Episode 436: 1000 Mile Ultra Marathon with James Pieratt

James Pieratt of Wild Hunt Conditioning is preparing for a 1000 mile point to point journey along the West Coast, hitting some historic sites along the way. We unpack some of the specifics in preparation and event execution.

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Timestamps/Topics:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:22 Welcome James!

00:05:42 Exploring the FKT Challenge and Native American Trade Routes

00:10:56 Balancing Risk and Capacity in Long-Distance Hiking

00:16:11 Planning a Sustainable Distance Running Strategy

00:23:00 Unique Training Approach for Ultra Marathons

00:26:55 Key Strategies for Hydration in Ultramarathons

00:37:41 Understanding Aerobic Fuel Utilization

00:43:18 Weight Loss Impact on Performance

00:48:36 Training at Westside Barbell: Preparing for Strength Records

00:53:36 Overcoming Injury in Jiu-Jitsu

00:58:44 The Balance between Strength Training and Running Performance

01:09:10 Training for a 1000-Mile Ultra Marathon

01:14:37 Prioritizing Hydration and Diet for Extreme Endurance

01:20:07 Ultra Running Tips and Coaching

Episode Transcript:

Yeah. Have you gotten out and run on many of the trails yet? Yeah. So I have, we are actually about less than an hour from, like, an actual rainforest. We're actually right at the edge of it, but, like, we're less than an hour to a really nice trailhead and a pretty crazy rainforest. And we, like, expected that it would be nice. It's on the. So for reference, it is that we live right in the area. The only notable thing that's ever really happened in this area is Twilight was filmed here, the vampire movie. Yeah. Okay. So the Indian reservation is the Native American reservation, it's like they changed, like two letters of the name. But long story short, they have some amazingly beautiful land. And, I mean, the culture itself is just really fascinating, especially for a guy like me. but a very rich material culture, specifically material and spiritual. But long story short, in that area, they have some amazing rainforests. And we headed out and started exploring and it's just amazing. But right now most of my miles are road in sand. you know, just getting acclimated for the big one coming up. And fortunately, I have plenty of beach access and plenty of roads out here. Yeah, yeah, because I think I remember if I remember right when we were chatting last year, you were saying that the route is going to have a lot of sandy surface to run over. So that's always kind of an interesting element to or variable to to deal with. Yeah, it was something definitely something I'd want to I'd, I'd want to pick your brain on. But yeah, the breakdown is roughly 400 miles of sand, 400 miles of road, and it'll be a little more than 300 trials. So overall distance is going to be depending on a few route variables. It's going to be basically within about 1100 miles give or take about 40 miles. Yeah that is an interesting breakup. Is it pretty? Is it pretty dispersed with that or are you hitting like a huge chunk of each all at once? I think that's going to be just a lot of back and forth honestly. Okay. Yeah, that's actually probably better because I was thinking about that just in general in terms of how to kind of choose your battles when it comes to hiking versus running. And, you know, when you get into events, as long as this, you know, thousand miles, there's just going to skew a lot more towards hiking than what you'd see in shorter endurance races. And that just kind of opens up a whole nother set of, sort of thoughts to at least with the peaking phase and even to some degree with like the build up phase, because you're almost in a different discipline at that point when, when you're doing that much hiking. But if we're looking at it through the lens of you're going to do some running and some hiking or like shuffling versus just like legit one foot on the ground at all times. I think you're probably we're probably looking at like, let's, let's try to strategize in a way where when you do the running side of things, focusing on the paved versions and then the hiking on the sand, just because you're going to lose so much more efficiency trying to run in the sand versus versus hiking. And I bet it squares away in terms of you moving a little bit quicker on the more firm surfaces when you do have them, versus that soft sand side of things. Copy that. Yeah, that's actually hugely valuable because I really had no idea how to, how to approach that. And my only real input on the pacing stuff was like, I need some running just for like, mental sanity, you know? Yeah. Right. Yeah. You need to switch things up. Enough with that. I think, where you don't feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again. I think that's really helpful from the mental side. So yeah. No. Sounds like you've got pretty good specifics to prepare for it though, which is always nice. I think getting fit is probably the biggest variable. But then from there, if you can do that, then kind of getting some specifics on what you're going to actually surface, you're going to be on is going to be, kind of another layer of, of importance. Right. so and then also, just also I guess for anyone that has well, actually, since since we last spoke, a few things have changed. Originally I was just kind of stuck with the CCP and just kind of jammed up the coast. I had originally kind of come in with a mind for breaking the fact it's pretty. It's a newer trail. And I was very confident that I could significantly, you know, beat the current fkt by a pretty significant margin. but then as I started kind of looking at this area, were you familiar with a guy named Daniele Baldelli by chance? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So he's a good buddy of mine. I'll be, you know, just a couple of history geeks, obviously. Yeah. So just whenever I'm in Southern California, we hang out or I do his podcast or whatever. But the point being, we were, like, the more I was talking and hanging out with him, the more I was just kind of realizing I'm just running through, like, essentially. A big series of, like, Native American archaeological sites and historical sites. And when we started looking at this, I started looking at it and kind of bouncing some ideas off him. We basically realized that there was a giant Native American Warpath and trade network that ran from Mexico, you know, into the Pacific Northwest. and we're like, well, how cool would it be to literally reconstruct that? Because it has never been fully reconstructed. People know about sections of it. Like usually as it applies to Spanish missions and whatnot. and then they don't realize that the Spaniards and the Spaniards, again, just a small amount of historical context. When the Spaniards got to California and started exploring. They had no idea. They didn't have, like, any accurate maps. They didn't have any accurate data. They weren't experienced with the land, the wildlife any like. It was very, very different than anything they'd seen before in Spain or in Mexico up to that point. And, so essentially they were very, very fortunate to find a native population with a lot of goodwill. The natives in California were very different from a lot of pretty much the rest of the country because they were living, for lack of a better term, in Eden. They were protected on one side by the Sierra Nevadas, so they didn't get any like the continental warfare. They were pretty isolated. California was so mild and so, so rich. And it's ecosystems that they never even had to develop agriculture. There was just berries and nuts and fish and, you know, meat year round. So unlike the rest, you know, the rest of, you know, pretty much anywhere else you go in the North American continent, you have maize, you have different, you know, staple crops. outside of some, you know, some of the nomadic populations that popped up a little later with horses. But. Point being, these were some very prosperous and very friendly native populations. And some of the Spaniards got there. There wasn't. They didn't encounter much hostility, and they were very willingly shown like, oh, hey, like, hey, you're going through our lands. Like, these are the paths we use. And so what we came, you know, tragically, what later became the Spanish Mission Pass and a lot of the, you know, the trails used or the roads used by Spanish military expeditions against these native people were just their own native trade routes and stuff. and then these mission paths would become highway 101 and highway one that run, you know, the main northern North-South routes through the California coastal region to this day. and so when we started looking at that, like that saved a lot of time because it's like, oh, hey, like that accounts for a pretty, you know, reconstruction wise. Like, that saves a lot of time when we know that, you know, but then you start looking at little things, coastal points. There's also going to be a few points where I move inland, including. Oh, that brings me to another thing too. So they're my I'm going to be looking for, you know, in that kind of 35 to 40 miles a day. every day. Not planning on doing any zero days or rest days, ideally. You never know. but on one particular day, there will be two days where I have to hit 57 miles, and those will be my two peak days. and those are just basically getting in to see the painted Rock fortress, on the coast, which is kind of anyway, central California. It's a good way inland. And the fastest, most direct route we can find is about 57 miles by foot. And just for the time frame, like with a documentary crew and with everything else, we're just kind of to, you know, there's certain points I have to be. I have to make certain points in order to rendezvous with cruise and filming and supplies for that. So, anyway, long story short, not running the actual California Coast Trail, running an ancient Native American Warpath slash trade route that we're reconstructing, and going to be visiting some pretty cool stuff along the way. But that does mean that there will be a couple of days where mileage gets up to 57 miles, two days in particular, back to back, most likely. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. I think when you have that added value of something that you're interested in outside of just the movement itself, it kind of just feeds into just the motivation and the desire to kind of hit the benchmarks. So it just adds to the why of everything. You know, that's one of the biggest questions. A lot of times I'll have with Coach and Queens is like, you know, what's the reason behind this event versus whatever else you could be doing? And the more motivated you can get around certain aspects of things, like maybe it's something special about the route or something unique to you in that specific area. it just adds another level of, things to grasp to when it gets tough, because that's the thing that we know for sure will happen is things will get tough, and then you have to be really interested in what you're doing to kind of want to go that extra, that extra bit to to get what you where you want. But, it's also good to know, just generally speaking, the kind of those distance markers and what kind it takes in there. Because the way I look at a lot of this is like a lot of it is just managing, not getting hurt. So like not having something that will really cause you to slow down. And when you have the way I usually like to look at this is where our kind of like range is between conservative to aggressive. And if on average we're leaning towards being more conservative, then it's just a little bit more reasonable in terms of like, okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves because one, you don't need to. So why invite unnecessary risk? And then two, it gives you a little bit of flexibility if you do need it, because you're not necessarily stretching yourself thin or as thin as you could by reaching up to like some number that would maybe be stretchy to your capacity, compound that over days and weeks, and then you have like things like sleep disruption and things like that. So, that's usually kind of a good starting point. I think we'd probably just I think the focal point maybe would be like, let's take a look at kind of when and where those longer sections where you're going to have to stretch yourself a little thinner and maybe kind of look at what that maybe means for the day prior and, and after in terms of kind of supporting yourself to be able to take on a little bit of a bigger challenge on those days. And it may be that it's just, okay, I'm just going to be out there on my feet a little bit longer this day, and I lose a couple hours of sleep on top of what I would normally get, which probably won't be problematic in the grand scheme of things, since it's not every day. but I think being kind of cautious around those is usually, usually the way to go about it. Okay, cool. So yeah, the way that breaks down in general, just in terms of my personal capacity, 57 is at the outer edge of my repeatable capacity day in and day out. Like, you know, when I'm on the PCT doing the longer stuff, it's like those 50 to 55. That's a pretty hot day for me. but I can repeat, like, you know, I can do that every day for a week for sure. a month, definitely different. I don't know, perhaps you could tell me. I'm not sure if this is more of an asset or more of a challenge, but the hour- long sections are going to be relatively early on. So with these 257 days are going to be an so up or so cow, you know what I mean? But like maybe near the one third point overall, quarter a third of the way in. And then in that week we're going to have about a 300 mile, 300, I think I'll have to look, but I believe it's like 312 or 320 miles that week, and that'll be the hottest week. But that's just, you know, again, external constraints. and that'll be essentially all in our first week and then or roughly about a week, it's like day 2 to 9 or something like that. and then after that we'll have a little bit more flexibility in terms of pacing and cushion. Yeah, it's a good question, I think. Like when I look at some of the stuff and I mean, the fun thing about this project is there's not necessarily a definitive correct answer. So, it's kind of like looking at okay, what have we seen done in here and what we're like, is there any kind of signal through the variety that we see out there. And the thing that stands out when I talk to people about doing these long, multi-week things is they usually feel like that first week or so almost feels like a little challenging mentally, because things feel like they're kind of progressively breaking down. And then it sort of just normalizes and you almost kind of adapt to what you're doing, and your body sort of accepts. This is probably stuff that you recognized when you did your 500 miler and things like that, where it was like, all right. You hit a point where you're kind of like, you're kind of a little bit more in a balance. And I mean, obviously you're you're you're fatigued and there's challenges and things like that. But it goes from, okay, we're progressively getting driven further down to we've hit that point and things maybe even start perceptually improving from that kind of low point. So in terms of like what that means for loading different distances or durations. I think ideally I would say hitting those early is probably not a bad idea, because you are going to be relatively fresher than if you say you had those really long sessions at the very tail end of it. but if it's not like day two or day one, that's probably better too, because you're not kind of in that transition phase any longer. If you're hitting that maybe like a few days out versus in the very, very beginning. The other advantage of having those longer stretches near the end is you probably would start feeling like, all right, I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. So from a motivation factor, but at the end of the day, you work with what you got and you end up looking at, okay, here's how this has to play out in order for this to be successful. And then you build the best plan within that. So, if it's something where like, hey, I've got to hit a couple really big days and say, like that first week, then that might just impact the way that we prepare going into the this the, the project versus a scenario where you're kind of easing into things and then hitting big days, in which case we almost look at maybe the start of the project as being kind of that final stage of what you would maybe normally do for, for a project of this size where you kind of like you're you're sort of like phasing into the project itself to some degree. But I think if that's coming up a little bit sooner, we don't want to throw. We don't want that 57 mile day to hit you so hard that you're all sudden just like, you know, really struggling to get things back together for like a few days after that. So if it's early enough, we want to make sure you're ready for that. the other thing might just be how aggressive you get within the distance is that you're doing the days around it. So it could just be like, if we come up with a rotation of hiking and running. We skew towards a little bit more hiking than normal on the day before and the day after, just so we're not loading as much when you're going to be out there on your feet a little bit more for those longer days. And since they're probably shorter days, they're shorter than the longer day, for sure. They're closer to that kind of normal benchmark you're making. You probably have a little bit more of a time flexibility there in terms of being able to just take it a little bit slower than maybe you would if you had just a consistent 3040 miles each day. Right? Right. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah. So then like doing the math and yeah, you're coming. We're coming out in the high 30s to low 40s per day on average. And then if like, like I said, those two back to back 57 mile days, there's no reason that you can't do like a 30, you know, 30 mile day before and after that or even, you know, two days after. We also have the benefit that that stretch is going to be, within like an hour and a half to drive to my grandma's house so I can actually have, like. Grandma cooked a meal and a bed to sleep in. Yeah. You know, not just on nights before and after, but on the night in between. You know, because it'll just. What does that shake? 114 miles and 48 hours or so, which is pretty. You know what I mean? Like putting emphasis on hiking. Also, most of that's road, too. So I'm not going to be fighting through sand and that like, it's I'm literally running on farm roads for most of that. and which also means, direct support, like, you know, vehicle, you know, like, my team can come and draw, you know, switch up, bring me a hot meal, do whatever at any point, you know, so I'm not roughing it like I would be on the PCT, you know? so I think. Yeah, you're you're I mean, it's definitely possible that we soften the edges around, you know, before and after that hundred and, and then maybe kind of just set more of, like a, an overall, like, I don't know, what, three and a half, four, you know, just a little bit shorter overall pace, you know, on those days and maybe take some of the impact out of it. Yeah. That's actually interesting too, the way you described it too, because I think even with the added distance on those two days, the fact that you have access to your crew in that area and then it's a little bit, it could be that you're not spending all that much more time on those days because of the more road sections, better access to support, and just maybe a little bit higher motivators through that section than what you're going to get if you're out there remotely by yourself for longer periods of time. So, yeah, you know what would be interesting? Sometimes with like routes like this and setups like this, it just kind of becomes a thing of like, maybe we do like a dress rehearsal, depending on timeline, where we just stretch out a couple of days in training where you're kind of replicating that section and get an idea of like, well, how fast can you move on this with relatively fresh legs and then start looking at, okay, what can we think? What are we thinking about from a time perspective on that section? Then when we start adding in like, okay, well you're probably going to be a little bit slower during the event and you know, everything that kind of goes into that and just get an idea of what, how big of a bolus that's actually going to be. So that we kind of know what level of competitiveness is necessary around it, and also just come up with just certain things that maybe stand out between being on that type of terrain versus the other ones, in terms of how your body responds so that you're, you're you're not kind of throwing things up against the wall to correct if things pop up. But you're looking at it through the lens of, okay, this is what will likely occur. If it's here are the things, here are the hurdles that will likely occur, and here are the solutions. Or here are the things that I would, would, would have available to me to kind of to remedy those. So the way I look at it is the more kind of strategy you have between knowing that you probably won't be able to predict things perfectly, but being able to have kind of a short list of here's the options I have available when this happens. The more you kind of have that already loaded in your mind, the better you're going to be able to just pivot to it a little more intuitively versus sitting there and kind of second guessing whether you made the right decision. You've already kind of gone through that process ahead of time, so you're not burning all that mental energy trying to problem solve on the fly. You're kind of picking from your set of options that are available that we've predetermined are what you have access to. Yeah, we've reached that groove. That makes sense. So yeah, as far as I know, you and I have talked about this before, but if anyone, anyone listening that we're approaching the training on this, you know, kind of differently, instead of, building up to a peak like I would for a 100 or a 200 miler, obviously you can't maintain a peak for 30 days of running or however long. So, as we talked about, I think in our last pod, we're focusing a lot on strength, conditioning, building baseline capacities, and then essentially treating the start of the event as like the start of the peak, you know, as you would have the start of a peak training cycle. and then putting a lot of like we talked about, like we referenced putting a lot of time and energy into not getting injured. So, you know, the high, high strain areas, the calves, you know, the old injuries. ET cetera. ET cetera. and then the other, the main, you know, I mean like low I've been doing three low, very low intensity long runs, per month and, you know, three on, one off. You do load week style. usually something like 32 to 34 miles and seven, 7.5 hours, you know, nothing too crazy just getting that volume and capacity maintained. So I know I can do that more or less indefinitely without, like. Like there's no peeking involved for that. You know, that's essentially a long, you know, a long hike. And then, I did a three day hike. Let me see. This would be. About nine weeks out. So one week. Yes. Let me do the math. Yeah. So essentially nine about ten weeks before the event, I did a three day boot camp where I just did 100 miles in three days. surface accurate to almost entirely on cement and sand and, came out of that feeling weirdly unaffected. which again, it's only three back to back long days of running, but still didn't feel weirdly unaffected. Like you two this year. I had a very short offseason and came out of it still feeling pretty rejuvenated. And, you know, I didn't like it. I lost much baseline conditioning between the holiday ultras that I ran in now. So anyway, I came out of that three day block feeling really good. I am, I think tomorrow or the next day flying to SoCal, and I'm doing a little, 24 hour ultra down there with a couple of my team guys. I believe it is the Beyond Limits ultra. but it's like, I guess. Yeah, that's a big ultra festival. They supposedly have games and fun stuff for the crew to do archery. And, you know, it's kind of an ultra marathon ultramarathon fare sort of thing. and then I'm taking one of my guys out for his first ultra, and then the second guy for my team for his second, like, long ultra. And, so we're just going to kind of go have fun a bit. I'm just going to use it as a training race. And then, my final little boot camp will be two and a two, two and a half, two and a half weeks before the event. I have five days. Same thing, you know, just essentially 30 to 35 a day, five days surface accurate training. and I think that would be obviously an ideal time to do some, you know, maybe like run this, this test that we're talking about here and kind of check on some of the, you know, grease the groove on some of the mental mechanisms as well as logistical mechanisms, but also find out kind of like what's the next two days going to be like that after or, you know, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like with your structure, I would be less concerned about just the actual doing of the event. I think that's probably going to be the easier part for you. I think the thing that we want to be or some variables that are maybe worth kind of playing around with or considering and thinking about is just like. Fueling, hydration and then just management of things that are breaking down a little bit more than others, probably more like skin related stuff or blister related stuff. chafing related stuff, that sort of thing. so you probably have enough information from, if you've done prior just where like some weak spots are. And then we would just want to kind of take inventory of those and know like, all right, do we have a way to prevent this by either just bolstering that area or having the right stuff along so that if something does flare up in that area and creates a kind of a point of, problem, that you're able to remedy it and a lot of that, I think whatever we come up with with that based on prior experiences, then we can just stress test it with that five day thing. two and a half weeks out, which is kind of perfect. You know, I think that's going to be a really good kind of final push to get you ready for it and stay on top of that stuff. So I mean, that could we do things as simple as just looking at, looking at like average workload for what you're trying to do and kind of coming up with, like, this is roughly how much energy you're probably going to require from one day to the next. we can do fluid loss rate stuff where we're looking at, okay, in these type of climates, what I like to do with fluid loss a lot of times is we'll pick a cool day, a moderate day and a hot day, and we'll just run like a one hour, like fluid loss task for you and just see, like, what are we looking at from a range from like when it's nice out, I'm probably losing this much when it's hot out this much and then kind of somewhere in the middle this much. And then you sort of have a range just from planning purposes. Not that you're necessarily going to stick to it perfectly, but it gives you a little bit of an idea in terms of if you are kind of slipping outside of that and noticing some fatigue related to maybe some of that, like where the problem is. So, you know, like where the remedy points would probably be most, most focused on versus trying to, to do something like what? What I think sometimes happens in ultramarathons is. There's the fueling and the hydration is important. But I think a lot of times people gravitate towards the fueling side of it because that one just kind of intuitively makes sense. It's kind of like, like if I don't put gas in my car, it stops running. Eventually, despite how good the car may be. And but, you know, water and fluid are kind of I look at it this way. When you're out there for really long periods of time, you're more likely to exceed your processing limits of loss from fluid than you are from fuel. Especially at low intensity stuff. We can probably hit and exceed if we wanted to. Your fuel intake and your body could break down, process and use that over the course of a day. But we may not be able to do that with fluid. So we may be trying to target something that is good versus great and managing it versus optimizing it. And when we have a scenario like that, then I want less mistakes made on the hydration side, because hydration is also going to amplify any other problem if it goes wrong. If you get dehydrated, sudden fueling gets more difficult all of a sudden, like the use of caffeine isn't as effective. Your general state of just like. How you feel out there is going to be lower than average and things like that. So it's just one of those mistakes that I think carries a lot higher of a consequence at the end of the day than some of the other things that maybe look on paper as being more important or, or just stand out a little more clearly. That makes sense. And also, I mean, it seems like a cascade, a cast, it's more likely to cascade and harder to stop once you start, you know, especially with day after day after day. It's like, oh, hey, so I was 2000 calories short on my food yesterday, but I'm gonna make up, you know, maybe even hit a 500 calorie excess today. And in time, it'll balance out, you know what I mean? Whereas the hydration, it's like, you know, like you get behind, it's pretty hard to catch up on it, you know, properly and give your, you know, day after day at least. Yeah. Yeah. And if you get severely dehydrated, there can be a carryover of that for up to 48 hours. So, and then you have the added stress point with this where like, it's not like that next day you just sit around and do nothing and catch up on hydration. It's like you're out there probably driving it a little further. So you're trying to catch up and depleting at the same time, to a larger degree. So that's one I always think is probably worth really, really paying attention to and getting dialed in. Okay. Yeah, I'm working with. I just signed as a sponsored athlete with Transparent Labs. yeah, yeah. I mean, for anyone who's, they work. I think they work with at least one other runner. I think they work with Cam Heinz's son, but like them. Yeah, yeah, but their main athletes, I'm joining, the Mountain from Game of Thrones, Max Holloway from the UFC, and, Paul Sklar, who I guess is like a middle, like a basically a fitness guy who just doesn't age like, he just looks amazing at, like, you know, whatever age he is. and so I'll be joining them as transparent athletes, but point being, they have an amazing like they're so dialed in, their products are so clean. They're everything is, you know, their electrolyte formula is coconut powder based and all these things. So it's, they're they're going to be having very well supplied and pretty much any specific needs I can get from them to they have good cluster dextrose that, you know, all the, all the stuff that we would need for, you know, all the stuff that, long, long milers are, are always craving. Yeah. But then I have talked about this too, but getting back to it, I have spent about the last six months getting pretty fat adapted and not ketogenic or anything, but pretty, more. Yeah, definitely more. More fat than I've ever had in my diet. both as a baseline and performing, still bring carbs with me. You know, when I'm moving, I don't pace very much. And if I'm not doing a lot of hills, I find I don't actually need too many. not to the order that I was consuming them before. You know, and then, with carb loading, too. Instead of just going crazy for like, 48 hours before, I just do, you know, 72 or so, more slow carbs, kind of, you know, a lot of yams and potatoes. We were talking on Instagram. The Japanese yam. Yeah. Yeah. so you got the Murasaki ones with the purple skin and the white flesh are very good. I recommend, if you haven't tried them, the solid purple ones all the way through. Those have the highest antioxidant count. Those are the ones Ginny doesn't like. She likes the white skin or the white white fleshed ones more. But I eat both, like, constantly. She makes meal trips. A big thing of mashed sweet potato, and she keeps it in the fridge. So it's like, you know what I mean? That's been my kick lately. My carb source has been potatoes, so I've been kind of going through the varieties out there, and. Yeah, I'll just make like a mash and I'll put like a bunch of, like ground beef or eggs or something in there and then just have it in the fridge. So it makes it really easy to stick to the plan because it's just there and it's easy. And you don't have to prep 3 or 4 times a day. You kind of do it once and then have it. But I think we do have the purple, flesh potato, I forget which one that with the specific name of that one is. But, At the sprouts near our house. So I think I need to go over there and just grab a couple of them and put that into the rotation too. So there also that that's that longevity food to you know, the the Okinawans are big like you know the anthracis ends but so yeah the wild blueberries and then various yams and potatoes. That's my main my main carb sources. But the potatoes in general I mean that's the runners. I mean the incas where they had some of the, you know, some of the best runners, like, you know, just because and it's not even it wasn't even like an athletic or a genetic thing. I mean, it was, but it was just like the way that their empire was set up and they didn't have horses and they had a massive, massive empire that stretched long. You know, it's like the size of ancient Rome, but without a horse messenger system and just rely upon relay. But they, you know, same thing. They were begging a big like potatoes above all. And then, you know, we had corn and quinoa and stuff too, but the. Yeah, I've been getting more into the like the New World dietary stuff lately, just they're not getting more into making it a bigger part of my, my nutrition and even little things getting a little more bison and a little more, you know, a little more, you know, game meat than, you know, just always going with beef and whatnot. but yeah, so I, I've, long story short, been, been basically eating a lot like finding a good way to balance eating for health and performance. Yeah. Yeah. There's some it's sometimes it's fun too, because it's like you have like a, a target with the, with kind of a story behind it or something in it that kind of motivates you outside of just like fuel in, fuel out. No, no, it it does. And I mean I'm one of the I'm like I'm like a I don't know, you call a symbolic people a romantic or a mythological mythological person. But stuff like that for me like it just it rings my bell. It's like I, I that's one reason that it's, you know, I do my workouts like designed after Apache runners and samurai stone lifters, you know, all this stuff. Because for me, it's like that is just it speaks to something in me that lifting a dumbbell in the gym doesn't, you know, and, same thing with the diet, but, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's, you know, whatever works for everyone. I just did a, an Aztec project, and it was almost entirely vegetarian. It was pretty interesting. And it wasn't, you know, it was just because they didn't they didn't have livestock. And so most of the, you know, they actually most of their protein came from aquatic sources. So fish and amphibians and insects, tons of grasshoppers and stuff. So like when you go to Mexico and you have the chocolate covered grasshoppers and like that's, that goes back to Aztec times and then, you know, turkeys. And then they even had a few, like, kind of sad, but a few special breeds of dog, not pet, not dog pets, but like livestock, you know, but because they didn't have cattle, they didn't, you know, so it was deer, turkey, you know, and then a lot of aquatic stuff and then, you know, crickets and. Edible dogs. but the point being that I was doing that, it's just they had a, you know, amaranth was a big staple that we don't really use a lot. It's also a very good, like, low glycemic, high high, like, I'm sorry, low glycemic index, like high micronutrient density, slow slow release carb. That's just excellent for endurance pursuits. Like all these little things that just, not to, like, touch on the food side of things, but it's like we went pretty hard after wheat as, like a, you know, a staple. And there was a lot of stuff, like, there was a lot of, you know, even buckwheat, you know, things like this, like a lot of alternate carb sources that are, you know, they just have a lot more nutrient density, lower glycemic or, you know, lower glycemic index, higher protein. And, so I've been looking a lot more into, like, the Native American and New World carb sources. It's pretty interesting. Yeah, yeah. And in terms of like practicality from just like a macronutrient target thing for this to like, we can we can get pretty precise with that and just make sure that you're, you're not overdoing the carb sources and just but but getting what you need to like, the way I usually look at this is if we if we just assume the average endurance athlete, moderate high carbohydrate diet at their aerobic threshold, they're going to be like a 5050 split between carbs and fats. So we can just look at what their workload is at their aerobic threshold and get an idea of just like, oh, well, what kind of carb inputs are going to be required to defend, their, their onboard liver and muscle glycogen stores? And then if we start getting into the low carb world, like someone like myself or like, it sounds like what you've been doing more recently is different. And you could probably go and get a test on this if you wanted to, just to kind of see where your points are. I mean, if you get just like a, most people use these just to pinpoint like their VO2 max or lactate threshold or aerobic threshold and things like that. The cool thing that you usually get with those reports is it also shows your fuel substrate utilization across that intensity spectrum. So you can see like, oh, at my aerobic threshold I'm actually this versus the average 5050 for a moderate high carb athlete. So most of the low carbs that I've worked with and myself are, you know, we're usually closer to 80, maybe 90% fat at aerobic threshold. And that's just a different, you know, input for that equation then. So like if you're working that intensity, whatever workload that is per hour, that's kind of the target you're going to want to plug in, which just comes out to be a lot less necessary in your workout carb fueling than you would do on the other side of things. So. We can probably assume pretty safely that, like aerobic thresholds, the ceiling of the intensity you'll be hitting during this project. So then if we looked at that as like, that's the maximal amount of carbohydrate per hour, you'd be needing. And we can apply that to just like the pace that you're generating. and you're just in your normal kind of resting metabolic rate, energy expenditure stuff and kind of figure out where like, who knows, maybe it's like 500 calories per hour or something like that. If we can generalize that you're burning 80% fat at that intensity, then we just want to make sure that 500 calories is 20% supported from the carbohydrate sources that you use. And that's going to probably keep things moving in the right direction, in terms of, the fueling side of things. But that's honestly way more that's just like a way more simplistically elegant and precise, approach to what I've been doing. So that work and then. Yeah, I can confirm that I haven't done any of the co testing or any of that stuff yet or you know, I haven't done anything like biometric at all other than, I know that my resting heart rate was, 57 during a root canal that my dentist told me that. And that's the only time I was like, okay, but I never think my agent's talking to math. Anyway, there might be something there. I might be partnering with someone soon, so that might become a more regular thing. But yeah, I haven't checked any of that. But having said that, I do know that, just from trial and error, that yeah, that is that 80 plus percent, you know, lipid fueling sounds about right. Just because I played with it. And then I know after, you know, this last two months in particular of long runs, I've been playing with it more particularly just, initially with the types of fats and then getting more dialed in on, proportions and whatnot. so I know that. Yeah. And that, like, if I, if I go out and I fuel in that 80, you know, we'll call it 80% fats, range, you know, in session, I'm going to come back without having much, many signs of carbohydrate depletion or anything like that. Like it's not going to be, I'm not going to hit that wall. That's crazy. Unless I throw in hills that I'm not prepared for or something like that. I know that at that, like moving out of, 4 to 5, you know, four and a half mile overall pace that I can do that on fat, like, with very minimal carbohydrates, you know, assuming the ground is flat and, you know. And keeping your heart rate kind of lower. Yeah. Yeah I guess they're good. No I was just gonna say it is one of those things where you'll be out on your feet long enough during the day, that thinking of it outside of just carbohydrate intake is probably important too, just because you're not necessarily going to want to do all your fat and protein fueling, you know, during, resting phases, because one, you're going to want to be sleeping during a chunk of that and then and maybe not digesting massive meals of food while you're trying to sleep. so I think that there's probably a lot of a lot of inputs there outside of just the carbohydrate side, but that's usually a good starting point. At least it is. But that actually touched on something. I have a question for you. So I was thinking a simple solution for that might just be to add some scoops of collagen peptides into my drinks throughout the day. And that brings that protein up. You know what I mean? and obviously I'll have more complete protein sources, you know, and I'm eating meat or whatever, you know, for dinner or before bed or whatnot. So it's like, you know, collagen has, you know, too and it's higher in certain aminos that are harder or that are rare, but that's very low. And the muscle recovery ones like leucine and valine and isoleucine, you know, the bcaas and all the brews talk about but point B and I think they get it's super low impact on the stomach. You know, it is most likely at least indirectly going to support connective tissue. You know, and it's very good for gut health. So I was thinking I think that's pretty, that's pretty simple, you know , I like to find elegant simplicity, you know. And that seems like just throwing some of that in with because I'm already adding MCT powder to, you know, my drink bowls and stuff. So it's like, you know, a little collagen in there too. Yeah, yeah. And I think just the volume of food you'll end up taking in to make this work, you'll probably hit your protein targets pretty easily. And if you're kind of getting it in through the course of the day, then you'll definitely hit it. So, yeah, I like it. I think, fueling is one where I was another piece of the puzzle that stood out to me when I've talked to people doing these longer projects, like specifically the trans kind, it was like when I would talk to someone who's done it more than once, I had a couple guys who they had done it two different ways, actually, were one they like stayed within like a few pounds of their starting weight and also had ones where they lost like 20 plus pounds and they were saying like the difference was night and day in terms of kind of how their body responded, even more so after where they felt like when they finished, they bounced back relatively quick and kind of get back to whatever it is they wanted to do next, versus when they lost a bunch of weight. They felt like it was just like months and months of just kind of getting back to to normalizing everything, which to some degree stands to reason if you're unless you're starting like, well, overweight like you, you've you're probably going to be like below your performance threshold of weight when you're if you're losing that much and then you got to gain it back essentially in a way that's productive versus just kind of getting fat by doing nothing and eating a bunch. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've done, you know, I used to get fat in between camps just because, like, why not? You know, but now in the last year or so, I've started to pay a lot more attention to my health in general, like, you know, hormone levels, all that stuff. but as far as this, I think, I think maybe going in like 5 to £8 heavier than I normally am isn't going to hurt me, you know, and it's not going to slow me down or like, overload my joints the same way, £20 or, you know, something crazy. and then just kind of having a little bit of a cushion because we know that some days are not going to be perfect, you know, and, and then just coming in, but still just doing our best to get, you know, 8000 calories, at least, you know, 8000 calories a day. Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting. I had a guy on the podcast recently, Akshay and he, he's an Arctic explorer and he's done some stuff in the past where, you know, he's pulling heavy sleds on low impact stuff so he can afford to be a fair bit heavier. And he had like, I think he said when he was like an ultra runner, when he was just doing like single day ultras and stuff. He was a little, he was pretty small. He's like £135 and he got up to like 180 before some of his projects, just because he was like, well, I'm going to be for one specifically, he's going to be pulling a £400 dual sled set up. And it's like, yeah, I don't want that to be any heavier than it has to be. So to some degree, he's like, I'm going to like to start heavy and then lose that along the way. And hopefully it just gets progressively easier as he gets lighter and the sled gets lighter. So also Arctic you want some insulation on your hand that yeah when you're lean it's you know you go hunting during lean season. You feel it's way colder than going hunting when you got a little cushion on you for sure. You know? but the, Yeah, I follow this girl on Instagram. she's, she's one of those Arctic explorers, and she's always doing she's, you know, she's a little thing too, but she, like, I it's always hilarious because the sled is always, like, as tall as she is, but she's out there and I'm like, dude, I think. And then they like they don't. They do some long stuff. I think I saw her doing some of those like 300 miles recently, you know, and then a pretty decent I mean, like, not like fast, like in the way that you and I would run a flat land ultra, but like, they're logging some pretty decent miles per day, more than you would hiking for sure, you know. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy when you start getting into the weather. Weather impacted routes and stuff like that where you're out in the middle of nowhere and some pretty harsh conditions. So I'd like to do one Arctic culture for sure. I know they're doing some stuff in Antarctica too, but I might just do something cool like in Finland. You know, there was one in Mongolia I was looking at, but it was just even for a slow turtle like me, it was a little too slow or something like, like five days for a hundred, you know, something, something that was a little less than stimulating. But, I'd like to. I would like to find some of those kinds of cool things like that. That's been more my thing. Now. I'd like to run. I'd like to maybe break 20 hours on 100 like that. You know, that would be fun. Just just, you know, just like what? You know what I mean? Just as I've never done that. and, like, you know, that little taste last time, you know, when I saw you down in when I broke my foot at Fat Ox, like, up until mile 33, when that happened, like, I was like, oh, I see, like I was the first time when I was like, oh, I get, I get I understand the speed now. Like, I like this is very intoxicating. Like this is very enjoyable running fast, you know what I mean? And so I would like to revisit that a couple more times and maybe, maybe going after like, you know, a sub 2000 mile, there would be a good excuse to just get out and do a bunch more speed work and some more. Yeah, super ultra 100 milers 24 or just do some 24 hour races. Just go smoking, you know. but the point being outside of that is pretty much just prioritizing doing weirder and weirder ultras now. Like, you know, for lack of a better term, I do like kind of going when, especially when you do something, as long as what you're about to do is after that, doing something shorter, that requires a little bit of a different input to because you otherwise you can get so one dimensional at a point where you start losing like you're you're the last person I worry about with this because you kind of keep a lot of balance within your general fitness when you're preparing for any of these things. But, yeah. Like what's the weak link after you finish a thousand mile trip? It's probably something a little bit quicker that requires a little more running. So pivoting to a goal that kind of has that element is a little bit refreshing physically and mentally I find. Yeah, I think I definitely agree. I'm also going to have a pretty good excuse for a pretty hard pivot, because I'm going to visit. I've become buddies with the guy who runs WestSide Barbell now that Louis Simmons passed away. And so I'm like, I have a fall visit schedule out there. So I'm like, all right, how many weeks do I need to get my body healed up so I can go, you know, try to break some strength records? with that, literally the strongest gym in the world, you know. Yeah. Good company over there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Definitely. How is your foot? Is your foot fully healed, bro? Like, I don't know if I told you about my last. The doctor said he's never seen bone heal as fast in his life, and I don't know why. Yeah, he said it like he's literally never seen it. So basically it feels good when it's cold. Still gets a little achy. I broke it in a really bad spot as a lateral break just behind the big toe. And he said that it had started as probably just a stress fracture. But just by, you know, going on it for 18 hours more, it was just a straight fracture by the time he said. He said it had escalated to a fracture and already begun to heal by the time he saw it, which was right when I got home, you know, and so that was incredibly good. The bone is healed. I consulted with our friend Graham, the barefoot sprinter. Yeah, me doing some stuff because I hadn't really considered that maybe I had to do some fascia stuff because the fascia might be different over that area where the bone is. there's like a pretty like if you, if you were to run your, your bum over my foot, you can feel a calcified line there. And so it makes sense that maybe there's some disruption in the fascia over that spot. Graham was telling me that essentially, like just a picture, like the inside of your, like, your muscle fibers and patches, like sausage tubes, like casings of sausage. And you have to kind of like, you know, like you don't want them to get too cramped or pressured or breached or anything like that. So you had to kind of work, you know, work the sausages in and out of each other. And, so I've been doing some stuff like just, I'm big on Messi hops, as you know, you know, like the traditional African players. But I've been doing, like, lower impact ones barefoot on, Graham has been doing on an incline, just like, like a little grassy hill or something. You know what I mean? Just to get, like, different angles and stimulation. And then I also, he finally broke me down after years of effort and convinced me to get a pair of those toe shoes. The finger shoes. Yeah. I'm like, bro, you gotta wear these in public now. Yeah, but I just joke them. And then I've done I've actually gotten to the point where it's like I do some, We have a Cane Corso who's like at that nine month point. So he's he's already a giant dog that already going to be more giant. And so I like to kind of keep his joints nice and healthy and prepared. So we'll go on like some very short, very slow one mile trots, you know, just around the neighborhood. My logic being doing this with him before he's full grown will help, you know, help strengthen his bones and joints. And then when he's bigger, it won't be so bad to go for a little trot on some grass or whatever, because they get big, like he might, you know, they get close to £200 sometimes. Oh, wow. Yeah. Massive, massive. for reference, like a Rottweiler has a bite force of about £330. A cane course is more than 700. Oh, wow. Yeah, they're like. And it's not, they're they're like what you would probably call a vestigial dog. Like an ancient breed that was brought back. So they're like like, oh, that's what dogs used to be like, right. Yeah. They were wolves still. Yeah, exactly. And he's he's sweet. Like, again, we didn't, like, crop his ears or do any of that. You know, he's big floppy ears. Everything on him was big and floppy. He's just like, you know, Clifford the big, big red dog everywhere. But when I go on those little trots with him, I put on the toe shoes. And, so it's been it's, you know, definitely it was less comfortable initially, and now it feels pretty good, but. Long. My my long, circuitous answer would be it's doing good. Just aches when it's cold. Yeah. Yeah. Cam Haines was in town a couple of weeks ago, and I met up with him because he was trying to test out some shoes to find the most efficient pair for the Boston Marathon. And he's got a broken foot, but I think he has been broken for a while now. And he just kind of keeps beating it up and not letting it heal. So what happened to him? I don't remember exactly what it was that caused it. I think he might not know. I'd have to go. I'd have to ask him, I think. Like, he noticed the discomfort and probably just pushed through and then eventually went around, got around to getting an x-ray and then noticed it was broken. And he'll come into town and get like stem cells and stuff with ways to, well, a few times a year. And they check on it each time. And I think it's, it's still broken each time. And he's just not going to stop. So who knows what the outcome is if you don't ever let it heal or. Yeah, well, as long as it doesn't become necrotic, it just becomes arthritic as it got. Like I have, I have had two broken fingers, one with an almost completely torn ligament for two years. So it's like I've been through this with my doctor, and he's like, well, I mean, you can stop using him. Like, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. So he's like, well, you're just going to have Arthur. You have it. He's like, then you just get used to having eight good fingers. And I was like, okay, I can do that, you know? Yeah, yeah. Fine. But yeah, I probably am due for some stem cells. And the one I don't know, I might have waited too long for surgery, but at some point though one of them's an index finger, so it is kind of annoying. But beyond that, yeah, it is worth it. Like, you know, the body is incredibly good at adapting. Like, here's one for you. Many people might not know this, but I used to be a pretty serious jiu jitsu competitor. And in that world, it is very, very common for people not to have completely missing ligaments in their knees. Ace mccoll's all that. Yeah, because they got caught in a leg lock and they're like, okay, well this is my career for one. So I'm not going to take a year off for surgery recovery. I'm just going to figure it out. And then, the fact that a lot of jujitsu, you're not on your feet, you know, it's dynamic and a lot of force and can be very painful. But you're not cutting or sprinting like a football player. So it's like, oh, I mean, how much do I actually need that ligament when the muscles grow and compensate for it? Like it's not great, but it'll work you know. Yeah. But having said that, I'm obsessive about healing. So like, I'm just very fortunate to heal. Like, apparently crazy fast. And then again, for me, it's like I broke my foot. So I just bought an assault bike and I started boxing, and you know what I mean? And then that was eight weeks. And that also coincided literally perfectly with my eight week off season. So. And then I came back after eight weeks and just, you know, I did more. So the other thing too, might be of interest to you and people in general. As I started a research, I went down to Rabbit Hole and Bone healing and essentially, the resistance. Everyone knows resistance training is very good for bone density. Turns out that the actual lifting of the weight does not that much for bone density helps, but most of the benefit comes from the eccentric and isometric portions of any given lift. they stress the bone matrix more and therefore elicit more adaptation. And then, of course, better than anything is plyometrics. But yeah, that makes sense because that's just impact over, you know. But so it's like, if I was rehab, I started with very basic isometrics like as soon as I could get up on my tippy toes, you know, on hold. And then once I could do that for a while, get up on the tippy toes, put more, more, dig in with the big toe hold there, you know, and then work to one foot and then a little bit of weight and then, you know, and then real slow eccentrics. And I noticed that it was really uncomfortable at first. But like as Doctor Stewart McGill says, like if you're below three, 3 or 3 out of ten or lower on the pain scale, you're still, you know, you're most likely accelerating adaptation rather than, you know, aggravating. so I just kind of use that as an operating metric. And, came back and so, yeah, like I said, it healed really well. But for anyone who's looking at increasing bone density in a given area or systemically or trying to recover from an injury, isometrics and slow eccentrics, very, very helpful. yeah. Yeah, I know when I had a stress fracture a couple of years ago, the first thing I was able to bring back was some resistance training, and I wasn't able to do any kind of hopping or running for a while, but I could do some, I could do some pulling off the ground and lowering weights fairly early in the process. And yeah, as long as you don't overdo it, then, you know, you speed up that process a little bit and just prepare yourself to not have it happen again. So now I strength train all the time. Yeah, no I know. Yeah dude that's the other thing I gotta, we gotta sometime we gotta get that. You have the. I don't think people understand how nutty your strength and conditioning routine is, bro. I've been pretty, pretty disciplined with it the last year or so. So that's been a good value add. I think it's good. It's intelligent. It has a shit ton of volume. Like it is not for the faint of heart. So it's I mean, again, any elite athlete should, in my opinion, be saying the same, whether you're a ballerina or a powerlifter. because it's like, well, that's getting more into the philosophy of, hey, we only we don't have very much time here. We have even less time at our physiological maximum. If you're an athlete, how much of your potential do you want to live on the table? But that's an entirely separate conversation. Having said that, yeah, I don't think people understand that a better strength conditioning routine is legit. Also, that would be excellent if you haven't. I don't know if you have already, but that'd be an excellent one to offer on your website because I see people mess up strength conditioning more than anything. Same diet when it comes to running. Yeah, yeah, I see it being it's always been an issue in endurance. And for a while it was a really big issue because I think it was the sort of messaging you don't need to do. In fact, you should do more running if you have time to strength work, which is, you know, obviously what we know now, not the direction you want to go. But now I see so many like non-traditional runners coming into this sport that may have prioritized strength and conditioning before that. And they're getting into running as a secondary interest. Those folks tend to be very like they're already doing it, you know? So it's like they're starting from a better place, and then they already have the routine in place, and they already have the mentality for it. The learning curve is done and all that stuff. And it's like, okay, now let's just phase the running into it, which is kind of an interesting, different strategy versus someone who's been in endurance that their whole life never touched a weight. And now it's trying. Okay, how do we phrase this in a way that works well for where you're at and where you want to be? Well, I think that you're an excellent ambassador for that latter group for sure, because, you know, I mean, additionally, you're going to extend your longevity. You're going to build your performance. Like, who doesn't want to run better and more pain free and for longer, you know, but you're right. It is like it's very much different mindsets. Like you have the runners that's naturally artistic, flowy, like, you know what I mean? Movement and like very natural. And then you have like the systematize the reps and sets the you know what I mean? The very regimented, athletes or weightlifters coming to it. And I kind of have a foot in both worlds, you know, and but definitely I think it's, I think people would be shocked by how much runners would be shocked by how much strength conditioning helped and how little you have to do to actually see a benefit in terms of just activity and not, you know, and it's like I was telling our buddy Nick, you know, we were doing that 100 miler together. And whenever it was a few months ago, Nick from ultra and I was like, dude, it's like, it's not like people think like some crazy, like, highly intensity functional, like specific workout or some crazy, like, David Goggins style, you know what I mean? I was like, it's. I was like, I told him I was like, give me 20 minutes of your time. 2 to 3 days a week. Take care of your whole body and it'll change your life. You know, he's just like, running. He's like, nah, I just run. Like, I just run and don't eat meat. And I'm like, well, you beat me by eight hours, so something's working. But yeah, take my word. Let's do some, let's do some strength also, you know, yeah, just focusing on the, you know, more on your problem areas, your ankles, calves, Tibbs, like, But yeah, to your point, I've seen. I've seen, there's definitely like, a big increase in, like, the machine, like ultra runners, men, male and female, that you come out and you're like, oh my God, that person is doing all the things. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because it's, What's that? You know that I believe she's French. That girl, she smoked me at the last thing we ran, but, I think she was, like, one of the female ultrarunner of the year this last year. brown hair. She might be. Might be, but that, her husband was out there crewing her, and I was watching, like, they were dialed in across the board, man. Not just on, like, their logistics, but like, you could tell everything. But then again, she did not. Her facial expression didn't change the entire time she was kicking my ass either. There's just, like, just. But, Yeah, she. What was that? She ran a hundred. She was running around smoking. Anyway, point being, I think the days of, like. I was listening to someone else talk about the days of kind of being able to just coast and do well or over, like in terms of like if, if your goal is to be competitive in the sport or, you know, in my case, not trying to be competitive, just trying to like push the weirdness of it a bit, you know, like, I think the days of kind of phoning it in are over. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, people are going to specialize and it'll be something where if you want to be really good at a mountain 100 miler, you probably ought to be doing that sort of training and focusing on those types of races. And then if you want to do a flat, short loop, one, you've probably got to be doing more of that stuff if you really want. We're getting there. I think there's still like there's still like some crossover where you get some of the really, really, really good ultra runners that are like, oh, they're kind of doing really well at a variety of distances and even a variety of different terrains. We'll get to a point where it's more like the Olympics, where like it's just so rare that you see, someone like win the Olympic marathon and also win something shorter than that. It's just going to be hard to do that because someone's always going to be just laser focused on that one very thing and every little aspect that goes into that. And I actually just did a podcast recently on something like I titled it Fit But Unhealthy. yeah. But it was kind of, this idea of just optimizing for something like. With a pet. When you get something, it's got enough competitive pressure that the and at the world level, it's like there's trade offs where it's like to be your absolute best at this, you actually have to actively be bad at that. And that thing you're bad at might be good for longevity. So so I think there's a lot of you get into a, a bit of a kind of a compromise to some degree when you're trying to peak for anything specifically, at least at least if you're I think really the solution to that probably is like when you finish your competitive career and get outside of that physiological window you were talking about before, like, you know, don't avoid the things that you did for performance as you transition into retirement. Focus on those maybe more so, and make sure you're kind of closing some of those gaps up. Yeah, well it's like up the mountain when he retired, you know, or retired from his mainstream career as a strong man, he lost £100 because he's like, I want my heart to still work, you know what I mean? Yeah. So it's the same thing. but no, it's. And also, I think something that kind of gets skipped over a lot with this is like the personality aspect, the human aspect, because different types of training develop different parts of your psyche. I don't care what anyone says, like if you, you know, you develop the mental strength of an ultra runner that's going to impact who you are as a human being if you. Build the grit of a competitive powerlifter by hanging out with and working out with Mark Bell every day of the week. Like, that's going to change the way that, you know, you approach hard things in life. If you go and you train jiu jitsu for three years with, you know, a black belt, that's going to change how comfortable you are walking around in your skin or around human conflict or, you know, whatever, you know, or playing chess because it's, you know, that's all it is, is a, you know, game of human chess. Like whatever the model, the training modalities you select impact the person you become. And you can reverse engineer that from the warrior societies all around the world, which is why Polynesians train differently than Greek runners trained. You know what I mean? And they had very different mindsets, lifestyles like that, that is. These are physical expressions of our personalities. And much like the CIA, truth tellers and interviewers will tell you, it's like every word that comes out of a human being is a result of the contents of their brain. Like, it's just hyper simple logic. And it's the same thing with the physical expressions of what's inside of us. So it's like, if you like, I had a strong genetic inclination towards short sprinting, you know, like very, you know, very, very, very high, potentially like Olympic level. but if I had just done that and, you know, not done built Endurance builds strength built skills. But any of their stuff like I would be very different. Actual person today than I am, you know. And so I think it's important to kind of keep track of like, oh, these aren't just like, this isn't just that our physical activities don't occur in a human vacuum, right? Yeah. It's easy to think that way though. Yeah. So I think the more stuff that you do, even if it's not serious, even if you dabble like I, I will occasionally go to a yoga class. I know nothing about yoga. I embarrass myself there. Every 80 year old woman is stronger and more flexible in these positions. But it's cool because it's something I don't know. It's something I knew, and I personally love being a white belt and a thing all over again. You know, like if I lift, if I run, if I grapple like I, you know, I have some degree of competency and experience over multiple years and all those things, but like to engage in a new thing. It's fun. I'm actually my wife and I are about to start whooping on each other in an ancient Egyptian board game. So it's like, you know, and again, a new skill I'm probably going to lose. You know, she's generally better at baseline than me. So, but having said that, it's important to kind of branch out of these things and it doesn't have to become your identity. But I think it's important to remember that. yeah. No doubt. So what's the start date of the 1000 mile? June 1st. And. Okay. Or technically, you know, San Diego, I'm going to start literally right as close to the border as I can without getting shot at, you know? Yeah. There you go. Well, that's going to be fun. Yeah. So June 1st, and then we're looking at a roughly 28 to 30 day logistical time frame. we could extend that a little bit, but. And then outside of just kind of having to be at this certain point for filming or this certain point for that. I'm just kind of, you know, I've always liked when people refer to me as an ultra runner, I'm like, I guess that's I mean, that's technically true, but like at the operating level, I'm more just kind of a weird wanderer. You know, probably more to do with Forrest Gump than Zach Bitar, you know? But, but, yeah, so that's the part of it for me that I'm always looking forward to. And then I'm going to see some really cool sights along the way. The 57 mile day to or the back to back 50 sevens. That's That. Another thing that's going to kind of help with that is that detour is going to a really cool fortress called Painted Rock Fortress on the Carrizo Plain or the Carrizo Plain Monument. It is a 4000 year old altered natural rock formation that has finger painting and hand paintings on it, going back literally 4000 years. Oh, wow. It is the most cool and powerful site I've ever been to in my life. Like it? It's tall and taller than the walls of Rome. Ancient Rome. Like, you know what I mean? It's in this weird nature. Like it's the craziest thing ever. and so I guess that'll be a cool thing. Like, you know, the plan is to get there right around, you know, sunset, golden hour. So I can see it and get some filming and, you know, do all the documentary stuff, whatever the crew has to do. I actually haven't read all of it yet. And so that'll be something like, I know I'll be running 57 miles towards a powerful moment on the first day and then, you know, maybe basking in it on the 57 coming back to the coast on the second day. So that'll be fun. Yeah, yeah. You've got a lot of cool add -ins there with that route. That'll be really motivating I think. Yeah. I mean I'm kind of on the mental side of things. I, I honestly find it better when I just don't really think about it that much until like, I find like, you know, the old Greek philosophers used to say like, he who suffers in his mind suffers twice, you know, or suffers more than necessary. So I'm like, yeah, you know, it's going to happen. Like, I know I'm looking forward to all of it, but I just kind of don't really hang out with people who think stuff like that's atypical. Like, I talk to you like, when I told you about this, you're like, oh, that's gonna be fun. You know, like, if I tell someone at the grocery store like, hey, I'm gonna try to run a thousand. Yeah, miles, look at you. Like they have three heads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, like, that's fine. That's cool. Like, there's nothing wrong with that. But, like, when I'm trying to get dialed in, I don't want my consciousness. You know? I don't want that in my consciousness. Like, this should just be normal. It should be a day at the office. And so I'm just kind of looking forward to just the roaming, wandering aspect of it. I'm not coming into it with the same level of naivety that I did in the 500 miler. Now, knowing what 500 feels like, I have somewhat of an idea of, you know what to expect from a thousand plus or 1100 plus, but yeah, generally just kind of going in very grateful, I guess would be the word. Just very grateful to be able to do it. And then, and just really looking forward to seeing all the stuff along the way. And. ET cetera. ET cetera. i'm still getting footwear stuff dialed in, but I've been playing with those mount to coasts. Are they really like those for road sections? Yeah. And with a few things for trail you recommended. I will try out those naughties, and I think I'm going to try and order a pair of those to try out too. Honestly, I kind of forgot to get shoes for my Trail Ultra that I'm running this weekend, so I dusted off an old pair of Solomon's that I had bought as an experiment pair. And I'm like, that'll work. Yeah, it's only a day and I'm it's only a day. I'm not going fast, so that'll work. But, So, yeah, I'm still kind of still dialing the trail shoes. The main thing there is obviously, you know, usually I like, you know, just a few of the top ultra Trail models I like. Problem is, the only ones I've tried, it made too much sand. Like they're not designed for sand running. What shoe is, you know. So yeah, it's really down to like, not what the best performance shoe is, but the one that fits my shoe and admits the least amount of sand. Yeah. I wonder, have you looked at speed trail models yet? I didn't even know they had one. I didn't know anything about them until I saw cam post something about his shoe that he released with them, but I didn't even know they had trail shoes. Yeah, I would think. Yeah. So they actually started with trail models and they just recently their road model they just came out with is their first play out of road shoe. And that one might be interesting for what you're doing because they're a higher price point shoe. But they're also like I think it's like a two wax longevity type of a play with it. So it's like, yeah, you pay more for it, but it's going to last you longer. So it's going to average itself out over time. And I like what they've done with kind of like the wrapping of the upper and the bow of lacing there, where you might have an easier time keeping sand out of those, or if it is something where there's no way around it, the bow lacing is going to be easier to pop that thing off and on and dump the sand out if you need to. or even over the course of the event, being able to just because you may find what feels perfect at the beginning. Won't feel perfect in the middle. And then having that level of customizability, customizability with it over the course of the event might be, might be worthwhile to look at. yeah. There's so many options out there now, but those ones would be, I mean, Nora and and Speed and I think are both doing really cool things on the trail. I mean, I'll order a pair from both and check both out because for me, the biggest thing is just peace. Like, I don't, I'm not. I don't care too much about getting the most kinetic return or performance out of my shoe. I just don't want to think about it for myself. I just want to be able to put on and forget about it. and then the thing is when I, I think it was Sonora I did in the Mont Blanc bio is boas. I love that boa system, man. For me. shaky hands, cold sometimes, you know, don't like doing my own gear stuff in a tent. At the end of the day, it just can be kind of hard, you know? I think I've talked about that before, but for me, like, the biggest frustration is just doing the little, you know, the purifying water, the cleaning, the, you know, the stitching things. And your hands are shaking. So that was a huge time saver for me. So yeah, if I could find another pair that has a lace system, I'm very, very inclined for sure. Yeah, yeah, it's a good design. I like that setup for a variety of reasons, but I think for what you're doing, it makes even more sense in a lot of cases. So cool. Yeah. I'm thinking, I think we got. I think we got everything I will. I'll text you if I think of anything else, but I'm pretty sure that's the big thing. Yeah. Figuring out the well, prioritizing hydration is something that definitely we're going to focus on more and then, that the system of the diet too. I've done fluid loss stuff at the extremes, for heat, but never as like a triple a triple point, you know, or to provide three data points. That also makes sense given the fact that over a month I could see some different weather, even though the coast shouldn't be too inclement, hopefully. Yeah. So, yeah, I'll start playing with that. And then I will talk to you again some time before my. Yeah, we got a good amount of time before the five day experiment. So I'll reach out to you before that and maybe we can dial in some more. Yeah. collect some questions, and we'll set up another call and. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I have no idea if this if this is provides value to the, to the listeners or anything like that, but, I'm, I'm always down to do, you know, coaching or do our coaching, make our coaching calls public for their, for their edification and listening if they just want to see also, like, I think it's cool, as someone who just spent the last few months planning, you know, a multi-week 1000 plus mile run. And realizing there was almost no actual data or information out there to let go on or sculpt a plan with, I think it's good to kind of be exploring this publicly because, yeah, we're only going to see more and more people kind of want to do thousand plus mile runs and ultras, and it really requires a very different approach than, you know, going in for a hot 100 or 200 miler. Well, one thing I learned about I have like a group coaching package where they all follow like their plan for the distance they're training for. But then we meet weekly and just chat as a group. And what I always find is someone will have a question that maybe is really unique to them and their specific thing, but it sort of either generates or highlights a question that other people had but didn't know they had. So you end up kind of getting really good conversation and thought processes out of it. So yeah, these types of episodes are always fun because you just chat about, even if it's a very specific thing, you know, someone might be thinking, well, I'm doing 100 miles and I've never thought about fluid loss rates. Probably important for that too. And then, you know, they maybe explore that or or like you said, like, you know, someone is interested in ultramarathon running but isn't really thinking about strength work or something like that. And then it's a good idea generator, if nothing else. Oh, I also feel the point. I should point out that when I first started listening to your podcast, I wasn't. I don't think I'd run anything at the time. Like I think like I don't think I had run anything at all. So I think in the beginning I was just one of those guys that was just kind of listening out of curiosity before getting sucked into the whole vortex of it all. So it's like, if you're one of those people and you're like, oh, this is interesting, or hey, I've done a ten K or whatever, you know, and it's it's just like, I don't know if I'm encouraging you or warning you that the route is shorter. It's just much shorter than you think it is. So take that for what it's worth. But, Yeah, man, it's just like I'm. I'm writing this book right now. This isn't, like, promotional or anything. It's still a long way off. But I'm writing this book right now on how to integrate the lessons of history's top warriors into living a better life. Not as a fighter, not as an Art of War knockoff. It's literally like, focusing on very basic things like, you know, that honor is still relevant and honor being in the more modern sense, like, hey, I'm going to do what I say I'm going to do, and I am the person behind closed doors. Today I present to the world, like all these little things, some of its strategic, some of it is, you know, like introducing the principle of kaizen that the samurai used, that, you know, Westerners, we tend to view progress in, like, home runs and big chunks, you know, like you need these grand displays to represent progress. Whereas the samurai or Japanese businessmen today used to still use something called kaizen, which is the what, what you would call the compounding effect of incremental daily gain. And it's like they knew that growing one inch every day added up to 500 in every year, not 365, but 500, you know. Yeah. Opposed to, you know, maybe the typical American mindset where you're like, no, I'm going to crush this problem. I'm gonna add some grand display, some home runs, you know what I mean? So Michael Jordan jumped shot at the buzzer. Like that's how problems get solved. That's how progress is made 95% of the time. That's not true. You know, it's the quiet, the quiet moment. So anyway. Long story short, I've been thinking about these things a bit more, and it's, I think it is. You know, life is short. And if you feel compelled to do something that you think is crazy, like, run a 100, 100 miler or, you know, do whatever that thing is, I think now is probably the best time. And it's not shaming people or even motivating them. It's just like taking on the balance. You know, the ancient philosopher Seneca said, time is the one thing you should be selfish with, you know? Yeah. And so I think if you're feeling, you know, if you like doing something like that, man, go for it. Feel like hopping off, start the process at least, or just shoot a message like, that's the other thing you were the first year you were. I think you were the first person with like, any sort of following and true like expertise that like I just shot a random DM to as like a guy with like 100 followers on Instagram was like, hey, like, you know, this insert super basic question here. And I got a real answer from you. And I was like, oh, well, okay, cool. You know, so it's like, you know, it's to those of you listening, Zack is highly responsive with that. He's the guy that gave me my first ultra running tips and still the guy years later when I'm chasing some pretty big goals that I come to, you know, first. So I think anyone who's curious, you know, don't gotta sign up, don't do anything. Just shoot Zach a message and he will give you an honest answer. Yeah. Right on. But, Well. Yeah. Let's talk soon. I will, I'll start. I'll keep I'll start a little note in my phone and put down any questions, and then I will we can, we can set up another call, maybe either just before or just after the five day block as we get a little closer. Perfect. Awesome. James. It's great to chat. Yeah. Also, what, what warrior do we or. Sorry, what running culture do we have next? We've done so Apache was our last one, right? Yeah, yeah. I think were we going to do I think we were either going to do Ra Mari or. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think actually I think that's what we said. Yeah. We did. So I remember I had just researched them, and had some fresh stuff on them from the last book that I put out. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Cool. So yeah, I think we're I mean, I'm sure we'll lock it down behind the scenes, but I think, you know, we're talking, what, next month or so, if anyone's interested in learning the wait. Hold on. Let me think of a good hook for this. The unstoppable high altitude ancestral training methods of the Kalenjin that put forth the ultimate, Olympic dream team of runners like Kipchoge and Kelvin. How's that? Yeah. There you go. Perfect. That's a good hook. We'll get people with that one. we'll talk soon, man. All right. Take care.