Brady is line of peptide. - The TB 12 now we got the 500. - Yeah, maybe this is stupid analogy, but those are just enhancing your own ability to heal. Now this to me seems like a no brainer to do versus surgery. The surgery is enhancing your physiology by ever attaching something mechanically versus using some native molecules. I hope you knew that. Now that being said, you're getting a screw put in which is technically enhancing your body's ability to heal. I understand the water rules, but I just gotta say the water rules are a little stupid when it comes to this, just because I've seen so much benefit from it. - Well, I love that the side of end of voice to write. It's written as water rules instead of water rules, which I appreciate. It's just mixing, mixing a lot. - Yeah, interesting. Anyway, that being said, if you could do a two course week of two week course of this to heal your foot rather than having a screw put in there, would you do it? Or would you consider that cheating more so than the screw? So fascinating question here, obviously that is cheating. But I wanted to bring this to the podcast to show where the cheating ideas can gain some sort of rationalization at first in the minds of people that do these cheating. And so I'm not saying that about the pedigree steer. Look, you're a doctor. You see different things in health journeys. This is not about that. This is not about how you're counseling your patients or anything. You're doing a great job being yourself. And you know, we are the we on the subject. But I know more about why the doping rules exist. And the reason is that there are lots of things that enhance the body's ability to heal. And there are legal ones that strike a few boxes. One is being dangerous for health. The other is giving an unfair advantage. And things like peptides do all of that. And so if you think it can heal the body in two weeks, what you're essentially saying is, here's a performance enhancing drug. And if WADA has made the decision that it is performance enhancing, then it is performance enhancing as we talk about. So yeah, I mean, I think that this is a age old question and most athletes that are cheating rationalize that cheating and that brings me back to the conversation that's happening everywhere. And I feel like that rationalization often starts with an injury or starts with some recovery process. But then I think the tricky part is and that extends into everything. And like you shouldn't even be rationalizing the first place. And I think this is an area where like the rules are the rules. And even if I was like, you know, I've been dealing now with these long term partages for five years. And if you came to me and you said, okay, Megan, here's a peptide that heals your heart. And it is illegal by WADA. I would not take it. Would you take it though? If I mean, if you were sure it would heal your heart forever, not and then just not compete again? No, actually, okay, that's all important. Yeah, because to me it's like, that's all important competition is to me. Like, you know, there are WADA rules for a reason. And there's like, you know, clearly, like these are, these are performance enhancing substances in terms of like recovery and healing processes. And so it's like, you have to just follow the rules. And if there was something that healed the heart, there would be exceptions to that rule. And actually that next point is like, there are medical exceptions to a lot of these things. There are pretty cute exemptions. Yeah, exactly, yeah. And so, you know, But not to peptides that I know of. Yeah, we're actually not at all. Yeah, because I think they're not approved by any of the governing bodies in terms of like FDA or anything. And so it's complicated from this person's perspective. It is not complicated from an athletic perspective. And you know, that's why when I read these justifications online of some of the athletes taking peptides being like, "Oh, it helped me heal and prevent surgery." I'm like, "Well, no shit. That's what performance enhancing drugs often do." Well, to like, you know, take that comment. And for you and I, it's an easy equation. We are competitive athletes. Absolutely not. Like the WADA rules are clear. We won't take them. How about an athlete that's a back-of-the-pack athlete that is facing decision of, you know, increasing healing time for recovery for me. That's lazy. It's like you used to follow the rules. But imagine that that becomes a trickier conversation in their minds. I mean, I recognize the nuance there. But that's not the conversation that's happening right now. We're talking about athletes that are competing for podiums, right? And that does change things. And so health always comes first. But make sure we understand the rules are there for a reason. And if you don't have rules, you don't have sport. And fully recognize this. What it reminds me of is Andy Pettit. So, left-handed pitcher from the New York Yankees. I don't know the exact story. But I think he was in the Mitchell report, which was a congressional report about steroid use. And after that, he, you know, can't say, look, I only did this so I could get back to the field after a long-term shoulder injury, like, rotator cuff or something like that or something. And I'm like, yeah, that's the same exact situation. Like it's still-- he's never going to be in the Hall of Fame. And maybe he shouldn't be even on his normal stats. But like, he definitely won't be now because of that. And so, yeah, there's lines that you just can't cross. Why, love that you're mixing David's dad facts with water. And so-- High five of that. High five of my Andy Pettit facts. Your baseball facts are going hard. OK, next one. We talked about this in the Patreon episode, but one of the little palette cleanser after the last one. Question for the pod. Please help my wife and I resolve an agreement. We're getting a sauna installed at our house, partially for heat training, partially because being warm feels nice. My wife is making a big deal about always sitting on a towel. I know that's normal in a public sauna, but this is private. And it's not like we don't touch each other's butts. She thinks I'm disgusting. She's not wrong, but I don't see how this is any different from any other naked home stuff looking forward to hearing who is wrong. Why I feel like the listeners can guess our take on this is that I would absolutely sit naked. And I would sit naked on the same spot that you sat, because I don't really think about that. Megan often records the bonus podcast episodes on my pillow. On under her butt, which she often-- I'm going to wear shorts. Megan, you haven't showered since you run. This is way worse than their poop particles. OK, this is a thing in parenting. It's a lot more convenient to just shower at 8 p.m. That you shower post run because I don't have time for that. OK, so for a bonus episode here, we're not receiving on somebody else's pillows. That's my mom's house. Sorry, Nana. Oh no, she's going to listen. She does listen. Hi, Nana. We'll watch the watch eventually. No, we won't. She'll probably watch eventually. Eventually, cosmic time horizons. Who knows? Anything's possible. Infinite number of monkeys typing on typewriters might eventually wash the pillow. But up there, it's our pillows. And Megan always puts my pillow under her ass. I didn't know who's your pillow. You literally always do, Megan. It has to be intentional. It's the best pillow for my ass. Why are you so good at picking up pillows? I love it. I love it. And it just adds some flavor to it. [LAUGHTER] But yeah, yeah. I mean, I think in your home, you should just be more comfortable with your body in general. And so I understand that we want some hygiene so you're not getting like pink eye from your sauna. But try to be comfortable with it. And I think a lot of people have different backgrounds on that. I've made you a lot more comfortable with your body, right? Oh, yeah. And I grew up in a household that was very clean and very organized. And not probably many naked people walking around all the time. No, never. And I have seen your parents take it multiple times. Yeah. And it would be way more-- How it rolls? Way more if they were able to choose their own decisions. But I'm like, mom and dad, we have new rules now. You grew up so differently. And I feel like it's actually been really helpful for me to just be more chill about everything. But that being said, I actually kind of like sitting on a towel because I feel like it makes the sauna bench more comfortable. And so I might sit on a towel because it feels good. I don't even sit on a towel lifetime fit his. [LAUGHTER] Wonder how much longer we'll have the gym members. Yeah. Shot out the back multiple times. OK, next question on regret. So we're kind of alternating vibes here. I constantly deal with regret that I hadn't started my running journey sooner. So there's more context to this question that was submitted on Patreon. I'm 35 in October. I started when I was 30. And it's been sort of stop start with little niggling injuries ever since very normal. At the start of a running journey, I had five years of that until this year I had didn't deal with much sense. I had this deeper gap that I didn't start running in my early 20s. I was a pro footballer, so a soccer player, until the age of 20. And it didn't work out for me. I wish I'd gone straight into running there and then instead I got into bodybuilding and then became sedentary. Like I said, I started running at 30. And I feel a big sense of missing a whole 10 years of progress. I'm so into my running and fitness now. And I'm really enjoying seeing where my body and mind can go with discipline and dedication. I think of what could have been if I started sooner and where my fitness would be now. Is there any benefit to starting later in life from a physical standpoint? I really doubt there is, but I'd be interested to know your thoughts on this. And whether you've dealt with anyone in coaching who may have similar regrets. - I think it's actually an amazing place to start from. I think like there's almost this like mental and physical process that come together. But I think the biggest one I can think of is, I think a lot of athletes start into running at a young age and don't understand the process of training or understand feeling their bodies and create essentially dig a massive recovery hole so that they're dealing with bone health consequences from starting running at age 14 when they might not have had the education or the tools to understand how to feel their bodies properly. And it's like, for me, I think about that. I played field hockey in college. I was doing heavy power lifting in college. And I look back now and I'm like, what would have happened if I ran colligently? Maybe I'd have this massive base to build from. But at the same time, it's like, you know, I think I came into running when I was in a much better place mentally and more mature to handle it. And I'm so grateful for that. Yeah. I mean, you've done so great with that. And like, I think the reason this is my first bone injury is similar background. And what I told this listener is that almost everyone as they start running has 10 years of like a grace period of adaptation where things grow. And then after that, it becomes more marginal gains. And so it doesn't matter when you start. You're going to get those 10 years to go. And then the aerobic system can keep adapting for the rest of your life. And so you're just pushing that clock back. So what we see in athletes that start at 30 or whatever is they are achieving their personal best at 45. Like they have a level beyond the level that you'd expect that is just unthinkable almost. And like, I'm banking on that personally that I didn't start till I was 20, right? Like, I mean, not that I have regrets about that, but the idea being that, well, maybe that'll just give me a couple more years than some of the people who started at 10, maybe not, but maybe it will. And you see that all the time that the athletes that are the most successful in even their 60s and 70s usually had a little bit of a later start. So I think you have a huge advantage here. It just might be tougher to see when you're going through it and you're going through all these initial parts of the running journey that are challenging for everybody. You know, I have a little bit of regret actually about not being a cyclist. Like I feel like I haven't really dedicated time to improving my FTP or building watts on that bike, but I feel like I have a lot of mechanical limitations as a runner. And I've had the reflection recently of like, gosh, like, it would have been really cool to try to do something in cycling just because I feel like I don't have quite those same mechanical limitations. And, you know, but now at 36, it's like, you know, there's no way I'm finding my way into a Peloton and hanging on. I mean, I've gotten better on the downhill a lot better on the downhill, but like, they're by handling skills or to the point that, like, that would be unimaginable for me. Yeah, it's silly. I get you did that move on you. You're a guy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You'd be some blueberry powder on the side of the road. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I think everybody has regrets in life too. It's not just about this. Like, obviously, I'm plagued with regrets right now. Do you have an athletic regret? I mean, I'm currently going through a huge one here, right? But I almost think regrets, characterized almost every experience. Like, it is very rare in an athletic life. And in a life generally where it's like, this is perfect. God bless the broken road. Like partially, sometimes you can get there. Those little moments cherish them because they're fleeting, right? Like, you could say that I've had those experiences in the last couple of years, but then life moves on and you have new regrets. And it just gets to be new. Like, you're never going to have that slate white fully clean. I think regrets are part of the human experience. And, you know, we're never going to do things perfectly because there's no such thing. Even if we could go back in time and choose every right path in our heads, you would just see that there are barriers that you didn't know existed down the other paths. And so that could go for a relationship where I'm sure there's people listening right now that are like, well, what could have been if this wasn't the person I chose? And it's like, well, I promise you that would have been fucked beyond belief too. And you would have tried to make the best of it just like you're doing now. And so regret in some ways is this warm hug when shared. So just talk about it, open up about it, and realize that every human is right there with you, including the people that seem like they have it all figured out. Like the, so the celebrity, you're the athlete that you're thinking is on a pedestal and does it right. And, you know, Taylor Swift is out there with regrets like you couldn't believe. And I think athletics make it even more apparent because you have things like what I'm going through now where it's just laid bare for you that you fucked up. And you just got to deal with that. I think there's something about like confronting your regrets that make you so much like I feel like that often like clarifies the why and brings like ultimately the piece. It's like, you know, just see that and sit with that and to like, you know, confront it and talk about it. I think it's so helpful. Yeah. And everybody's right there with you. And, you know, we love you going through that journey because I think that's just the way things are. And, you know, we get one shot at life. And so it's very easy to have regrets in that context because, you know, you're just, unless we're immortal. If we're immortal, we'll give back to that conversation. Yeah, we did debate that on Patreon this week. If you were immortal, you'd have a lot of time to heal this stress fracture. That's true. If I was immortal, I assume my body wouldn't break down in the same way too. Basically, being immortal would prevent stress fractures, right? Because like, if you could get stress fractures, that would imply that you could also like die from things that would chip away at you. But can you imagine the level of competition if we were immortal and couldn't break? And then everyone would be doing 45 hours a week of training and you couldn't actually have a job and have a parent like be a parent and do all these other things and train at the same time. But counterpoint, go fuck yourself. Okay, okay, okay. Let's get on to the snorkeh owner because I want to get ready for surgery. I still need to do. Before we that, click from O for John G go to johng.com/swap swap s w a p best year on the market is so good. I want to read this message from listener longtime listener since pod number one pre-COVID back when we were all obsessed with Hamilton. I even listened to David pre-podcast when he regularly guest hosted on troll runner nation. That's a throwback throwback. Who better to plug john G than an unsponsored listener in john G convert after hearing Megan regularly law the long brawl and pay shorts. I tried them for the first time today. Never have I ever been so comfortable in the long run. The material feels like second skin naked running for the win. It really does. I feel like my dream is to run naked and johng gets me there while being publicly acceptable. They actually have a really cute, it's like I got the long brawl in this like cherry color. You should go check it. So I forget the exact, it's like this like red pattern and I am so excited for it to come and I got the turquoise shorts that now I'm gonna like rock swamp ass with pride. Okay, we need to go look up what color the cherry shorts are called on the john G website. Okay, people liked our back and forth on me guessing what the cherry shorts are. Oh no, oh no, never mind. Okay, so my computer, I left the computer just like unattended in the playroom with the boys the other day and now it does not work and I don't know what happened. And it is an expensive computer and we have to pay for this surgery. So yeah, hey, now's a good time to subscribe to page track. We are trying our best. You know how there's like a car service that when your car is in the shop, you can get like a little like loan or car. They should do the same things. I'm gonna have to send my computer in because it's covered by insurance, which is amazing, but I'm gonna have it for three days and now I need like a loan or laptop. Well, they're just worried about all of the hardcore pornography you're gonna put on. Yeah, can you imagine if we're just all around a loan or laptop. Yeah, but john G's the best go order their stuff. We're not gonna be able to do this because we're currently using okay, it's cherry something and it's a really cool color. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's cherry something. I'm excited to see what it is. And now we're on to listener corner, which is quite a short one this week. Here it is. You're brilliant. Thank you. We hear that. Keep inspiring. Thank you. Also needed to hear that. I despise running until I came across the podcast. Have a great one. That means a ton. Yeah, I mean, I feel like like learning to love running a little bit more is just like such a great thing. It's everything. And that's our goal here. It's not to make you love running just to make you love the fact that you are mortal and you have this bones and crystal. We are mortal. Are you you're coming to my side on immortality? Well, I mean, my point of like what this is designed to be is an idea that we're all in this together. This thing that I would not choose if I had the option. But it's going to make you stronger and tougher and more reflective and less evil now. That's evil. I mean, I have to be evil if you're immortal. I mean, that's the path that every every everyone takes every dumb little thing. Usually that in there. No, I can't. You absolutely have sleep. I'm gonna leave the left, but I have to edit out. I have to edit out the word because that's double meaning. It was worse than petty though. It was worse. It was bad. I deserve to be canceled at that word. Got missing the purpose. But yeah, I mean, like, you know, the reason we talk about surgery with the same hopefully jokes we talk about the champion moments we've had in our lives is that like it's kind of the flip side of the same coin might even be the same side of the same point. It's just kind of the way it is. So thank you all for being here. I want to end this just a little bit melodramatically because while the surgery does scare me off, I am very scared of you never had anesthesia before. I'm very scared of anesthesia. I'm very scared of I'm going to get life insurance today for our kids. You were like, oh, Megan, what would happen if I was actually awake like one of those horror movies where you're awake during surgery and it's like, David, it's like one and five hundred thousand people. I also told Megan who I want her to podcast with by die in surgery because it does happen occasionally. I told her who who I'd want her to do that. Actually, it would be I want you to live, but it would actually be so much fun. This person's amazing. I couldn't I actually couldn't I cannot podcast with that you. Okay. Oh, I should just say it's Sasha. Hey, Sasha, if you're listening, I told Megan, you're who I want to replace me. Not in the relationship, but in the podcast. So no pressure. But you know, everybody goes through the same thing and yeah, I mean, part of me feels like I brought it on myself and part of me is like, well, this is just opportunity to show people that you are who you try to be in the world, right? Like it's not we are nothing specifically. We are just an act of habit. This gives me a chance to show up and try to be someone that is inspiring for a different reason. Not because I'm going to come back and win races, but because I'm going to be able to make jokes when my back seems to well a little bit and I'm not the person I want to be day to day because it's just hard to be when, you know, I have to my foot above my freaking heart at all times and I can't walk and can't do anything and, you know, it's just going to be it's going to be a little challenging, but, you know, we're all going through it. I'm excited to take such good care of you. Can you let me? Can I let you? I want to like wait on you and bring you food to bed and see all these different things. I feel like you're not going to let me. You're going to like crush downstairs the back back. You try to get it all upstairs on your own. I'm trying to be self-sufficient because that's something I value, but I'm not going to be so. I want to help you. I'm like, I'm going to take really good care of you. You know the song I've been listened to, everybody needs to go listen to gasoline by cigarettes at sunset. Okay, it's possum rock. That's what they call it. They they their genre for themselves is called possum rock. I got served it by the algorithm and algorithm does know me very well because I'm obsessed with the song and fan. Okay, there's also like a 22nd violin solo in the middle and I'm like, I am so sold if possum rock has a violin, I am in. Yeah, but the thing I've been thinking about is like, you know, I've been the line from the songs, I have been pouring gasoline on a burning fire. That's what this is. Like how do I get a fifth metatarsial stress fracture? Right? Like that's the opposite. We always say I have brontosaurus bones. The answer is like there was already a fire there. It was burning and I learned too late that I was pouring gasoline on it and I knew I was taking risks, right? It was all designed to try to get back to Redville at the latest this year. Now Redville is gonna happen and I'm not gonna be weight bearing for it and I think that's appropriate. And so-- - Are we gonna go to Redville? - I mean, we'll see. It depends on what I'm allowed to do. - True, yeah, we'll have to get it, yeah. - I have a appointment the Friday before where it depends on wound healing. But yeah, you know, like sometimes you're pouring gasoline on like a little fire to help it grow and sometimes you're just like burning the house down and I think I've spent a lot of years pouring gasoline on various things and it worked out pretty well. - Yeah, yeah. - And now it's a little different. So yeah, now we tell the story. - And I'm gonna take such good care of your house. - Yeah, my house? - Yes. - Burn to the ground? - Yeah. - That way. - We're gonna rebuild it. - So we agree. We're gonna put in a designer kitchen. - Yeah. - How are you? - How are you? - How are you gonna sit on? - How are you gonna sit on?