Episode 422: Apache Endurance with James Pieratt

This episode continues a series of episodes covering some of the most prolific ancient endurance groups and tribes the world has ever seen. For this episode, we unpack what made the Apache some of the most impressive endurance athletes of all time. Joining me as co-host for this series is James Pieratt. For more on James, check out episode 395 where we discuss his incredible lifestyle.

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Episode Transcript:

How's your, How's your foot been doing? I know when we chatted at Fat Ox, you were a little bit, uh, beaten up after that one. Yeah, that was annoying. The, um, I maybe I maybe, uh, I don't want to say regret. I maybe push it a little further. Like it maybe took it from stress fracture territory into, like, um, mature fracture territory a little bit by pushing it, but overall, didn't do any, uh, lasting damage. And, um, apparently I have, like, like an an actually super human bone healing back, uh, you know, like speed, like, they literally haven't seen anything like that before. Um, and, uh, essentially, like, by the time anyone got a scan on it or got to look at it. Calcium. I mean, not calcium, sorry, but rather there's already calcification filling in. And, you know, they're like, this is just insane. And so after four weeks, I didn't have a follow up X-ray or anything, but it's, you know, at four weeks, I felt pretty, pretty normal. I haven't run on it or anything yet. Um, and then the main thing I feel now is since it's, you know, it's really cold where we're at, at back at home in the Sierras. Some days I wake up and it's like 25 degrees, 27 degrees, and I'm like, okay, so my foot's a little achy on that side, you know? Um, but overall it's been good. And I've been lifting, you know, almost the whole time, uh, barefoot, you know, on like on padded but padded surface at first nice and light. Now it's like medium weight, nothing heavy, heavy, you know, but, um, uh, and it's been holding up well and strengthening, and it feels like the bones remodeled really well. So I'm going to, uh, pretty soon here, kind of get into some, uh, a little bit of just, like, very light shuffling and some, like, uh, more forgiving shoes and maybe some more walk and been doing a good amount of walking and barefoot shoes and like, you know, harder bottom zero drop shoes. Um, and just kind of, you know, gather some data on that, but it's feeling pretty good. And then I, um. Pushed the date, or rather didn't push. I settled in at the later end of our hour window for my thousand miler. And, uh. And coming up this next year, um, we're going to start on June 1st. That will be a document film crew will follow. And, uh, did the whole thing do it proper? Maybe we'll depend on how things go. Make a run at the FCT. Right on. Funny fact about that. I was admittedly pretty overconfident about just being able to win. I don't want to say minimal effort, but we're kind of just at baseline, just kind of crushed the FCT on the California coast trail for this one. Um, I found out why the fats are so slow. So 41% of the route is run on sand on beaches. And I'm like, I could not get them like you guys like they talk. You know what I mean? Like, how has no one done faster than 40 days, you know, or whatever. And then now I know it's it's. So the breakdown for anyone who is interested or for you, um, would be for I believe it's 41% at the current state of the trail. As it is, um, is 41% sand or beach at beach running, 39% cement running and then the remainder being actual trails. It's like less than 20% trails. So I was like, okay, so that's a unique and new, uh, new factor. But I'm actually going to be doing, uh. Settling in for, I believe. When did we say 2027, 2026 or 2027? Depending on a couple of factors, I'm going to be doing the marathon to Assad and the Sahara. So I might yeah, so might as well get used to running on sand. Yeah. That's the first thought that came to my mind when you mentioned sand and running. Was that that event? So yeah, you'll definitely get your fill there. I did a race over in the Gobi Desert. I think this was back in like 2016 and it was 100 K and it was like a really flat 100 K, but it was all on like sand. And I was probably three hours slower for 100 K on sand than I would have been on the road. So yeah, definitely take a step back for every couple forward with that sort of terrain. Yeah, running the Gobi must have been cool. There's a lot of history there. I mean, like in terms of just, like, literal like, I mean, not just human, but anthropological, like evolution of humans, like the Gobi has been a natural, like a huge natural barrier that really affected everything from gene flow to culture. Like it's interesting. Mhm. Yeah. And I mean it's just something when you're dealing with that much sand it's just ever changing too because I know there's like we were, we were kind of sightseeing on the Great Wall when we were over there. And they were talking about how like certain certain pieces of that would just essentially you'd get like a sand ramp that would go over the wall and there's not really a wall there any longer. Yeah. I can't remember what they did to remedy that. I'm sure they probably dug it away or something like that. But yeah, yeah, those natural barriers are pretty crazy. Yeah. And it's also interesting, uh, just as an aside as how they built the desert through, you know, how they built the Great Wall through the desert portions, you know, like, uh, using the different methods of tamped earth, mixing sand and clay and then compressing them under, you know, like, all these, these pretty cool, uh, construction methods that are actually making a resurgence today for sustainable agriculture and green housing and, you know, stuff like that. So I, I love, I mean, regenerative agriculture, architecture, all that stuff just to, you know, like bring more of that back the better. But there's, uh, I mean, all sorts of, you know, underground water distribution centers and even like, natural air, like, you know, air circulation, you know, and from cooling from different surface types and shapes and a building, like, all sorts of cool stuff they even started doing. I know we're getting off topic here, but in certain cities they're starting to use ancient Roman agriculture, uh, city planning practices to, like, alleviate heat, like, you know, heat. Certain parts of, you know, I believe, uh, I can't remember the specific cities, but they're starting to experiment with it because, you know, ancient Rome dealt with heat long before that. You know, heat waves long before there was, uh, air conditioning. But it's like putting, you know, basically covering some surfaces with, like, you know, paint, uh, making sure some parts are painted, but like, breaking up large city blocks with, like, small garden sections and trees and, you know, these little things that make an accumulative difference to, you know, you can bring down the estimate, can bring down like the base average temperature of a city, like ten degrees during a heat wave or something like that, you know. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's incredibly significant. Yeah. It's significant. But anyway, long story short. Yeah, yeah. Tons of history out there for sure. Well, that's not too far off topic because I think the Apache probably had to deal with some weather at times when they were out and about. They did. They did. So this is, uh, today's episode covering the Apaches. Interesting. Uh, notable in two ways specifically. Uh, I just literally just released a book on the history of warrior training with an entire section on the Apache. Um, for anyone that's interested, it's called preparing for War. The Lost Training of History's Top Warriors. That's out on Amazon everywhere. But, uh, point being, because of this, I went down to Arizona and visited some of the reservations and interviewed a lot of the Apache in person and started talking about like, hey, what? Uh, you know, it's generally you're dealing with a couple generations removed at this point, but there were still people I talked to whose grandfathers had known other, you know, some of these runners that were part of, like the the pre-colonial traditions and a lot of the practices and. It's a. So I actually found some very good things like unusual firsthand knowledge and facts on, you know, how Apache Runner is trained. And honestly, they kind of get overlooked, like in the grand scheme of things that, you know, they, they're associated with, like guerrilla war, you know, with warfare and, you know, you know, but they're not really like, like much of the the running world, the endurance world hasn't really taken a close look at them, you know, to the same extent as, you know, say, the Aurora Murray or the engine. And, uh, it might just be because the Apache, just speaking very broadly, aren't, you know, as big, uh, aren't as entrenched in the competitive running scene today as the Aurora Murray are beginning to be or some of those. But the Apache themselves were just amazing. And it's, like a huge part of not just their culture and lifestyle, but of actually their military tactics. So, um, like, they had a very developed and pretty regimented tradition in terms of training and how a runner would progress, you know, uh, through age and ability and whatnot. Um, so it's pretty cool. And then, uh, to top all of that off, if that's not enough, you have one of the very few, like, confirmed physical feats from more than a century ago with Geronimo at age 62, running 90 miles. And like, this is it's really fascinating because we can actually confirm this because we know that he ran 90 miles, because in order to run 90, he had to he made he successfully escaped from a, from a. Well, it was actually from a camp, um, that a reservation rather he successfully escaped from reservation. And that escape required him to run 90 miles. And the fact that he was successful in escaping demonstrates that he successfully did it. We also know that he was moving with some warriors, and that they did have about three horses during this particular escape, but that those horses went to carrying women and children in different rotations so they could kind of keep up and catch up to the Warriors as they were going and kind of more or less stayed together. Um, and it was, you know, uh, like the US, uh, the US cavalry, rather, and their native trackers from other tribes were trying to follow and keep up. Um, because at this point, too, like this whole little band of Apache led by Geronimo, it was very late, uh, late in their, let's say, story arc. You know, they'd already been to reservations a couple of times. They were. They're only very small in number, almost no food, weapons, etc.. And, uh, they were just. They'd been living on this reservation and essentially, uh, just food shipment after food shipment had obtained rotted meat. And just, like, just, you know, moldy flour and all this stuff. And eventually they got to a starvation point where they had no choice but to just just try to make a run for it and try to find food somewhere else. And so, naturally, they were hunted. Um, but point being, Geronimo, at this point, 62 years old, manages to run 90 miles and like, there wasn't any, you know, there wasn't a stopwatch running or anything like that. But this whole thing played out in less than 48 hours, so you know what I mean? He's somewhere in that 24 ish, you know, hour range for 100 miles, you know, for and at that age that's, you know, very impressive especially stopping for food and water along the way. They did have a cache of pinyon beans and they like barbecued mesquite and stuff like that stash but nothing notable. But the point being that running was a huge part of Apache culture, um, at pretty much every level, from recreational to all the way up to military and even spiritual. Um, yeah, you're a great resource for this because like when I was looking into the topic and just kind of exploring the stuff, it's like 90% of the stuff you find tends to focus on kind of the big topics where it's like, okay, like the wars with Mexico, the Apache conflicts with the Comanche, they're intertribal like battles and things like that. The rating and you kind of get a little bit more of just like, okay, like, oh, if you had a scenario where things were tight, then more raiding happened or you had things where things were a little more Bountiful, less raiding happened. And, but when you kind of follow all these storylines, especially around Geronimo, you start to realize, like if you think beyond whatever topic they're trying to cover, whatever battle or expedition or whatever it happens to be. You start thinking like, well, there has to be a level of fitness and training here, or you just wouldn't be able to do what they were able to do. And essentially last, being able to kind of stay. Stay, stay, stay away from like the various different pressure points they were getting between, you know, the other tribes, the settlers, Mexico and anyone else that happened to be kind of infringing upon their lifestyle a little bit. No, 100%. And also doing all this in a harsh and rugged landscape, you know, like, um, but the thing that's interesting too, uh, generally with like, like taking like the Mexican army and their conflicts with the Apache, for example. Like, you can just kind of read about that whole thing and skip over some very notable facts that many runners would like that would just jump out at us, myself included. And that is the fact that the Mexican army generally only had any success against Apaches when using scouts, because they couldn't find or keep up with them otherwise. Um, and so it's like there's a few notable Apache leaders that, uh, were killed, and it was only because the Mexican army managed to find them in, like, this super remote rock fortress, this one area, because the scouts working with the Mexican army had managed to keep up, cover the same ground and bring, you know, relays these reports back. Um, so it's, I mean, like, you know, you it's not often running. It's not a it's like a weapon, but like, I mean, it's a massive military resource throughout history. Uh, I mean, before that, going back to, you know, the early stages of human evolution with persistence hunting, you know, it's like, uh, I mean, endurance is a weapon, and humans are generally king of it, you know, and, uh, so it, you know, it's it's impossible that you're going to have these conflicts playing out, especially in cultures that evolved, you know, before equestrianism, you know, like the Apache, they never saw a horse until the 16th, you know, most likely until the the Pueblo revolt of the in 1680. You know, and so their entire that's the thing. It's the same thing. Like a lot of times people ask me like, you know, you seem like, you know, you you seem to believe that, like, Native Americans tend to like, like over the broad expanse of history and all these cultures you study, you make the best ultra runners. And I'm like, I, I mean, you know. I'm hesitant to say so, but generally, yeah. And it's not because, like, there weren't some great runners in Africa or Europe or Asia or anything like that, but it's those cultures knew the horse, you know what I mean? And so you generally like, you didn't develop all of these same super intense, uh, adaptations around, you know, transportation and communication by foot like the Native Americans did. And they, uh. So it's like, you know, it's almost unfair in certain ways, but deficit breeds like deficit in general breeds, you know, adaptation like the samurai sword generally. You know, the katana, excuse me, is generally considered one of the best pieces of craftsmanship in human history, let alone one of the best swords. Uh, that came about because Japan has terrible natural iron resources. They had to take black sand, essentially, and like, which had a high iron content in it, like, uh, heat it, beat it, refine it into like a pretty inferior product. So because they had that, they had to increase the level of engineering involved in the blade, get the folded, you know, folded levels of, you know, contrasting hard and soft iron and seal and all these things. Same thing with Mongolia. Like, you know, the Mongols conquered the entire world using the bow. And they come from an area that has almost no trees, you know, but instead take, you know, small, small bits of wood as a centerpiece. Use some animal horn, which is stronger in compression. You use some animal tendon on the front or you know, the side facing the enemy, because it's stronger in tension. And you combine these things, you know, in a symbiotic way. Then you get the composite bow, which can launch an arrow a quarter mile, you know. So same thing kind of with the Apache and the, well, pretty much any Native American or, you know, North or South American tribe, they had to cut you have to cover long distances if you're going to have an empire or even an extended tribal group and even, you know, even in areas with low population density, especially so. So you really have to like, you know, a couple thousand years of running, you know, hundreds and hundreds of miles as a very basic part of life is going to, you know, create some pretty solid ultra runners, I'd say. Yeah, you know, one, one trend line I was interested in when I was looking into this was just it seemed like their resilience was maybe a bit better than other than others with the with respect to just how often they were able to sort of like take a hit and come back or just kind of make it as long as they did before they were eventually kind of all basically placed on reservations. And one thing that I was going to ask you about was it seemed like they were very efficient with a wide range they were able to, like, exist with a wide range of inputs as options, and they weren't heavily reliant on one. So like you had like the Comanche where they were very reliant on horses. So in a situation where their enemies were able to disconnect them from that resource, it was like a choke point for them. Whereas the Comanche were pretty self-sufficient in terms of their movement. And then, like you were mentioning or alluding to earlier when they had like different caches of food, they also had like a wider range of like dietary input, it seemed like of what they had in available to them versus being kind of like another example would be like a hyper focused on like the buffalo herds, which would be another choke point if you rely on following the herds. And also that's not there anymore. Then you can sort of get suffocated out. Yeah. So this is I mean, you would have been, first of all, you would have been an excellent military strategist because that's a very keen point. Um, but this is actually a complex intersection of, uh, you know, physical ability, nutrition and military history. So everything you said is correct. The Comanche were by far the most dominant thing on the plains. Head to head in the battle, they generally beat the Apache. Um, they generally fought the Apache on their own terms, you know. But nonetheless, you know, they were lords of the plain, the best horsemen around. But they were carnivores. They were, you know, much like the Inuit. They were pretty much like literal dietary carnivores. They lived. Bison meat. Bison organs. They made pemmican from bison fat. You know, they did not eat like that. For them, much like the Mongols and other equestrian cultures that live disconnected from the ocean, they believed eating fish was taboo. And so at most, like a survival resource last, you know, last resort. But, um, so because of this, though, ironically, it left the Comanche somewhat dependent on at first, uh, early Spanish traders and then eventually other tribes, because they did need some form of carbohydrate. And they had none of it, none of it. So essentially the only reason that they didn't wipe out the early Spanish missions that were at the edge of their territory, was because they had at this point the superiority of skill, number and resources to do so pretty easily. And the Spanish themselves were dying out and, you know, number and resources, um, they didn't do it because they wanted to trade with the Spanish. They wanted corn and just very small amounts every now and then. But, you know, the human does need some tiny amount of carbohydrate from time to time. And, uh, generally that left them in a very complicated economic and military relationship with people in the southwest, at first the Spaniards and then later even groups like the Apache, you know, and there were different bands of the Apache that had various relationships on the whole. That was they weren't very close to the Comanche, but the point being that the Comanche were so dependent, even at their peak dominance on the people they were dominating, to provide them with simple carbohydrates. They were so reliant on the bison. It created an issue. And then later on, you have the US that comes and realizes that they're never going to beat the Comanche in open battle. They're too good. They're too elusive. They're fighting on their home ground. So you're just going to kill all their horse herds and all their bison herds, and that's going to be that. And like you said, that worked very well. Very effective. The Comanche, you know, the power was broken with the Apache. It wasn't quite so simple. The Apache had a long history of both bison hunters, but they also grew corn. They also scavenged. They also lived in the mountains, just hunting deer and eating roots and grubs. And they were very astute at surviving and, uh, an environment where other people were not. I mean, you lived in Arizona like you can, you know, imagine summers there before air conditioning or organized shelter, you know, and bison skins and caves, like it's, you know, not an easy way to live. Um, so because of this, they were hyper adaptable in terms of their diet as well. They could eat mesquite hearts, you know, pinyon beans or another one. They eat grubs, uh, all sorts of venison. They were very good at catching food, weapons and ammunition and caves, too. So it's like if they were defeated, captured and escaped, if they ended up on a reservation and were just like, oh God, I don't want to watch my loved ones die from malaria in Florida anymore, you know, or on the way to Florida anymore. Um, they could generally, you know, they're very, very resourceful. And of course they were. And possibly because of their years, uh. Being outmatched and head to head confrontations, at least in the open plains by the Comanche. They were very astute and very adapted to guerrilla warfare. And not just the low intensity warfare. Tribal warfare that's common in, you know, tribal societies. But like, they were very, very deliberate at doing these things. And this is kind of even where some of the regimented training comes in. So like, let's see, two trips to Arizona go. I was interviewing this guy and he was telling me that it was like very common that the Apache was essentially when launching a raid would leave, like in the late morning or afternoon, one day would run, you know, cover somewhere in that like 70 to 90 ish mile range, uh, get there like pre-dawn, uh, stretch, like, keep themselves warm, have a little meal, a short nap, and then essentially, like, right as the sun was coming up, they would launch the raid on the settlement, you know what I mean? But it's like they actually had, laid out, like they would run an ultra, they would stretch, they would eat like it was this whole little ritual even. And uh, so it's like, you know, it became very ingrained in every aspect of part of life. But it started young, like, uh, like the Apache. I mean, who knows how young they started running, you know what I mean? Uh, playing around. But they started their regimented, uh, training at age seven. So I think, like when talking about groups like this, it's really helpful to draw modern parallels to our own society. So it's like what age seven is, what second grade, I would say. Yeah. Yeah, I used to teach. I used to teach second or third. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. Second or third. So. So, um, I mean, that's kind of, you know, some of our kids start playing around in, like, basic recreational stuff. And I got into soccer at that age, you know, whatnot. Um, but the Comanche age, gender, I mean, I'm sorry, with the Apache. Excuse me? It was generally more of, like, a small group, one on one training. Um, one thing that you see, uh, recur with many Native American groups is a lot of times the uncle will be the prime physical trainer for a young warrior, a young man, not the father. And the reason for that uncle could be a little bit more of an asshole. And you know what I mean? Excuse my friends, but you know he's not. And so, you know, it won't go so soft on it. Maybe. Um, and so with the Apache, uh, I don't know if that was universal or not, but it's it's, uh, it's definitely like, on the record as being mentioned. And so you would have a senior warrior, possibly an uncle, come and train you, and it wouldn't be kind of I mean, your kind of one's kind of mind goes to like a southwestern, like 300 movie flashes. It wasn't really so much like that. A lot of it was mental, spiritual, physical, like really, uh, not too different from stuff that you or I would do today in a training camp. Um, so we do like, you know, like the most common and most widely associated, uh, method of training for the Apache. They were huge. Like almost all Native American tribes in the southwest and the plains. The Great Plains, they were all massively into nasal breathing. Okay. To the point that infants, mothers, mothers would have their infants, uh, they would literally pinch their infant, like, softly pinch their infants mouth closed when they slept and train them to, like, breathe through their nose and, uh, or like, uh, George Gatlin was he was like, uh, one of the early Americans that made it out on the Great Plains. Saw the Comanche. He was a beautiful painter. He painted some of them. Like for anyone that's interested, you could just Google George Catlin, uh, Comanche painting some of the most beautiful artwork and all written, uh, you know, painted with his own hand, real images. So just like a real awesome, like, slice of history. But he went out there and he was like, he saw he noticed that they all like, you know, all the white guys were breathing through their mouths and they had, like, weird, like, palates and tongues and, and teeth and that they would get really tired during physical exertion quick, whereas the native guys were all breathing through their noses and, uh, like it was enough, uh, apparent enough for him who was not a physical colorist or a doctor to notice. But point being, so, because there was such an emphasis on nasal breathing, uh, the Apache would focus on using this during their runs, and they would train this in their young men by having them do long hill runs and not like hill sprints, but like, run to the top of that mountain and back with a mouth full of water. And the young man would have to keep the water in his mouth. And then when he went to the top of the mountain but came back down, and when he got back down, he would have to spit the water back out on the ground to prove that he hadn't taken a single breath through his mouth for the whole run. And so this was generally like a pretty regular thing, like, you know, multiple mornings per week. And it really trained them, uh, to breathe, you know, through their nose to control their thoughts. And, uh, also just, I guess, just run hills over and over again. Um, and then they, like, they had a lot of other varieties that branched into these runs. So from there they would start adding in like obstacle course runs. Um, I don't know, like if these if there was ever anything like super laid out, but generally like in terms of like, hey, we're going to set three rocks here and four sticks here and do this or that, but I know they intentionally would just basically plot like some, uh, race coordinators. You and I know, just plot sadistic courses that went over creeks, over boulders, like through fallen logs. But that was the big thing that I heard about. Like, they would learn how to cross rivers. Uh. Go over like boulder stone territory, like climbing, and then to leap over like fallen logs and branches and stuff like that. And, uh, so from there you would start kind of seeing the training get a little bit more recognizable as warrior training. Um, they had, uh, basically we just started with a game of tag, which seems pretty benign. And in the beginning it was. But as the boys got a little bit older they would switch out, tagging each other with hands with thrown rocks. And so it was like you, you know, put a pretty good premium on being able to sneak around and not get tagged with a rock, but, you know, Dodge dodgeball and, uh, Apache dodgeball. I think I jokingly call it in the book, but, um, and then from there, of course, you start to see more in the way of organized warrior training. And, uh, like I said, here in the book, we also talk about or like the book also points out that like a well trained Apache using all these methods from a young age had zero problem at all outrunning a horse like an American cavalry horse. Now people hear that and they think it's like clickbait or hyperbole. It's not. Not at all. So like if we just deconstruct it very quickly, um, a horse, you know, weighs £1,000, uh, for anyone who's not worked or rode horses, they might not know that they're very finicky animals, okay? Very, very fragile. Um, it's super easy for them to take a misstep, break a leg, uh, go over a cliff or any of these things. And more than that, they require a ton of water and a decent amount of feed every single day that they're out there, which is all extra weight they have to carry on top of a man on their back with his weapons, armor, his own food and supplies, all these things. Now we're talking about doing this over narrow, rocky trails, high in the cliffs and mountains. You know, in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. You and I have both done a lot of running in these areas, and I know sometimes it's hard to make it through just on your feet in a pair of ultras, you know what I mean? Yeah. So, you know, thousand pounds and all these things and this is, you know, so it's like. And then assuming everything goes well, the horse doesn't fall. It has all the supplies and stuff. It still has to deal with that climate. Go up, down, up, down and horses way faster than humans for you know, generally the first ten, 20, 30 miles, but over over distance nothing's faster than a human. I mean, not if you stress that, not if you stress or race out long enough, you know. And so when you're talking about hundreds of miles over multiple days, uh, it becomes very, very difficult for United States cavalrymen on horseback to catch up to an Apache running and a pair of bison skin moccasins, you know, especially given the fact that he's in his home territory. He has food caches. You know, a lot of the stuff. He doesn't have to carry everything. Um, so. It was not only possible, but generally so common for Apache to outrun mounted US cavalry men that they just kind of stopped trying. They're like, all right, we're gonna start hunting villages because we can't be, like, chasing the band. And, you know, like, we got to look at the things that can't move so quickly, you know, find the women, the children, the food, whatever. Um, so that to me is just fascinating because, I mean, anyone who knows the history of the western states knows that there's a pretty just, we'll call it an, uh, or rather, we won't call it an ancient endurance beef between ultra runners and horses. But let's just say that it's, uh, you know, the comparison is already there. So, uh, there's an event in Arizona called man versus horse. Have you heard of that? No, but that's exactly something. Yeah. You gotta check this out. This is actually a really old event, and it's set up basically. It basically shows exactly what you just talked about, where you have a group of, uh, men and women, and then you have I can't remember if they have how many horses they have. Uh, but the goal is to essentially get to the 50 mile race to get to the 50 mile ahead of the horse. And I mean, there's been, um, there's been years where they don't beat the horses, but there's been years where they have had people beat the horses. But yeah, it's very doable. It's on the table for sure. Yeah. Especially like what these guys have. Yeah. It'd probably take me more than 50 to beat a horse. But that's something like I even thought about, like, I'm considering doing, like, a YouTube video, like, who's faster and, you know, like, like, I know some horse owners would, you know, maybe work something out, but the, uh, you know, who's faster, over a hundred miles of this or that, like that. That could be even cool to do under a couple different situations, because I'd definitely be down to, you know, I'd run 100 miles for a YouTube video for sure. Yeah, yeah. Well. And then what? Like you said, two, you add in just like man versus horse. I'm not super familiar with the course profile, but I'm sure it is much, much more tolerable than some of the areas that these Apache warriors were going into when the cavalry's and whoever were on the horses were chasing them too. So then it's just like you also probably lower that difficulty for them to get away versus what you'd see at an event like that. But yeah, man. Yeah, it's really interesting when you start thinking about just kind of how they had that all structured. Because the other thing I kind of noticed when I was looking into this too is like there was. Another piece of variety with the Apache was just they had like they had hunting, they had gathering and they had farming and they had raiding as essentially their kind of main inputs for, for food. So they could sort of pivot from one to the other based on what was available. And then if one was taken away, they could maybe hopefully, I mean, focus on something else versus having all four of those things necessarily tamp down on. But yeah, if you're trying to stop them and you decide, okay, well let's find the more stationary versions of what they're doing, presumably their farming side. Yeah. You might be able to, uh, eliminate a chunk of them by doing that, but you're not going to get everybody. Yeah. You know, and then, of course, uh, you know, unfortunately, as the era progresses, those pivots become harder. And you know what I mean? Just as you lose more and more ground, more, you know, the more bison herds disappear. More of this than that. And at the end, it was pretty much their last resources raiding, you know, raiding in Mexico and a lot of these, uh, other places. But, um, you know, uh, I was going to make a joke that, you know, essentially, they're hybrid athletes in the tactical sense, you know, and they can do this or that. But the thing is, they kind of were normally too. Because one thing that did surprise me about the Apache was that they were, uh, frequently physically large, like many of these warriors were talking six, two, six, three. And this is in an age when most of the, you know, the Americans were in that five, five, 6 to 5, ten range, five, eight or so, you know, which was still considered pretty tall, like, you know, globally average at the time. Um, but in fact, one of the tallest people or the tallest, uh, some of the tallest populations on Earth were in the Plains Indians at this time, because the bison rich diet, you know, from an early age, high protein. So a lot of the tribes on the Great Plains were as tall or taller as, like the tribes that are associated with being very tall in Africa. Um, so, uh, that was pretty surprising. But again, I started like, you're getting a lot of these. I read, like, firsthand accounts of interviews and, you know, like, even just like, minor, uh, military officers that were like some unknown corporal on a military expedition against the Chiricahua or whatever. And it's like they were significantly intimidated by the, you know, Magnus Colorado's was, you know. One of the early Apache, you know, kind of more on the coaches era a little before this. Uh, and he, uh, Geronimo's father in law, I do believe. And he was known to be like, like six, three with huge arms. He would wear, like an old, uh, like a captured vest. Like a Western vest with no shirt under it, just all guns sticking out. And so I was actually, I was kind of picturing, you know, like, sleek, uh, native runners. And then the other thing, I believe I, I posted something I tagged you on this. I believe I meant to if I didn't, uh, an excellent picture from 1908. So it's just a little after, you know, the rain that we're talking about here with the Apache, uh, runner from another tribe in the same region in the southwest. Uh, it's this perfect side shot of him in Mid-stride. You get to see, like, his foot striking on four feet over a perfect knee band. You know, all these things. Uh, but once I was, like, done analyzing his actual, like, the mechanics of his running because the shot was just so perfect. Uh, I looked at his upper body and, like, he was really well muscled, and I like that. That surprised me as well. Like he was getting built, you know, like a track and field athlete from the waist down. Um, you know, pretty much. But his upper, like, he had arms and shoulders and I was like, that actually surprised me quite a bit. Athletes? Yeah, basically. Yeah, bro. But yeah, you gotta carry meat and, you know, lifting stones and doing all the things, I guess. But I still, you know, pretty, pretty impressive. Um, but yeah, I was again, uh, also caught off guard by how regimented a lot of this training was because you just kind of maybe, you know, I mean, it could be just a colonial filter or a modern filter, maybe. But I kind of pictured, like, just a general, playful approach to wrestling and running and stone lifting and a lot of these, like, you know, earlier cultures, even having done all the research that I have. But the more that I dug in, especially in this book, from West Africa to, you know, Arizona, you see, uh, there's actually a big degree of regimentation, you know, like very regimented training styles, you know? Yeah. One thing I was going to ask you about, too is because, like, my understanding is like the Apache were sort of part of, like, six different tribes. Um, I think you've mentioned a couple of them at least. And then within those tribes, there were also kinds of bands that were more like probably closely related families than more closely related family members. Was there a lot of kind of just built in running and exercise from essentially going from one of those to the next? Because I imagine this was pretty spread out when we were looking at like, certainly the whole middle. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Apache were definitely skilled horsemen, you know, maybe not to the extent to say the Comanche, but they were never quite an equestrian culture, you know, so generally, like, wherever you're going, you're doing a lot of it on foot. There were also, like you said, multiple groups of Apache, the Plains Apache used horses and relied on them more than the Chiricahua or the Mescalero. You know what I mean? Like, so there were some differences, but generally. Yeah, it just built into I mean, you got to be able to run, you got to be able to hunt, you got to be able to do all these things. Uh, if it's just part of daily life, you know. But having said that, uh, it's a lot easier if you get some regimented training. You know, it's it's actually not entirely different from, like, if you look at cultures that you might consider more tribal or primitive compared to the people that were fighting against, like the Vikings or the Mongols, like the Vikings, just they just seem to know how to fight and know how to handle a ship and know how to lift a stone, you know? And the Mongols just seemed to know how to ride a horse, shoot a bow and do it all in a group. But really, what you're seeing is they just started training like these were regimented training integrated from a young age. And then by the time they were late teenagers, they were able to go out there and join the hunt like the Mongols developed massive skills for warfare. But like, they hunted what was essentially an ocean of grass just completely empty. So they're like it was very difficult to find games, sneak up on games, all that. So they devised a tactic of essentially working in groups of like a 100 to 500, sometimes even more, where they would spread out and just create a massive noose over many miles of land and slowly constrict together at a pre-planned point. And then by the time they all start meeting up and they form in like a giant ring, you know, as big as a few football fields around, they'd have everything on the plane there, from lions to, you know, gazelles, deer like the whole thing. And then they would kind of so they corralled, literally corralled the wildlife of the entire step into a certain area. And then, you know, then they could just shoot them down. But it's like, that is perfect practice for warfare because you know how to move, right, like in sync with you and all of your other tribes. You can do it without talking. You know how this guy rides, how this guy goes. You know what I mean? It's just an insanely unfair advantage. And then they started coming up against, like, Chinese cavalrymen who were like, you know, recruited at 18, put on a horse, given two years of training and a couple patrols and then like, sent against. And it's not even fair. You know, it's literally JB high school athletes versus Olympians. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you get into it being kind of the way of life, you're just you have these skill sets that are. I mean, essentially it's the same as preparing professionally for a sport where you get someone at the prime of their career, and they've probably been doing it for a decade, plus two decades, in some cases, depending on the event. But yeah, I mean, it's just so, so refined. And when you're narrowly focused on it as being what you need to do, then you're, you're just not going to get caught up. And I think it's, uh, it's I always reminded, I always think of, um, that the Kobe Bryant quote with this where when he went, uh, when he got into the NBA, he just looked at the basic structure of the training about like when you would go to, like your first practice, your strength training, your meetings and all that stuff. And you looked at and he's like, I noticed that there was like an extra 2 or 3 hours every day that were eventually just free time. Uh, and he's like, well, I just assumed if I just take that 2 to 3 hours or whatever happened to be and actually add more prep work into that window, by the time I get a few years into my career, no one will be able to catch up to me because I've already done all that. And it's kind of like a similar thing to that, where you have these lifestyles that are so focused on these specific sets of skills that, yeah, if you try to train someone up to to catch up to them, you're just not going to you have to almost live it for a generation before you even get anywhere near it. Yeah. Well, I mean, like you, me and Mark Bell are all roughly the same height, but like, you and me could start deadlifting now and do it for the rest of our lives and never lift what Mark Bell lifted. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So it's. Yeah, the prep work matters for sure. And it's also important to notice that, I mean, it's closely tied with this. But like if you create a culture that selects for certain things, you're going to start seeing those things like the Masai tribe in Africa. Um, again, talk about them in the book. But they're good runners, actually credited for their jumping skills above all. But they have essentially the way you attract a mate is the Adamu Festival or I'm sorry, Adamu dance. We'll call it a dance for lack of a better word, but it's a bunch of guys getting together in a big circle. One by one. Guy hops out there and just starts jumping up and down like just, you know, springing for foot, you know, jumping off his four foot, um, very little ground contact time. Just springing. And the person who jumps the highest generally gets the most. The best options for mating. You know what I mean? And the most, most proposals from the females. And so you do this for a few thousand years, and what you end up with is the guys that can jump the highest generation after generation, getting the most, you know, having the most offspring. This compounds over a few thousand years. And now any guy in the tribe can now jump almost any guy in the NBA. You know what I mean? Who has all the professional training? You know, like, it's just it's an insane level. But their entire society selects for who can jump the highest. Having the most mating opportunities not only ends one way, you know. Yeah. There's a similar scenario like that. That or I think that's I mean, it's I guess it's probably a theory about like in the Rift Valley where they were saying, well, how old are these, these individuals so good at running relative to the rest of the world? And one thing that they teased out was that they had this ritual where it was like a circumcision ritual, actually, but it was so in depth that it just selected for like an incredible amount of pain tolerance. Yeah. So it's like when you think about it, what is one of the variables that are going to impact how good you could be in endurance? It's probably gonna be pain tolerance to some degree. So if you select generations and generations of people that not only have the right lifestyle inputs, the right kind of just genetic traits, but they also have this insane amount of pain tolerance, then yeah, that's what you get. You get someone who can hold on for dear life at the end of the 1500 meter or the 3000 steeplechase or something like that, when everyone else is starting to give in. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's actually a perfect example because, you know, the Great Rift Valley is home to the Kalenjin also, who we know, I know we're planning for a future episode of them. So I won't go too deep. But I will say that a lot of times, like one of the most common questions I get from other runners and track and field athletes is like, what makes the Kenyans so good? And I generally have to clarify, it's not the Kenyan. I mean it is, but it's mostly the Kalenjin, like they, you know, for like population, like the scale of their population, the proportion of their country is, is actually pretty small. But you know, they let's see, somewhere between 50 and 75% of all Kenyan gold medalists came from this one tribe. So I generally look at them specifically. Also, generally everyone else tends to take their cues from them in a lot of different ways in terms of training. But, uh, when we cover them in our next episode, we can dive into all their training stuff. Specifics. There's a lot of stuff they do there that's very effective. I think that leads to them being so dominant as runners. But one thing that frequently gets skipped over with them, I don't know if I've heard of maybe 1 or 2 other people talk about it is the mindset side of things. And so when you bring this up reminds me, but essentially they have a cultural perspective. Suffering? No. Not suffering. Pain. Excuse me. Pain. You gotta draw a distinction between the two. Pain should be. Pain isn't a reason to be unhappy in and of itself. Like you should be able to bear pain with this. There's no reason you can't bear pain with a smile. Like that's just the way that their culture looks at the raw stimulus of pain. Okay. And that's very different from, you know, how an American or pretty much any other, you know, any any modern culture looks at pain as a stimulus. So for them, being able to bear pain with a smile is like a prized culture. You know, I mean, it's a prized trait by their culture. Excuse me. And so you see that with their runners again holding it. You know, you know, on the homestretch, coming around on that steeplechase. That's crazy. And then, I mean, really any of these things. But you see, like, there is no give in a runner. Like go watch Kipchoge finish. You know, go watch the last 400 of his, you know of his sub two hour marathon. And it's like you zoom in on his eyes. Watch it like. Find any bit of genuine discomfort in him that you can like, I challenge you to do it because I've done it and you don't see it. You know what I mean? Like there's exertion, but he's so dialed in he's not connected to the pain at all in that moment. You know, he's just getting the physiological maximum out of his body then and there. Another good example of this would have been, uh, Billy Mills and his massive upset race. You know, in the Olympics in Tokyo, it was 68. Um, same thing. And he even talks about it like, you know, that's cool. When you could you can hear him talk about it, but he, uh, he just says that he actually, like, he just let go, you know, like, he literally just kind of, you know, it wasn't he didn't bite down. You know, he didn't push harder. He just surrendered to it. And, uh, so that was kind of always the association I kind of had when you see these elite Kalenjin runners from Kenya on, you know, in the latter portions of some of these races and they I mean, it's gnarly too, because they tend to select for the most painful distances, if you ask me, like the runners are the best at the worst of the worst distances, you know. Mhm. Yeah. It's interesting that you said that too, because when Kiptanui broke the marathon world record, they, this was actually kind of a bit of a like meme that was going around in the running world because they asked him at the post-race press conference about like if he had any doubt as he was getting closer and he, he, he there's maybe some debate as to whether this is like a translation thing or not. But he basically said I didn't feel any pain, like it didn't hurt. It didn't hurt. So people were kind of skeptical or speculating about whether what he meant didn't hurt or. No. What he said is that hey, he hasn't hurt in a marathon. And at that point he had run, you know, three marathons for an average time of like 201. And everyone's just like, mind boggling. How could none of those have hurt? So there's some speculation about what I was referring to, like injury related pain versus just physical pain and discomfort. But it kind of maps to what you were saying. Yeah, I believe I mean, I'd have to hear him say it. And I'm certainly no expert in, you know, the dialects and cultural nuances of the Great Rift Valley. But I'd say he's, he's, he's drawing a distinction, at least the way I do between pain and suffering. You know what I mean? Because they aren't the same thing. Like, I'm not Buddhist, but I come from a Japanese family. So I was kind of raised with a very, very small taste of that same not equating pain with suffering. Um, and it wasn't drilled into me from youth or anything, but I was introduced to the idea young enough to know that it was possible, you know, which I guess for a lot of people they never consider like, oh, hey, this thing hurts. So obviously I'm suffering. Or obviously, you know, the only thing I can think about is making this thing stuff. Um, and so that was kind of what the takeaway I drew from him or from him saying that. But that's super sad. What happened to him? Um. But having said that, it really like running is of all the things of all the sports and martial arts and training methodologies that pursued, it is probably the most mental in terms of, um, just being able to put it, put it where it needs to be put, put it in that gear, or put your mind in that box and keep it there. But actually, that brings up I'm kind of curious about some of what some of these Norwegian runners are doing mentally now. I mean, there's a lot of talk about, you know, their tempo, style training and how they're approaching, uh, um, you know, ramping up to events and, you know, speaking for events a little bit differently. Uh, but I'd be curious if they have any, any different mental approaches because, again, they're starting to do really well and some of these are just terrible distances, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder sometimes with you if you look at a double threshold training day too, if there's some kind of built in pain tolerance or discomfort tolerance where you go out and do something quality after doing something quality earlier that day versus waiting until you've been kind of fully recovered. If there's just, um, I would call it a double threshold training model, something that's very advanced, in that like, most people aren't going to want to start there or they're going to start doing something on a weak foundation. But if you get to that point, then you've likely kind of scaled up to where now all of a sudden you've sort of redefined what you can tolerate long enough to where you start kind of carving in. I find a lot of this stuff works synergistically with itself, where it's like in order to get to the level they are there, they're they're starting to kind of. Hone in on some of those mental skills just through the act of doing what's required in the first place, and then the more consistent you can be within it over years, the more likely you're going to be able to kind of harden that side of things as well. Yeah, uh, that's definitely part of it. I've, I've, I've trained with others like and others. Well not running but like in wrestling I've trained with like Russians who started at like age six, you know, and are super good at it. But like I would initially, I was sometimes puzzled by things like, you meet one every now and then that didn't have maybe the most impressive mindset. And you're like, but you're training like the amount of discipline and focus it takes to fulfill your training, uh, like, how is this possible? And then you realize, like, to some degree, like you just it can be drilled into something, you know what I mean? Like that could become reps, could become reps, you know what I mean? Um, but then again, those are rarely the Michael Jordan's and the Kobe Bryant's, you know. So yeah, it's like anything to you know, you get to that point, you're going to select for the people who are the best at doing that and considering those things versus kind of passively going about it, which which seems insane when you talk about some of those, those regiments is being able to kind of kind of go through them without giving it as much thought. Yeah. I mean, you know, you're training three times a day and you think training three times a day, but like normal hours. Yeah. Yeah. There's but you know, there are levels to this and that, you know. But, um, speaking of actually, it'd be a good place just because it's where, since we're in the hypothetical now. So I was considering it. Different, let's say an alternate, slightly alternate approach for my prep for my 1000 miler, and I wanted to run it by you and just get your thoughts and see if you had any experiences. So traditional Peking, the traditional model of, you know, training for an ultramarathon, you know, 16, 20 weeks build up different phases, peak just in time, you know, recover for a couple of weeks and then go nail the event when you're still somewhere near your peak. It doesn't make sense to me on this one, because there's a good chance I'm going to be running for 25 to 30 days, 30, 30 to 40 miles a day. Um, so if I peak before I start the event itself, like, fully peak, then there's no way you're making it through that. You know, you're just going to run into all sorts of issues. So you can't no one can hold hold a peak for 40 days, you know, or 30 days rather. So what I was thinking of is essentially, I'm going to have a solid 16 weeks dedicated to this after, you know, foot healing and all that. And I'll be only going to be, you know, nine weeks or so post my last ultra, so I won't have deconditioned too much going into the start of this camp. But I was thinking about spending essentially eight weeks building out a very well based, uh, a hybrid training plan in terms of making my joints very strong, my body very healthy, uh, in all directions, particularly all the like, you know, say the glute needs and doing a lot of, like, lateral stuff, a lot of the stuff that's going to be, uh, neglected or overused in the training camp and building all of my, uh, you know, all of my thresholds up. Nothing hyper specific, but get my aerobics up to basics, you know, one long run per week sort of thing at a very moderate, you know, at a 40% output, you know, RPE, um, some snack, a strength conditioning or, sorry, strength work and then some mid range conditioning and just a tiny bit of explosive output. Um, and then in that. Following eight weeks after that initial general training, we would call the general preparation block. I would get very hyper specific with, um, high volume, low intensity stuff, essentially in preparation for running 30 to 40 miles a day for 30 days. Just start kind of working and working up from that one long run a week to like some very slow run the hike, uh, three and five day blocks here and there and then, you know, several more after recovery and kind of build like that instead of just trying to build the continuous ramp all the way up because I just, I see all sorts of injuries and overtraining issues happening if I do that. Yeah. Yeah. This is a good question. I think when you're getting into things that long. The number one priority has to be like, what do I need to do to make sure I don't get hurt? Because that's really what's going to stop you. Like it's not something where it's so precise or specific, like you'd have for like, okay, I want to run this time for the marathon, and therefore I need to be able to produce this mile or kilometer pace repetitively for, you know, 26 miles or 42km where that then there becomes a very specialized nature to being able to do that. It's much more like, how do I get my body in a position where it can tolerate, just like the brightness of this type of a thing without breaking down and getting injured. So naturally, there's going to be some specificity there in order to get your body ready to be able to do the task you're actually doing. But I think, like the way you're describing it, just making sure you're really strong, healthy, resilient going into that phase of training is step one and then step two. I would look at this as thinking of it like when you finish the event as when you would typically finish the training plan, because this is something where I think you want to train yourself into the event and then look at the first part of the event as like a continuation of that. So you don't want to show up ragged at the start, obviously. But like I think like you could, you could give yourself like maybe a mini taper or something like that. And I'm not as worried about really condensed tapers. Uh, when it comes to these longer efforts, because these lower intensity sessions don't tend to be as necessary for that. The way you'd have for like, something that's, you know, a little more speed based, like the five K or the ten K. Uh, so I would actually kind of look at it like, okay, what do I need to be able to kind of take the next step in progression when I start this thing. And then as soon as the beginning of it is going to be the start of the next phase of training, where now you're going to add extra stimulus and you're going to be adapting as you go to some degree. Uh, and that makes sense to me just because everyone I've talked to that does like these long haul things like Appalachian Crest, uh, or, I'm sorry, Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest, TransCon, things like that. They all tell me like those first, those first few days are basically like this descent into misery. And they think like, oh, well, if it keeps going down like this, I'm in real trouble. But if you get past that point, you realize, okay, things start to normalize and then slightly improve and it doesn't actually get worse. I think you want to think of it like that, where you don't want to put yourself in a situation where, like you're almost too tapered or to beat up from a big training up, and then you're kind of rested, but you got some nagging injuries heading in. Um, I actually think this is probably what I did wrong when I was preparing originally for the transcon. I sort of did too much the wrong way, leading into what would have been the taper. And then I got hurt. So it's like even if I had tapered, I would have gone in like kind of dinged up and not necessarily able to kind of get through a project like that without having it end up getting a sideline due to injury or something. So, um, so I think, yeah, I think you want to kind of look at it through, through that sort of a framework. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because I'm glad my instincts were wrong. So I was like, you know, the instinct at first you take on a front, you're like, oh, I'm gonna train harder than ever. I'm gonna get, you know, all this, like, peak shit, you know, like you have like, a Rocky movie playing in the back of your head, like half the time. Um, but my, my, you know, the strength conditioning coach in me and the person that studies this was like, okay, so I mean, you're going to peak and beat yourself up plenty of the event itself. But the way I hadn't actually thought of just essentially a four week substitution on the back week of that camp, or essentially this just treated it as your peak itself, you know what I mean? Like, um, so you come in conditioned and, you know, but you're going to condition over I mean, over 30 days, I, I conditioned considerably over the nine and a half days it took me to run across to Oregon. You know, like you said, the first three were by far the worst, um, both mentally and in terms of output. And then weirdly, I mean, that makes no sense, but weirdly enough, um, because my, my, my worst day was 26 miles crossing Oregon. My best day was 77 miles. Um, and, uh, the 77 was like the third to last day or something. Like, it just makes no sense at all. But, uh, in terms of this, this is, you know, considerably longer than that. So that actually makes perfect sense to me. Um, treat, you know, with an event that long, you would simply treat it as the peak. You know, I like that a lot. Yeah, I think the key to making it work, too, is just like, try to get yourself as good at hiking and walking as possible going into. Because it's like if you can improve your efficiency there and dedicate more percentage of this project towards walking than you maybe would otherwise, you're just saving yourself a ton of potential problems where that are going to be driven from the impact of running. I mean, you just look at the impact load of running. It's like eight x. So obviously there's going to be some range there based on how fast you're going. But you know, if you can change some of that impact into very low impact, then you have two things going on there. One, the event itself isn't going to break you down as much or as fast, but then also the prep you do do for it, you can afford to do more of it and specifically for that and not have to worry about like the act of preparing specifically hurting you by doing too much of that and less of like the strength stuff that you would maybe be doing to stay a little more injury resistant. Yeah. So that actually that plays into my meaning for those that don't listen that don't know my background is not in running or track and field, but in that I was raised by a bear hunter. So that kind of just going uphill with heavy weight on my back is pretty, uh, it's pretty familiar to me. We'll say, um, but yeah, I even like, you know, in my I mean, you can see, uh, if anyone wants to look close or, like, see it up close, how I, how I do the wilderness ultras, you can check out the, uh, A Good Day to Die documentary on my YouTube channel. But basically, I'm like a 4 to 5 mile an hour pace guy. You know, fast hiking, slow trotting. I go with the ground. Um, as I mentioned to you one last time, you talk like you do with normal ultras, my biggest challenge is generally figuring out pacing, because, uh, pacing is decided for me most of the time. It's like if you're going straight uphill, you're going a little slower, and if you're going on flats or down you go as quick as you can because you know, it's probably not going to last. Um, but so outside of that, like in terms of just like the, the attrition of just being able to grit it and hike and shuffle, you know, uh, be my cliff my way through something. That's where I'm good. Just just not not so much of the speed stuff or the nuanced stuff yet, though. I'm starting to play with that stuff more, you know? Cool. Yeah, it'll be exciting to see kind of how that all goes. It's, uh, it's just one of those things where the variables are so great that, uh, you kind of gotta pick a plan, stick to it, and be ready to adjust when you need to. Yeah, that. And then the last thing that I think I would be curious about to talk to you about might be good. Good, good. Uh, conversation was, uh, the shoes, uh, not so much specific models, but with me. You can audit my plan here. My plan is a good pair of, uh, road shoes. Nothing too responsive, you know, nice and durable and forgiving. Uh, a slightly like, like probably some Torrens or, you know, like a medium, you know, kind of like a firmer but medium, a little faster shoe and then just a good trail runner, um, you know, medium, medium to high cushion or, you know, medium to high neutral drop, medium to high, uh, cushioned trail runner. Uh, it's kind of what I'm thinking about and just kind of rotating those three through. I'm not sure how much running you've done along the coast, but, um, does that sound like a pretty feasible plan? Yeah. I think when you start getting things this long, the way to think about it is. Maybe I would phase that sort of stuff, like the shoes you're actually gonna wear for the event closer to the event, so you get some exposure points to it. But realistically, I think the move here is get your lower legs as strong and as tolerant as possible, so that when you do slide them into a more cushioned model, you have a scenario where you're kind of like, you're you're you've taken your lower legs and that side of your body to its limit in terms of what it can tolerate. And now you're adding a tool to extend that a little bit longer versus a scenario where you do everything in those highly cushioned shoes during all the prep work. You're still going to be making improvements there, but you might show up there with less natural strength in that area. So then when you add that back on, you're sort of giving yourself a relative deficit with that tool or, or you make that tool necessary. So like anytime people talk about things like inserts or braces or cushioning and things like that, I think about using these things as tools that allow you to extend your body beyond what it could do at its maximum. So get your body to its maximum, add the tool, extend it further. Is kind of the thought process there. Okay. So treat it like a weight lifting belt, like, you know, using the max temp, you know, European reinforcement, but don't yeah, don't become reliant on it every day. You can't live without a weight lifting belt. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of my kind of like, running theories with, like, super shoes, too. I mean, these things have, like, so much efficiency built into them in some cases that this will override it to a degree. But one thing I'm curious about, as these get more and more kind of like long life from their start, from their inception to wherever they end up is, we have these relative efficiencies that we see with them. I wonder what happens if someone goes purely in them for too long, where now all of a sudden they're starting to maybe compromise some of the strength that they had in the areas that those shoes are preserving to the degree where now they need the shoe just to maintain what they would have been able to do previously in just a standard pair of shoes. And, you know, if you're not doing some strength, work with it, or ideally, in my opinion, phasing in shoes that don't have that technology in it so that they're maintaining the strength that they're placing into that efficiency saving tool. Uh, yeah. I think it's kind of a similar, similar kind of way to look at it. Yeah. So with stuff like this, I do lack the nuanced biomechanical understanding. And uh, but I will say that logic is king. And generally if anything that gives you a boost becomes, you know, it's going to become a crutch if you need to use it all the time. Um, and that's not even like a judgment that's as good as bad. I mean, physically, it's going to become like an actual crutch for certain tissues and, you know, in your body. Um, so I think, you know, always something to keep in mind, but I don't know who made it. It was a really good post. You reposted it. That was where I saw it. But, uh, that one on, uh, varying different shoe models, like the 8020. Yeah, I thought that was excellent. Uh, that that kind of laid it out more, uh, more plainly than I'd ever seen it. And I was like, oh, I knew all this, most of this, not all of it. But seeing it like this just makes it click for once, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, I just did a, I just did a Substack post actually for listeners who are interested in that kind of that goes into this topic a little bit too, of just like why you want a or how how I basically like framed it as like how to pick the the right running shoe for you and eventually what it ends up doing is like, you know, use the tools around you to figure out what's currently working well for you. And that may be something that's highly structured, but don't look at that as like the end game. Look at that as like where you're at now and then start working on almost the opposite of that to kind of add that, that skill set in. And eventually you get to a point where you can have a shoe rotation that allows you to expose your foot and your muscles to a variety of different stimuli so that you're just a little more well-rounded with that. And then you're gonna you're going to likely find yourself in a situation then where you're just more resilient to any, like uncertainty when it comes to foot, plant and different body movements that would typically maybe injure someone who's very one dimensional and what their body is used to being exposed to. It's just like anything, you know, expose your body to it and it'll be more resilient around it. That actually sounds like something I'd want to check out. Nia, that's pretty cool. Um, because, yeah, I've always been pretty, pretty big. You know, I'm like, okay, a pair of ultras for the road, a pair for the trail. Call it good, you know, but I am staying. Of course, now I'm starting to run on a lot more, you know, variable surfaces, and I got to look into trail runners for sand and, you know, all these other things that are, uh, unique, which is, you know, quite frankly, that's part of the fun, though, like, you know, a little variety in each training camp keeps it, keeps it a little fresh, you know, something new, a new toy to play with, too, on the trail or on the road. But, um, well, I'll say this if anything, like when I did that hundred K on the sand, uh, the one thing I did notice is like, after the race, I felt way better than I normally would because it is a little bit of a. Yeah, it was a little more forgiving. So, like, my body didn't feel nearly as achy and beat up as it would normally after an event like that. So maybe that section will allow you to kind of have a little bit in the tank. Yeah, I believe there's a scene in one of the Rocky movies of him and Apollo Creed running down the beach. I, I basically just picture myself doing that for a thousand miles, you know, you'll get there quicker. Equal, equal musculature. And the same outfit too, by the way. Yeah. Those retrofits. Cool. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no. Go ahead. Sorry. That post you referenced, it was actually, uh, Jonah Rosner. Um, I say that because he's got some awesome content on Instagram around, like, kind of running stuff in general and a good Substack of his own, too. So folks are interested in kind of looking at some of that stuff. You can find him on IG. Um. Yeah, so I did. If you don't mind, I have one more kind of Apache question that I'm not sure you have if you have an answer to or not. But since you've actually spoken to some of these individuals, uh, maybe they talked about it. I'm always curious. I need to think about the desert. Like, what were they doing water wise? Like, what was their strategy for maintaining fluid? Yeah. So there's two notable points with this. Uh, the first is in terms of specific strategy, gourds. Gourds filled with water built caches, caves buried, generally speaking. Um, the other thing, though, that we noticed and this is something I'd really like to see some more modern, uh, testing on in coming years, but generally with these elite running groups who've been doing it for so many generations. Uh, the Apache, for sure. Another one that I encountered this with was the San Bushmen in South Africa when I was researching the book. Um, they have significantly greater hydration and fuel efficiency than virtually anyone else in the rest of the world. And they like it. It's crazy, but just resistant, like physiological resistance to hydration. Like a San Bushmen can run so far literally and off one ostrich egg filled with water. They can run like so far beyond and such. Minimal. That's the other thing too. Very minimal, uh, mineral, uh, requirements. So, like my, my thing, I come from, like, all northern, far northern people it's I have like I require three times almost three. Ben Greenfield both were competing for the highest, like salt requirements for a living human. Yeah, but we both require about triple the salt of a normal person. Like that would not make me a great sand bushman at all, you know what I mean? But a lot of these guys can get by. Um, I would do well in the caloric point. Apparently, my nutritionist tells me I have, like, he thinks it's just because I spent most of my life in poverty and then years exercising with, like, terrible nutrition. But, uh, yeah, I'm very like he says my body is very, like, very good and it's very resistant to the effects. The, uh. What did he say? He's Australian, so he uses a different word. But basically the negative effects of, uh, physiological of, uh, you know, being in a physiological caloric deficit for an extended period of time. Yeah, yeah. But you see that at a much greater scale. And on the hydration side as well, with a lot of these tribal groups. So I don't I mean, I'd love to see Andrew Huberman or someone, you know, like someone who actually knows, you know, the science behind the human body. Take a look at some of these guys. Um, because, I mean, it fascinates me, and I don't know how much of it is malleable as opposed to, like, you know, hey, you're you're six foot six, and so you're six foot six, you know, and. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's, it seems like with, uh, with, like, electrolyte loss that that's fairly fixed at the individual level, but it's not something that couldn't be selected for generationally either. So when, when you look at the spread, I mean, you get the folks like you and Ben Greenfield who are probably like two grams of electrolytes per liter of sweat, whereas you get people on the other end of the spectrum who are maybe downwards to 200mg. You know, I imagine the selection process of these individuals is probably the 200mg of electrolyte loss. And then on top of it, if I sent them out for an hour run and weighed them before and after, they're probably going to be like the low end of the spectrum of fluid loss in that time frame, too. So they kind of get it from both ends there, where they need less of both of those inputs in order to cover the distance, so to speak. So yeah, that's actually a yeah, you're 100% right. So my, uh, my friends with the people over at Skratch Labs or, you know, one of the top, you know, endurance hydration labs and product people around. And so my wife and I went out there and we had our, uh, our, you know, electrolyte panels done. And so I was at about 18, just under 1900. So you say a little bit, but I think Ben's a little higher than me. But yeah, we're both right below, right about 2000. And my wife. Uh, who is. So I'm just in terms of the evolutionary side of things, my people come mostly from northern Europe and then Japan. On the other hand, my wife, uh, comes from almost all subtropical climates. She's a part Native American, part African American. And so my sodium requirements were 1879, I think, and hers were 350. Wow. Yeah. And so which is, you know, hers is a little bit below average, but like, you know, and I was like, how? Like you're telling me like, that's like, you know, almost an order of magnitude difference. Like, how is that? And they're just like people that, you know, like you of all human beings are diverse and evolved to, you know, and adapt to all these different, you know, places and scenarios. And, you know, I also can live in, like just indefinitely off dairy and red meat and not get bad blood markers or getting, you know what I mean. And a lot I know for a lot of people, uh, you know, or at least in combination with other dietary factors, a lot of people cannot. You know, so it's just, you know, it is weird. But there there are there's a wide latitude of adaptation. And the last thing I'll say in terms of just like the Apache or other historical ultra runners, ironically, the defining characteristic we see throughout all of history through the thousands of years leading up into and even still carrying the day and longer distances in modern athletic competition with runners. It's not your technique. It's not even always your training. It's generally how good you do. In a deficit with food and water. Like it's just, you know, if you can take the same amount of food and water and get, you know, an extra seven miles out of that than the next guy, then just compounding, whether you're carrying messages to tell, you know, the ancient Greeks that Athens, you know, shouldn't burn, or whether, you know, whether you're running in a race or whatever, or and keep in mind, a lot of these cultures had races to, um, like, you know, the yearly festivals would have like, much like the you and I, you know, you and I just got together in Arizona, you know, what is essentially a modern festival and had people running and, you know, like, that's not a new thing. People have been doing that either, probably, you know, not far from where you and I stood in Arizona. There was an Apache festival 500 years ago doing the same thing. So it's like, you know, you see, with the Highland Games is a great, you know, vestigial remnant of that from, you know, the Celtic era. But, um, so it's like, you know, we're not the first person to ask these questions, but in terms of both, you know, whether you're interested in the military history side of running or just the raw athletic competition, generally seems like the guy who needs who needs less goes further. Yeah. Makes sense, especially when we get into the context of these Asian tribes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, physiological maximums are that's a different thing. You know, it's like a lot of nuance goes into being the fastest guy to run a hundred miles or whatever. But like, you know, any anything that's pursuing, you know, the top. The top, the razor's edge or something. But yeah, but just like. Hey. Like, who's going to be really good? Let's go run 600 miles point to point with very little support. Who's going to be good at it? You know, it's going to be the guy that needs the least supplies usually. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. James. Well it's been fun chatting to you about uh the Apache and other other running related things. So um, always excited for the next one and also all the work that's going to go into your, your next project. Oh yeah. No, I'm, I'm excited. I mean I, I, I if uh if you're not opposed I will continue to enlist you as my war time. Absolutely. My war time. Yeah. Do you ever see Sopranos? Yeah. And you'll be my, uh, my Silvio, my wartime consigliere for, uh, for the approach on the war on a thousand miles. There we go. We're going to battle. Yeah. Oh, by the way, speaking of old shows, uh, completely unrelated, but I just, uh. I used to watch Dexter back in the day. I always thought it was a neat show. Yeah, they did that reboot up in the. It was, like, set in Alaska or something. I didn't love that, but they just did another one that follows him as a young man. And it's, uh, narrated by Michael C Hall, actually. Really good. Yeah. Talked about like, I'm generally very skeptical of, like, resurrecting old shows, but it's actually been pretty good. Okay. Well, I'll have to check that out. I watched the first Dexter, but I didn't watch anything after that, so I still had to catch up on, um, Alaska. Uh, yeah. Yeah, the last one was a little, a little different, but this new one that they capture, that, uh, the dual life, uh, that kind of anxiety that someone's going to find out, but. And then him, like, ironically, being a pretty decent, like, moralistic being despite all the serial killer nonsense, you know? Um, so I thought they did pretty good. And then the kid they picked, like, looks quite a bit like him, but yeah. Anyway, enough unrelated stuff, but yeah, we've been watching that and then the Culinary Class War is a random Korean cooking show that has us in trance right now. Very cool. You gotta eat eventually, right? So yeah, you do, bro, but I'm telling you. But all right. Sounds good, brother. You have a good new year and we'll talk soon. Maybe nail up the engine for the next one. We kind of built up. Built into that one already? Yeah. We did. I think that one's on tap now after this one. So that works. I actually wrote it. I wrote a section on them in the book, too. I didn't go over there or anything, but I wrote I knew a lot of what most people know in terms of kingdom and crypto and how they train and how, you know, how a lot of, you know, like many of the runners and YouTubers going over to the Rift Valley to, you know, get in on some of these training camps. Um, but what I didn't know was kind of like how they evolved and how they got to be like, how did that much like with the Apache running being such a big part of their culture, like, how did that come to be and how did how how did they seem to be better than it than a lot of their neighbors? And then, of course, we touched on the Maasai today, they are the traditional tribal enemies of the Kenyan as well. So again, two things to cover in the next one. Yeah. Looking forward to it. Yes, sir. All right. Sounds good. Take care.