Episode 427: Ryan Dreyer - Community Based Training
Ryan Dreyer founded Tribal Training, a group based endurance training coaching service where members leverage a community approach to reach their goals. Ryan has completed both Ironman and ultramarathon distance events and coached many others reach their goals.
Endurance Training Simplified Series
Zach’s Low Carb Endurance Approach Series
LMNT: drinkLMNT.com/HPO
deltaG: deltagketones.com - IG: @deltag.ketones code: BITTER20
Maui Nui Venison: https://mauinuivenison.com
HPO Sponsors: zachbitter.com/hposponsors
Support HPO: zachbitter.com/hpo
Zach’s Coaching: zachbitter.com/coaching
Zach: zachbitter.com - IG: @zachbitter - X: @zbitter - Substack: zachbitter.substack.com - FB: @zbitterendurance - Strava: Zach Bitter - TikTok: @zachbitter - Threads: @zachbitter
Ryan: traintribal.com - IG: @theryandreyer - X: @theryandreyer
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Launch of Tribal Training and Coaching Evolution
00:08:28 Building Camaraderie Through Team Races
00:16:26 Group Dynamics in Endurance Racing
00:24:19 Enhancing Efficiency in Ultra Running Training
00:32:19 Optimizing Hiking Pace and Training Strategies
00:40:21 Building a Community in Endurance Sports
00:48:33 Exploring Nutritional Variances in Group Training
00:57:18 Strategies for In-Race Fueling and Caloric Intake
01:05:01 Athlete Mindset and Overcoming Anxiety
Episode Transcript:
I couldn't remember the last time you were on. If you. I don't think you have started tribal training yet. I think maybe it was. The foundation was starting to get laid, but I don't think it had been officially launched at that point in time. Yeah, I don't think so. I was right before you cut. I had asked if you know the date that we either recorded or that that episode was published? Yeah, it was August 11th, 21. August 11th of 21. Yeah. So that was like right as it was all forming because that was like right around my first 70.3 that I eventually got to do. And I think I had a couple of coaching clients, but they were focused on weight loss. I actually think I might have had Louie. I might have had Louie, who was the ultramarathon, my first ultramarathon runner. And then a month later is when, uh, I opened up like, uh, sort of like a men's development online group. And there is where my guy Brandon joined and he asked for triathlon training. So that was like literally as it was coming to life. Okay, cool. And you're in Boulder now, right? Yeah, I'm in Boulder. Awesome. How are you? How are you liking it out there these days? Uh. It's awesome. Yeah. I love it here. Uh, it's, uh, aligned with my lifestyle and has pretty much opened up, uh, being able to do this kind of stuff. 100 decks from when I was in Philly. But I built an identity in Philly, which I'm proud of, and which means a lot. Um, because a lot of people talk about wanting to live in Boulder and wanting to have access to trails and riding, and certainly that makes it easier. But I definitely became the person who takes advantage of that stuff. When I was living in the city, in Philly and riding my trainer in the basement and all that jazz. Yeah, no, it just goes to show, it's like, yeah, you can have all the bells and whistles that Boulder offers, but you can still put in a really good training block and, you know, get, get into all those sessions with, uh, being almost anywhere now. So, uh, it's always an interesting aspect of coaching, I find it is like one kind of working with the person to kind of figure out what they want to be doing from an event standpoint, and then sort of catering the training to what they're what they have access to. And, um, kind of going from there. Yeah. Totally. Totally. Yeah. So with tribal training, I know one thing that I found interesting, kind of about just the framework you have is your whole group basically kind of prepares for a similar event, right? Or the same event even. Right. Yeah. So basically the way that the team has formed and evolved is it started out as me just coaching individual people towards individual events. And then I had a group of athletes who were all doing Ironman Florida together in 2022. Uh, that was the end of 2022, in November. And I decided to do that race with the team. And that we had eight athletes there. And so that really kicked off this idea of like team races. And that has just built and built and built over the past three years, really. Um, there was one like really local 50 K that I just happened to be in town for in Indy, uh, with a few of my guys that were doing that. And so I ended up jumping into that race really last minute, and that kind of unlocked this team ultramarathon experience. And so the team Ironman and Team 70.3 have been a consistent thing. Uh, we've had like four I'd say four team races. Um. We've had three team Iron Man and then two official team 70 point threes that have all had like ten plus people at them. And really over the past two years, this team's ultramarathon experience is totally unlocked. So that first 50 K that was kind of just five guys running on a rail trail in Indy and just running 50 K, uh, turned into nine of us running Zion 100 together last year. Um, and that was really big , just like learning experience and evolution for the team. It did not go the way that we expected. We had nine guys do it. We tried to stay together the whole time. Uh, three guys ended up finishing. A bunch of people had successful days and big PR's, but not what we expected. Kind of biting off something bigger than we could show. Um, but we adjusted that and we just ran elephant 50. Uh, we had a group of 13 of us go take that on. And we had 11 guys finish. And so we iterated and improved on the team pacing strategy. And, you know, how do we make this whole thing work? But as a coach, what I've observed as I kind of work through this is like even that first team Iron Man, I had the idea to like, give people similar training, like, oh, they'd want to, you know, we're all doing the four hour ride on the same day, but like instantly everybody's got their own life. And so it didn't even work out like that at all. And so. Since then it has been mostly like, okay, your training is just very personalized and individualized, and you go to the pool on this day and we're all mostly doing long stuff on the weekend, but it's kind of changing up depending on what you've got going on. And what I've evolved to really in the Zion experience was like, okay, the key builds like, you know, the first three hour run, the first four hour run, the five hour run, like we're hitting those in the same time frame so we can share those wins together in the team chat in the small group that we've got going on. But what evolved and I kind of changed up in this preparation for elephant 50 was these team challenges. So we did a midnight run that I programmed everybody on the same day, same weekend. And we've got guys all over the country. So some guys are throwing in the chat that they just finished their run when like, you know, I'm on Mountain Time, so I'm about to go take off and we got to build off of each other like that. We also did a challenge that I called tribal 24, which was basically a half Goggins. So four miles every four hours for 24 hours and having that in the same time frame. Uh, well, we've got guys in different time zones that have kind of capitalized on having similar training that we can use to like, build confidence and build camaraderie, but also like we're doing it a little bit on our own time. Yeah, I find it interesting. Really interesting, actually, because, like, you know, I coach mostly runners. Uh, actually, all runners, I should say not mostly all runners. It ranges from what they want to do. It's, uh, you know, sub ultras, ultras, all that sort of stuff. But I've, um, I've always kind of hesitated to do something. I've thought about it by saying like, hey, maybe I should, like, pick an event and see if we can get or if I can get a group of people that I'll kind of want to focus on the same event and just structure something around that. But I've always, like, pulled back on it thinking like it'd be a, it'd be just tough to kind of get all that organized and get people to buy in. But you've clearly done that. So I really kind of want to chat a little bit about that because I think, like you, you sort of explained it to some degree, but just the, you know, as a coach, one of the things that's always kind of an ongoing process is just like, where do we put targets in the training so that like the, the, the clients or the runner stays motivated, excited and interested and then really sees the value of, uh, you know, working with you. And there's tons of different ways to do that, but with your framework, it sort of builds itself into it. Because if you're all kind of. Doing the same event and then having challenges kind of built in along the way that sort of feeds into that. You sort of always have those little kind of like, there's going to be something coming up that the group has all a common talking point with or discussion point around. So I find it really, really interesting what you've done with that. Totally. Yeah. So I mean, we just came out at elephant 50, had 13 guys go take that on. We had two guys come to pace. So there were 15 total athletes there. And then immediately we've got like almost 25 people doing Chattanooga 70.3. And so it's worked out that we can sort of stack these events. And every 3 or 4 months or so, there's an opportunity to do a team race. Um, you know, the idea is that not everybody's doing all of these, right? I'd like for every tribal athlete to do at least one in person experience with us. Some guys have come to a ton, like there's some guys that I see, you know, 4 or 5 times a year, and they live on the other side of the country. But yeah, what I've iterated through is basically how to build camaraderie and experience through these races. So, you know, I see other triathlon groups or endurance groups, they do the team race, but I think that they're missing something that I observed just through online business, building and community. So a few things that I've worked through are basically like these mini cohorts. So we do a six week or an eight week cohort that's got a call a week or two calls a week that have, uh, intentional discussion and preparation of that event. And number one is that it provides some accountability for training. Right. You got a team call on the schedule. You have to make sure you're doing your stuff. But it also gives guys a chance to get to know each other. And so when they show up in person, right, they're not just totally brand new people that just happen to both be inside tribes like they've been on team calls. And even if they've only joined 2 or 3 of the six or 8 or 10, it's still something, um, that gives them a little bit of stickiness. Um, another strategy that I've used is, um, small group chats. So I have around 60 athletes inside of the tribe as a whole. But I create these small group chats for each event. So, you know, the elephant chat had all the guys do an elephant chat, and people are a little bit more comfortable to share in those groups. There might be a little bit more training focused on, hey, I did this specific run or whatever. Um, and that's all really how I'm building people in preparation for the event. And then when we get to the event, I really like to put on experiences. So, you know, as a kid, I worked at a golf shop, and my favorite day of the whole year was the guest. And it's like, how do we really enhance this? By showing up in service and providing extra little pieces of gear or surprises or things like that. So, you know, that all really started with just the idea of like team tuneup sessions, right? We do a swim together at Ironman Florida, but then I also host the team dinner, uh, in preparation for the race. Um, I've started to add things in, uh, I really like to do gear surprises. So I had an elephant. Uh, I had some, like, you know, funky ultramarathon hats with, like, the flaps and the sunshade built and surprised those guys. Um, but it's really all just been building on itself. Um, I would really describe our elephant experience as, like, a team, uh, race retreat. We had a team house that everybody stayed in, and I was really intentional to do, uh, mindset workshops. So we had a mindset workshop on Thursday night. Uh, we did another one on Friday morning where I guided the guys through breathwork, visualization, writing exercises, small group circles to work together and then share with the whole group. Um, we kind of laughed that we were a little bit too. Gear and fuel and pacing oriented for the Zion experience last year. We were like the meme. We laughed about where it was like a million drop bags, all this data, how many shoes, how many pairs of socks. And my reflection was that we didn't spend enough time talking about mindset and, uh, you know, really blending the team together. And so that was just a learning experience suite. All right. We got another one. Let's adjust. And so the focus this time is right. We still did a gear check and sort of a pace prep. But it was like ten minutes um on Friday evening before the race. And so that's kind of how it's all unfolded. Um, and just the idea of it really stacking on top of each other. Mhm. Yeah. That is really interesting that what you learned with Elephant Mountain too, because I find that to be just a fun part of the ultramarathon experience a lot of times is the way I usually describe it. You kind of want to go in assuming that you're going to need to adjust something and that you won't have the ability to floor plan for that or pre-plan for that. So if you go into kind of the planning process with like, okay, I gotta make sure I have literally every possible thing covered. You end up with just like a U-Haul full of stuff, and you're going to use 1% of it, right? So eventually and some of it's just getting experienced to to kind of knowing like, what are the things that I, I probably should have because if I don't, I'm going to end up really costing me my day or I won't be able to express my true fitness because I didn't have this one thing that was was clearly needed. But then, yeah, there's a ton of other stuff where I think it's like you learn like, okay, yeah, if I if I probably won't need that, and if I do, there's going to be solutions. So it is like what you're saying, getting in that right mindset of just like, how do I problem solve? So that when something that you don't expect inevitably does occur, you're just better equipped to be able to utilize the course resources and things to be able to get through some of that stuff. But, um, everyone is going to be different in terms of how much stuff they want to bring to those drop bags and stuff too. I've seen some pretty impressive setups as well. Yeah. What I observed last year as a coach is that, uh, you know, in my athletes and I'd say and myself as well, because I'm running these ultramarathons with the group, um, is that you start to think a little bit too much about gear and drop bags and all of a sudden all your faith is in that, and all of a sudden your faith is in, oh, the new pair of shoes at mile 70. And it's like. Reorienting that for Elephant Mountain was just of utmost importance, right? Faith in our ability to problem solve. Faith in our ability to make patient, calculated decisions. Um, you know, we had a huge, just like, vibe of urgency in that Zion experience that basically corrupted everything. Um, and so the idea of, like, you know, a big thing that came out of our race was consistency, not urgency. Uh, tribal Prof. Jordan Goldstein was just awesome and kind of clarified that in real time. Um, especially as we were pretty much up against the time cutoff a lot earlier than expected. But then we, like, got a bit more, uh, comfortable pacing with a more relaxed time cutoff for aid station to and so kind of just not freaking out and having faith that you can keep moving forward while also knowing like the foundational things like, you know, you need to be eating and drinking. Your body needs basic things, right? You need calories. You need hydration. Um, staying positive, uh, continually moving forward, not having, like, these, these wide gaps in, oh, you know, I am still doing some run segments, but my walk segments are now 25 minute miles. Like that to me was what we wanted to avoid. So having faith that we were just moving along at, you know, somewhere from 15 to 18 miles an hour the whole time, uh, or minute per mile was, was really huge. Um, and you're trying to get the whole group to stay together the entire time. That was the mission of Zion. And we realized that that was a mistake in approach. Uh, what basically happened at Zion was that we had nine total athletes. Uh, we stayed together quite well. Uh, basically up until 45, which, honestly, looking back, was kind of surprising. Um, it started to be a bit of a. What's that? That's impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we were totally unprepared for that terrain, and we all underestimated the course profile and, you know, the footing and all that jazz. But probably around 30 mile 30 is where they started to really form a front group and a back group and. You know, in reflecting and kind of digesting the whole race. What I realized as a coach is that a lot of the people in the back started to just feel like they were holding everybody back, and so their mindset was starting to fade a lot. And so the whole approach for elephants was, hey, let's be open to how this pacing unfolds. I still had an idea. I still thought that we'd be like 13 total, three in the front. I thought there'd be like a mid group of like seven. And then I thought there'd be like three in the back. And what it ultimately shaked out to be was more like two in the wavefront kind of running their own race, a group of three that like we called fast Group, um, and then basically everybody else in the back in some variation that was kind of like doing an accordion the whole time. And so we were totally okay to have some guys running on their own for a little bit. Guys were in pairs. Um, it ended up working out that myself and tribal, uh, Jordan Goldstein were basically tribal sweepers, is what he called ourselves. So we really stayed in the back once we got through that first aid station. And that gave us a lot of peace of mind that we were up against, you know, we were safe on the time cutoff. We gave guys a chance to go fight their own battles out on the course a little bit. And when we eventually caught up to them and they needed some support or live coaching or, you know, holding themselves a little bit more accountable to run segments, we were there to provide that. We were there to encourage them, um, you know, keep them moving along. But also, you know, not really just trying to ride them all day long and kind of have that urgency that like, we got to go, we got to go. We got to go. Because, you know, I'm a competitive athlete myself. I focus a little bit more on performance in Ironman. And so it's really important for me to separate those mindsets of the athlete that wants to like, push and go perform with the fact that this is a different type of experience and intention for the whole group. Yeah, yeah. It's almost like if you have like if you go to like a group run and, you know, inevitably like if it's a big group run especially, you're going to have like a variance and kind of pacing and what people are trying to get out of that. But usually in most of them you don't see someone typically running by themself. It's they're, they're with a so but it does fracture. So I kind of like that idea of like you get enough people there where you can sort of make some predictions about where people are and then have a scenario where the, the draw is, you're going to be with somebody or a small group of people, and then you're going to kind of tackle it within that kind of framework or sort of takes on that, that idea of like, here's, here's a challenge, but we're not going to challenge you above and beyond what you're ready for. So like the person who's maybe a little slower versus the person who's fastest, you know, that challenge for the person in the back is just going to be too great to try to keep at the front. And then the guy in the front might feel like he's just out there, just kind of supporting the whole time if he's hanging back intentionally. So yeah, I mean, some of it might just be like having the, the, the coaching or the staff present to be where you guys can kind of take that role to some degree of like, I'm going to manage this group, you manage that group. And um, let's all go out there and see what happens. Yeah. And it worked out really well that, you know, it was a 50 mile race and the key aid stations were 22.5 and 36. And so it worked out really well that our larger back group more or less got to those two aid stations at the same time. But then what worked really well is the guys would leave the aid station on their own timing. So if they knew they needed more pacing or they just wanted to relax a little bit and let me just go walk and get ahead of where the group will be, they got to go head out on the trail. And then that whole tribal sweeper idea really took over where, you know, we're making sure that we're okay on the cutoff and we're moving along at that consistent, not urgent pace. Um, and we've got space really for any type of athlete like some of the guys in those front groups, like they really performed, um, we had a guy who was, uh, he actually added, uh, our guy Trevor. He added five miles to the course by going off trail a little bit, but he was like a top ten athlete. We had another guy who was really close behind him, and then that group of three, you know, they weren't too far back. So, you know, we had kind of both ends of, uh, performance spectrum going on where, you know, our back group, we finished with like six minutes to spare before the total cut off. But hey, we're just there to do it. And a lot of these guys were first timers. And so, you know, we're also on brand new terrain for a lot of these guys, you know, really hard to replicate Arizona for guys that live in Indiana or Florida or, you know, they've been running in the snow all winter in Canada. And so, you know, just being kind of open to that. And again, like the mindset stuff, the mindset sessions that we did, um, around the midnight run, the tribal 24, um, a big thing that I was focused on in the Zion build was like more volume, time on feet. Like, we got to be doing the big runs. And, you know, most guys here didn't run longer than three hours in preparation for this race. Um, we had a number of guys coming off Ironman Florida in November, so it was like, all right, we got a little bit of recovery and we're kind of just rolling into this thing. Um, a much greater focus on speed work and overall form development. Uh, for the athletes who are even focused on this race for a longer period of time. And, uh, I saw all that show up really well for the team. Um, yeah, that's an interesting point, because I think I like ultra long runs, like some of those longer things, but I think they can get overplayed a lot of times. And they're definitely something where if I'm going to take something out of a training plan, it's probably going to be that because. Really, my goal is first and foremost just to get the person to be as fit. Of a runner and in a lot of cases, hiker as I can. And you know, those usually quality for those usually end up happening kind of inside of that three hour time frame. So then it's just like going beyond that tends to be something where it's like, okay, now we're in the world of practicing race day specifics versus entirely focusing on just improving your fitness, because I'm sure, you know, and the guys on your team know, like you go for five, six hours on a Saturday, probably not getting a ton of quality out of the next couple of days. So you kind of have this back and forth between like, okay, do I have the fitness? I want to be able to dedicate some of the time I would have otherwise spent on kind of furthering that fitness. And if you kind of put the cart before the horse and start doing the ultra long stuff too soon, then sometimes you bypass on some of that fitness development in, in an effort to try to acquire some race day specifics, whereas I think those tend to be a little bit better acquired either later on in training or maybe at a different event down the road once you've kind of gone through some of those earlier paces. Yeah. Another thing that I saw last year in Zion Prep was that some of those like five hour, six hour sessions, they really ingrained bad form on the trail, really sloppy habits. Um, just the body breaking down and the mind just kind of drifting towards this slog effort. And, uh, yeah, for some of the guys who, who did not run longer than three hours or so, I mean, they, they, they ran through the finish of this thing and they felt the speed work show up. Um, so yeah, it was overall a good adjustment. I'm curious about your training. You're coaching like a 50 mile race. Do you have the right? Is the three hour mark around where you'd want to make sure somebody gets to or what kind of frame do you have on the volume perspective with sort of the peak long run. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think there's still like if you work up to it, I think up to three hours is a pretty reasonable target for most people to be able to still kind of maintain quality and still feel like they're getting the, the benefits from that, plus being able to include speed work and things like that in the rest of their training. And usually what I end up doing is, I mean, there's exceptions. You get like folks who are just exceptionally good at these things and they're running basically the entirety of 100 miles or mostly the entire 100 miles, in which case then we have to really focus things towards things like. All right, well, let's work on let's make sure we're kind of making sure you're running form stays efficient and stays tight, and you're able to tolerate quite a bit of volume within that context. But the majority of 100 mile finishers are typically going to be doing a fair bit of hiking. And when you look at their pace, it's like it's suggestive of almost a brisk walk. And then in that scenario, I'm looking at it as like, okay, well, there's going to be running. So we want to make sure that's checked. But if there's going to be a lot of walking and hiking in the event too, then we can make improvements in terms of their efficiency there as well. So, you know, maybe a certain effort produces two miles per hour at their current state, whereas if we put some focus into it, maybe it gets up to three miles per hour. Well, if you're if you're hiking 40 miles or 100 miles and you go from hiking 2mph to 3mph, that's a very consequential improvement. So then what I do is like, if I would schedule them, say like a five hour run or a six hour run, I actually probably should refrain from calling it a run. At that point. It would be like, let's maybe run for three hours of that. So we're still tapping that system, but let's sprinkle in hiking breaks, um, or chunks of hiking in there where we're actually practicing that too, and almost looking at it like two workouts within this time block that you're kind of oscillating between. So we're really focusing on what they're actually doing on race day. We're focusing on still giving them enough volume of running that they're getting the benefits of just sustained longer running, but then also kind of working on that hiking side of things too. Uh, but at the end of the day, I usually look at it as I'm less worried about someone being able to problem solve with hiking and walking than I am being able to continue to run. So if it's something where, I mean, you probably have clients like this too, where they've got busy careers, family life and things like that. And there may not even be a five hour block that we can reasonably schedule for more than a couple times in a training block, if that. So for them, I'm usually kind of leaning into kind of just like, let's make sure we get them, get them fit as a runner. Focus on that side of things. Um, assume that they've been walking around their entire life and we can lean on that to some degree. The lower intensity stuff tends to be a little bit more preserved anyway. So, um, I kind of look at it as an order from an order of operations standpoint. Yeah. That's interesting. That's making me think, if I'm hearing you correctly, that like, you know, uh, if there's space for a five hour effort, um, it would be like, you know, maybe, maybe more intentional to run more segments in the first three hours ish and then more hike and walk segments in the back half. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I mean, I like that structure because I think for one, it may just depend on what your goal for the workout is. For if it's as if the true goal is to get the benefits from continuous running, kind of like higher end of the easy category like zone two type stuff, then I would probably want them to be running continuously versus breaking that up with a lot of walking. Mhm. Now, if I'm working with someone who's maybe just going to be fighting cutoffs and their pace is going to be a little bit slower, and some of that walking still maintains like a cardiovascular benefit for them. Then I think we have a lot more options in terms of how much we chunk that up. Mhm. But yeah then I think I would probably but if we, if we take that first person who's pretty well developed and, but we still know they're going to be doing a fair bit of hiking in the race. We want to practice a couple hours of hiking. I think in that scenario. Yeah. Doing things like running first then hiking is a good idea. If you're just looking at practicing those skills and improving those skills. Where I would maybe deviate from that would be maybe closer to the race itself, when we want to start practicing what I'm actually going to have them doing in the event. So like in the event, if they're going to be running for 24 hours, I probably don't want them running for three hours straight in the beginning and then having to walk a ton of times and recoup. I'd rather them go like, all right, run for 15 minutes, hike for five, run for 15 minutes. Right. Or some ratio that they can sort of shrink and or they can contract and expand as they're feeling better or worse. Yeah. But sticking to the framework that's going to match kind of what we would expect them to do over the course of 100 miles from a running standpoint, so that they're the way to maybe think about it on race day. It ends up just being this enormous low intensity interval session where you're running for a little bit. But we want to kind of minimize the downsides of doing too much of that and getting way ahead of your goal pace, to the point where you blow up and drop out by just. Sprinkling in these walking breaks that sort of do the same thing, like an interval session would in speed work, where you can do more total volume at that intensity by taking breaks. So our exposure point to it is higher if we take breaks rather than just running that workout straight through. That makes sense. Yeah, totally. I mean, one of the best parts and my favorite parts of all this stuff is like iterating on the training after I have these race experiences. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I've done obviously programming long runs, I've programmed long run walks, but they've been on shorter intervals, uh, more like a seven, three, five, two kind of thing. And I think that I've got an opportunity to expand that a bit. I like what you say on the 15 five. I think there's even an opportunity to do the reverse of that. 515 if that's more reflective of a race effort. Um, I really like the idea of, uh, you know, a five hour effort with the first three being, you know, maybe it's like five hours. First three is 15, five run walk, last two hours is 515 run walk, something like that. Um, that would be cool. Um, I did have two guys who did the race. It was their first ultra. They'd never been in an environment like that, and they both just had a really strong power walk that totally got them through the finish. I had one guy that I was with who, uh, he clicked into like a sub 14 minute per mile walk pace. I was like, having to, I was right on his heels. I was having to run to keep up with him. Um, and we had another guy that was similar to that as well. So yeah, that to me, um, I'm really interested. I like those strategies a lot. You know what? A kind of a good ballpark way to kind of get someone to start thinking about it is that I find that a lot of times people have a goal time that they would imagine or at least a range of their targeting. So the example I like to use is, let's say they want to try to break 24 hours for 100 miles. Yep. And if we look at just what the pace is for that we're looking at I think it's like 14 minutes, uh, 12 seconds or something like that. It's like 14.2, uh, minute per mile pace. So if I look at that as like, that's what you would average just to get to the finish line. Right at that time. Let's work with that framework. And then what I do is dive into the data of what we see from like their easiest run, because that's 100 miles. At the end of the day, their easiest run is probably going to be more reflective of the intensity and the pace that they're going to be going when they're doing their running portion of it. And if they say that person's easy recovery run is like a ten minute mile pace, then if I want to sort of merge the two I'm looking at through the lens of, okay, let's focus your running on that ten minute mile pace, and then the remainder of that 14 minutes roughly that we'd be targeting per mile, we have as walking because we want to make sure you're not. Because what I think that does is it ends up letting them use the skill sets they're actually developing and training where they're not trying to run this kind of gray area zone. That's slower than their normal run, but faster than a brisk walk. Totally. They're actually running the thing that they're mechanically getting more, more training in like probably 80 plus percent of their running in. And then they're matching that with the right time frame of walking to sort of make sure they're not getting so far ahead of themselves early on in the race that they have no running left in the second half. And then we can kind of tweak some things, like what you said, I think is great because like, you do have that variance in what people can do from a hiking standpoint. So you might get a real strong hiker versus a little bit of a weaker hiker. And if you really want to start implementing that in their training, you can too. I have one client right now where we're really focusing on that. So we have him doing this kind of hike, uh, sessions, uh, after runs and during different phases of his training, just based on kind of where his, his freshness is to get an idea of like where his current hiking pace is. And then we're going to monitor that over the training and see how much faster we can get it and, and try to actually put some numbers to like the improvement potential of something like that. Uh, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's an interesting topic and you can just go into the weeds with it and in the framework of it all, but, you know, 100 miles is just one of those things where it's it's so long, it's so unapproachable in training in terms of what you're actually going to do in any given training session that I think, like building out structures like this. So people feel confident about being able to both do it and also wrap their head around it. Because the other thing about giving someone a framework versus, okay, just go out there and just wing it, sort of, I don't want to say wing it cause they're not winging it, but like, you know, kind of like trusting their intuitions and running what they think is right early on, which in hundred miles is usually a little too fast. Yeah. Then they actually have these like, small benchmarks to kind of think about where if they're if it's a 5050 split and they're doing half running, half hiking, then, you know, maybe we break that into like 20 or 30 minute segments and then they're just like kind of chipping away at those versus thinking about how they're trying to get to 100 miles all day long. Yeah. No, I'm aligned with it. It, uh, to me, it's also just like, you know, what will make the athlete feel confident and bring. What are they putting faith in, right? Getting away from the gear bags and the second pair of socks or whatever, all that is. And like, you know, the just the efforts that they've practiced in training. Um, and. Yeah, um, yeah. I'll add one more thing too. The other nice thing about planned hiking is I'm sure you realize this is like when it comes to like, gear management eating and drinking and just even putting that stuff away. It's so much easier to do walking and hiking than running. So, yeah, you can sort of dedicate a lot of your drinking and eating and just gear positioning type stuff towards those hiking segments. So then you add a little structure to that as well, versus it being just a little bit more kind of on a whim. Yeah. And that's one thing that I'm adjusting with the programming coming out of this race is like, you know, I've programmed hikes after, you know, maybe it's like a long run Saturday and then a hike on Sunday. But, um, just bringing a little bit more, you know, bringing 5 or 10% more attention to that of being like, hey, we want this to be a kind of a race, a race pace, kind of hike effort. And we want this to be fueled properly, and we want to have you using good form with the poles. Um, and you're not just kind of out there on kind of a family walk. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think you're right. And there is one of those things where I'll notice this with running and hiking, too, as that fatigue sets in and maybe some boredom and just harder time focusing is like that, that natural speed that kind of slows down a little bit. So practicing the intention and working with tools like poles and things like that, which do take practice a lot of times, um, the research would suggest that your benefit of poles is there if you practice with them, and maybe not so much if you don't. Um, I don't know if it's dug into it quite as much as it could in terms of the varying places that people are going to do, because my thought would be like, if someone's doing a lot of hiking with poles, they're probably going to be faster almost across the board versus someone trying to do some running with poles, which I think is maybe a little bit more of a skill set to develop. But yeah, I mean, getting all that stuff kind of, uh, on the radar of the participant is always kind of fun to see their, their, um, their progress with it. Yeah. And just the value of their experience, like the athletes, you know, being willing to come and do something like that and put themselves in that kind of environment and then they're like, oh, well, now I understand why you had the hikes programmed on Sundays. But now it's also like as a coach, I'm like, oh, well, now I understand that. I could tell you all of the specifics of how this shows up in the race experience. Mhm. Yeah for sure. How do you go about picking events that the group's going to do or the ones that you're going to give them an option to do anyway? Uh, yeah. So the foundational team event uh, had been Ironman Florida, and that just happened to be that a few guys were interested in doing that. And I was like, let's just make it a team thing. Um, we also did Ironman 70.3 Muncie, and that was like, hey, I've kind of got a cohort of guys in the Indiana area that are going to do this and like, I'm down to go fly out and like a live coach at the event. Um, as the race experiences have expanded to ultramarathons. Uh, I've balanced the time of year. Um, I like to do more of them. Like the winter early spring timeline. Uh, Zion was in April. Elephant mountain was just in February. Um, you know, going to a cool, warmer place, like going to the desert. Going to Arizona. Utah is great that time of year. Um, I also selfishly was a little bit like, you know, I'm Ironman focused, so I don't want to be preparing for 100 miler or something like that. You know, in the thick of the summer. But I've relaxed a little bit. Um, and not that I didn't like ultras, but, um, you know, I really enjoyed this past race, especially my body. I've just been doing this longer, so I'm like, Holy cow. I'm like, I'm getting really durable at this stuff. Um. And yeah, I think we've got a couple different ideas for how we're going to structure the next Team Ultra experience. Um, you know, the idea of maybe having more of this race retreat experience where it's a little bit more, um, you know, make the cut off first timer. Anybody can do this. Come, and I'm going to coach you across the finish line, maybe opening it up to an experience where we've got, like, a group of athletes that are, like, looking to just really run a hard race and compete. And we might not all stay together. But the idea is that if you're going to this race, like we're running this thing, and if you're in the back of the group, you're in the back of the group and that's okay on you. Um, just kind of letting it evolve a little bit and kind of just see what's going on. Um, those are the intentions, but then it ultimately just sort of pans out to like what races are happening. Yeah. Um, you know, you start to look at the schedule and the distances and, uh, you know, this was an event, the, uh, Zion race was vacation races, I think. And, uh, you know, it starts to get narrowed down fairly quickly. Um, cold water is a good one in January. That is slightly on my radar, but, uh, I think that kicking it out At least another month or two would give guys a chance to get through the holidays. And hey, we're still building. But you know, we don't have 100 K coming up in like two weeks. Um, when it's Christmas or something like that. So those are all the things that I just like to balance. And, you know, once we get into the details of it, like, you know, I'm organizing an in-person event, so checking out where their Airbnbs are the Airbnbs accessible? Is it somewhere where it's easier to fly into, like for Zion? A lot of guys flew to Vegas, and then they had to rent cars and drive like 2 or 3 hours to, I think it was Apple Valley, Utah or wherever it was, which to me is like, you know, they were fine to do it. But I'm like, there's probably a simpler way to do that. Um, and so for the race in, uh, Elephant Mountain, it was in Cave Creek, Arizona. And so it was much easier to have guys fly into Phoenix. You know, we could have guys pick each other up from the airport, all that kind of stuff. Um, and kind of balancing all that too, to bring it together. Right. Also, Right. It's not a priority. But there was a Costco close to this house, which was sweet, right? We got to get food for 15 guys. Um, so those are all the things that I'm kind of balancing on the back end trying to bring this experience to life. Yeah, I would imagine Arab events would be really good for this framework because like you mentioned, Sky Harbor Airport is pretty direct in a lot of cases. I mean, the greater Phoenix area is so big now, finding an Airbnb and a spot where everyone can kind of stay and hang out wouldn't be a big issue. And then most of their events are within driving distance from Phoenix. So you've got a ton of race options that kind of span the year as well. So, uh, yeah, it makes sense that you guys picked Elephant Mountain. Yeah. And it was cool, right? I mean, we showed up with 25% of the field for Elephant Mountain 50, which was awesome. And I had connected with the race director. And so they gave us a little price break on the sign ups. And so my vision as I'm building this out is like, you know, I want to keep showing up with a full team to these things, and I want to continue to develop relationships with, um, the race directors, the other, you know, leaders at Vespa, and see how we can work together. Because I think this is a really cool, uh, way to approach endurance. I don't think a lot of people are doing this. And I think that the more that we do this and create these experiences also for people that are new to this, right, like we're not showing up with like guys that are all looking at a podium. Right. It's like a lot of us athletes are just looking to challenge themselves. And you mentioned, right, not a lot of guys having 5 hours or 6 hours to do a training session on a Saturday. I mean, tons of our guys are young dads, busy professionals, you know, present husbands, all that jazz. And so, you know, just bringing sort of the team element and the camaraderie to it all is really my focus. Yeah, I think there's two really interesting things there. One is like what you mentioned is that team environment, because it is oftentimes viewed and can be kind of an individual pursuit when we're going into endurance sports and things like that. Uh, and, you know, I always think back to like in college and across college, in high school you have like cross-country teams. We are getting that kind of endurance, sensation and experience. But you're doing it as a group where, yeah, you have got your individual goals, but you also have the team goals. So there's sort of like this tandem set of priorities that are impacting kind of just how much you're willing to give and do and, and feed off of one another, from which I think is just a really cool add in to a sport that does have a huge community base to it. Um, but not always necessarily in the events itself, to the same degree as to what you're kind of trying to do. And then, um, the other thing too, is like, it almost seems like you took the concept of just like a trail running camp or a running camp and just applied it to an event. So, like, it's got a lot of that kind of feel to it where, all right, we're going to practice these things, we're going to learn these things and we're going to get this, and then we're going to, you know, we're going to go do this event as well, since it's since it's here and we send it around that. Yeah, totally. It's really fun to just use the framework of a race and use the event and the experience and make it legit. Um, you know, I've hosted training camps out here in Boulder. Uh, they've been historically more Ironman focused. So we do biking and, you know, uh, the other sports as well. But yeah, it's, uh, it's really fun. And as we do more of these ultras, like the ultra team experience is totally different from the team Ironman experience. I mean, you know, we can still have a really cool team Ironman experience and doing it with the group and seeing each other on the run course and maybe on the bike course and starting together and the team meals and all that stuff is like, in my opinion, 100 acts from just somebody's individual Ironman experience if you do it as a team with us. But that's totally different than running with a group for 50 miles. Um, and it's really cool just to continue to, to see how I can make the experience better. I mean, the Iron Man's that we did as a team in the beginning, I did the Team Iron Man's, I did the first two Ironman Floridas that we had. But this past year, uh, myself and Jordan Goldstein, we went down to coach and, uh, it's just fun to see how I can tweak it and how I can make the experience better for athletes. I can see an athlete maybe ten times in the day versus, uh, you know, there's an element that it's cool. It's like, oh, you know, Ryan's coaching and he's throwing down with us and he's competing as well. But, you know, there's just different ways to try and experiment and tinker with it all. Yeah, absolutely. Have you noticed a lot of the guys in the group are doing both, uh, both triathlon and ultra. Or is that kind of separate in terms of where they tend to focus their energies? Um, most guys come into the tribe looking to do their first 70.3. That's pretty much the most common starting point. And then once they get involved with the team and they see that, you know, these people that are, you know, pretty much normal dudes who have young kids and jobs and all that jazz, you know, are just taking on these different types of challenges. Their world kind of gets opened up to that. Um, one thing that I love about that is that bike training is a huge foundation of my coaching philosophy for ultras. Um, pretty much anybody that I'm coaching towards in ultra, um, having to get on the bike. Um, even if they're not necessarily triathlon focused. And so, yeah, I like to have them blended together and then, you know, there are some guys where it's like, hey, you know, they might be more ultra focused, but they could sort of lock into an eight week block and go rip off a 70.3. And they're not going to try to win it, but they're down to compete and have fun and be a part of the team experience and just push themselves and get back in the arena. Yeah. That's a great point too, because these events, the way you have them structured, it wouldn't have to be like, this is my race event. I'm going to wring myself dry here. It could be I'm midway through my training block and I want to just get a good quality training session in and and their training, treating it more like that. So yeah, that's cool. Um, it was one of the things I was going to mention too, because it's like I was, uh, I found it funny when we were talking about kind of like the guys coming in for 70.3 and then eventually kind of getting interest with all this, because that's just kind of how ultras tend to work. It's like people often think like, yeah, I would never do that. That's too much. Or um, or maybe I can't do that. And then yeah, they see they, a lot of times what happens is someone will go to an ultramarathon to like Cru or Pace or something like that, and then they'll see the whole experience, like, you know what, maybe I could do that. And then you get to talk to people and you realize, you know what training really doesn't have to be any more insane than training for any other endurance event. It's just kind of like the order of operations and, um, putting in the work consistently and finding yourself at a finish line on one of those things. And I always find it interesting what kind of draws people towards it or where that curiosity first got sparked. Yeah, no, it's so cool. I mean, that exactly has happened with two of our guys over the past year. So last year for Zion, um, I had a guy, Blaine, who did his first 70.3. Uh, it was in December. And then he's kind of understanding, like, what do I want to do? Am I kind of staying in endurance? He didn't really know. Um, and he wasn't, like, I would say, completely drawn to, like, yes, I'm going to do the next race. But we had this team experience coming up in Zion and I was like, dude, you should come pace us. Yeah. And so he comes out. Had never even tried running in his life. He lives in Florida. He ends up pacing me from mile 50 to 70, in the middle of the night. It's his first trail running. He's got a pack. It's like this total thrown into the deep end experience. And because it was also like the team environment, we've got all these guys. This first ultra we got the team house. He's like, Holy cow, this is so cool. I want to be a part of more of this stuff. So he rolled on and did another 50 in Florida. Ironman Florida just ran this 50. And then we pretty much just had the exact same experience. Go down with another dude, uh, Zach, who came out to pace as an elephant. He had never really done a trail run, but he came out. He did a 28 mile segment from 22 through the finish. Um, and he was totally in Chattanooga, 70.3 first, 70.3 training, but he was totally fit enough to come and do it. And, uh, it's just a really cool way to like, number one show up in service. That's a huge element of our team, is that guys come in thinking that they want to have, you know, peak PR performances, and there are times that guys will rip that off. And that's super meaningful. But through these experiences, what I've learned is that it's way more often than helping the other athlete, when the other athlete is in the deep end, or doing something that orients them to serving other members of the team that really like, serves their character and, and makes them feel really fulfilled. And so, yeah, to have kind of this roadmap of, oh, you should totally come pace. Oh, by the way, I'm not telling you until you show up to the team house that you're running 28 miles with us. And by the way, you're going to love it, but you just gotta trust me a little bit. Yeah. It's funny. Yeah. I'm sure the experience for everybody was. Was great. Um, having people willing to kind of jump in and help out with stuff like that is so much part of the fun. Mhm. Totally. One other topic I wanted to chat with you about, cause I know you've, uh, had a lot of interest in just different nutritional approaches and things over the years. And now that you're working with so many different people at, uh, kind of a variety of different events, do you see a pretty big variance from your group members as to kind of what they do nutritionally, or is it a little more uniform? Mm. Uh, I mean, in terms of, uh, I would say that there's just like a sort of a standard eat clean protocol that most people drift towards. Um, my focus is on diet. I really like to just test my diet. So, you know, for a while, I was, like, searching for the perfect diet of, you know, what's going to make me feel best around the clock? What's going to serve me mentally, what's going to fuel my training. And what I have found overall is that just testing anything. Totally unlocks my mindset. So right now I'm in the middle of a fruit till noon diet test. Um, and I've got a number of athletes in the team who are testing that with me as well. Um, I would say that we probably got around 30% of our group who are focused on weight loss. So like I said, we got normal dads, right? We were normal guys. We have an accountability chat. And you know, we've got around 60 people in the team. And I think there's around 20 or so, um, who are in that chat. And you know, we do weigh-ins to help hold them accountable and share their strategies and stuff like that. So, you know, the around the clock nutrition is something that I don't really broadcast as this is what we should all do. I have drifted more towards, you know, this is how we want to approach race fueling and this is how we want to fuel training. And you know, this, these are just like foundational principles that we can rely on. That's my approach, um, with guiding the team as a whole. Um, so yeah, that's kind of at least just for starting the conversation. That's where we're at. Yeah, yeah. I find it interesting when you have large groups like that, just to kind of compare to see what you're noticing versus what I see sometimes too. And I have clients that range from a strict ketogenic diet to folks who are vegan, high carb, vegan and everything in between. So it's like, yeah, the day to day, I think you're I think you're right, though. I think finding something that you can consistently stick to, uh, towards the goals you're trying to get, whether that be purely performance or weight loss, depending on what the person's kind of primary focus is, is, uh, is going to be very varied. And then it comes like, how do you apply what they're doing in their day to day nutrition, to their fueling strategies in the races and the events that they're participating in? Because, um, kind of the other side of that is you. We have a lot of conversation and endurance training right now around just hyper carb fueling versus low carb fueling, and then kind of somewhere in between. And I know I've got clients who will target 100 plus grams per hour and then others who are like, all right, I want to just minimize how much I'm putting in. So what do I have to do to do that? And it gets to be a pretty wide spectrum of different kinds of. For preferences and approaches within even the group to some degree. Yeah, I would say that the overall like, you know, the type of attitude towards nutrition that my group has is definitely into regenerative AG, uh, high protein. Um, you know, definitely not like a full carnivore, but like, you know, eating a lot of protein, a lot of meat. Um, that would be really the focus. I don't really think that I have anybody that's on a ketogenic diet. Um, and so, yeah, that that would be like the first, the first frame and then, and then, you know, the things that I shared a moment ago. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. I find most of the time when I'm working with someone who's on a strict ketogenic diet, they're there for other reasons outside of their training and performance. And then if they're not they tend to do a little bit better by just increasing their carbohydrate to some degree. They're still usually in the low carb category. Um, even if that's just like, uh, there's actually a study that came out recently that looked at actually ketogenic athletes introducing ten grams of carbohydrate, which is a super small amount compared to what most endurance has, is going to do. But the performance increase was like, I think I can't remember the percentage. I think it was like there might have been a 25% increase in performance in their time to fail your test. It, um, went up pretty substantially. So I was interested in that because I was like, well, if I'm working with someone on a ketogenic diet, they always usually ask, well, what should I eat during an event? And you know, at. I've had some other like reference points outside of that study in the past too, but this one was like kind of a really clear look at, just like, hey, if you're thinking about doing like no carbohydrate during the event and fueling on just fats and proteins and things like that, you know, you might notice that you can get an additional benefit from even just trickling in a really small amount, ten grams per hour of carbohydrate into that protocol. And um, seeing what happens. Yeah, I would say that I definitely have guys that have interest in the general low carb approach. And, you know, there's some elements of fasting that people have done to, um, the framework that I'm testing out now, I reference a lot of Brady Homer's writing, and he had a study that showed that, um, carbohydrate timing after exercise, there was some type of performance study for next day intervals, and I think it was like a 30%, uh, bump in how long the test subjects could hold the intervals if they had carbohydrates within a three hour window post exercise. So that to me of like, all right, I'm trying to teach people like, hey, you have a Vo two ride tomorrow. Like, you are definitely going to want to have carbs the day before and within this time block of training. But, um, you know, to me, that's also something that I'm testing now because I feel like my own nutritional journey. You know, back when you and I first chatted a couple of years back, I was doing The Carnivore and the plant based testing, and I was really unlocking a lot of mindset around low carb. But as a coach, I started to realize that I couldn't just project that onto everybody, and I was basically trying to do real food fueling. I did Ironman Texas with three cups of maple syrup and nothing out of a package, and I'm like, it's not working to tell people to do this. They don't give a shit, right? So the past two years for me have been drifting towards, um, one improving my own performance. And doing that in conjunction with more of the sports mixes and a much higher carb fuel approach. Um, but coming out of this past year, I just had, you know, my best Ironman and kind of achieved, uh, you know, some goals that I wanted. And so I'm like, I'm looking to get back into kind of that end of one testing protocol. And so a lot of the fueling that I did in Prep of Elephant Mountain 50 was very much in line with what you just described. Um, I was doing real food, maple syrup fueling. I was doing a lot of my runs at like 4 or 5 in the morning. Um, getting out for 2 or 3 hours, and I would have a good meal, uh, you know, with carbohydrates the day before. But then in that run, you know, I might only be doing, um, 150 or 200 calories of maple syrup in that three hour run. Now. It's also winter, right in Colorado. I'm running early in the morning, so there's not really a heat stress at all. Um, but I was more focused on, hey, what can I get through this effort with and still feel good? And then how can I fuel that, you know, 1 to 3 hour window post training so that I can make sure that I'm good the next day? But, you know, as I've oriented this diet test now the remainder of the day beyond that post carbohydrate, uh, fuel. Was more of a low carb approach and more protein heavy and fat heavy. Mhm. Yeah. In the race and I was able to take in um I would say less calories per hour. I still ate probably a ton at aid stations, but I was not stressing the 400 calories an hour every hour through a sports mix and a bar and a gel. It was more of, you know, I was kind of just doing Clif bars, and I was making sure that I had at least one an hour, and then I was starting to mix in some other stuff once I got through the aid stations. But it was kind of about making my body feel good in the effort and then making sure that I recharged up at the aid stations. Mhm. Yeah. You know, you know what I always like to share with people when it comes to race fueling is um, you know, based on what we currently know is like if you're looking at just like a framework because I mean, the hard thing I think for people is they'll go online and they'll see like X athlete 150g per hour, ex athlete, no carbs per hour. Yeah. And then everything in between. Long 600. Right. Or David Rose 600 calories an hour. Right. Like these top end guys that are just, like, training the gut for years and totally overloading it. Um, you know, for the average guy who we talked about might not even be doing a five hour training run. Totally different. Yeah. And I mean, I think it's just like there's like a, an equation you could sort of apply to just to kind of get an idea of like where a good spot for you would be is if you kind of go back to what you're talking about before and just kind of like try to appreciate the workload that you're going to be doing on an hourly basis. So for like, say, someone who is going to be covering for miles every hour versus someone covering nine miles every hour, you know, those are two very different workloads. Like they may have the same caloric demand over the course of the distance they're traveling, but one of them is going to get there twice as fast. So they're trying to jam all that food into half the time. So you get someone who's on that kind of the slower end of that range. If they're doing four miles per hour, you know, their workload is probably like 4 to 500 calories per hour or something like that. And if it's a lower intensity event, which it would likely be at that pace, then you know, someone on a moderate to high carbohydrate diet is going to be maybe like a 5050 split between carbs and fats. So you can kind of start working those numbers and get an idea of what some target points might be for you. And then you have at least a little bit of a framework to maybe lean on. And then obviously none of these things are exact numbers. So, um, trying that's interesting what you're saying there because I haven't. I haven't really thought about it like that yet. So you're saying that if somebody lets just say, you know, average athlete, 15 minute miles for miles an hour, if they're burning 400 calories an hour. At that intensity, though, it's probably 5050 carb protein or, sorry, carb fat split. So that would mean that their nutritional needs would really just be 200 calories of carbs. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Because they only need to really defend that. I mean, that's going to be based off of like the glycogen defense model of fueling, where you're just trying to basically introduce a fuel source that will take place of what you would dip into your liver and muscle glycogen, for which, you know, according to the majority of the research we have, would suggest that like that is going to increase your ability to maintain the perceived effort that you're going at versus having it kind of make it make your body, your brain sending the signal to your body to say, like, hey, go slower because we're dipping into these stores. Um, and and yeah, it's like, and it could be that that person needs a little more and a little less than that, but it's it's it's. Close enough to give people a reasonable starting point and probably closer than what they're just going to intuitively do if they're just kind of eating when they feel like it, or grabbing what someone else is doing and trying to apply that framework. Um, and I think it just also shows just like the person, the range, so that they're not necessarily like looking towards someone doing something wildly different than they are and trying to apply their protocol onto, onto themselves. So, um, it's a fun one to share. Yeah, that's really interesting. Um, certainly one of my biggest, uh, fueling lessons from the Zion race was that there were a couple of times that I just allowed my heart rate to get up into my thresholds, going up hills and up against the clock, and the team was falling apart. And I'm trying to catch the guys ahead and all this jazz. And it was like, as soon as I went up into that Z4, it was like my body was just zapped of energy because I wasn't also refueling it well enough. So, um, I think the intensity management and knowing what you own is like what's the relative effort for you compared to a standard zone to run or compared to whatever it is for you? Um, how would you, how would you go to figure out the, the split of, uh, carb versus fat burning at a certain intensity? Do you have any kind of protocol for that? Yeah. So I usually start at. What I start at is just population level data. So that 5050 split is just suggestive of what the average person would do right at their aerobic threshold. Anaerobic threshold. Okay. Yeah. So when I'm looking at someone who's doing a longer ultramarathon, you know, it's it's certainly if they're getting up into like the full day of, of activity like aerobic threshold is probably the ceiling of what they should be really going past at any given time if they want it to be sustainable. So we kind of look at that like, well, if aerobic threshold is the ceiling intensity that you'll likely be doing, then if we fuel to that, we're going to have at least enough, probably a little bit more in a lot of cases. So it gives them at least an upper end target. And then if it is something where it's like, all right, there's a lot of hiking in here and we're staying safely below aerobic threshold. That gives them a little bit of flexibility where if they're kind of consistent with that target that, um, if they do hit a rough patch, which, you know, is not uncommon and they can't eat for an hour or something like that, it's not the end of the world because they were sort of at the high end of what they probably needed, or maybe even a little bit beyond in some of those earlier hours when their stomach was feeling better and things were doing being a little more smooth. Um, but I mean, you can basically look at an aerobic intensity spectrum and get some kind of population level data as to what the ratios would typically be from one intensity to the next. Um, as you can imagine, I'm sure it's like the lower you get towards fat and higher, the more you get towards carbohydrate all the way up to where you can get to 100%, uh, carbohydrate and no fat. Um, there can be some big influences there from dietary input, like, you know, take me for example, at my aerobic threshold, I'm closer to 80 plus percent fat. So, you know, my equation is just going to be different assuming I stick to that same fueling strategy. Um. Or if you have someone who is, uh, just going to be doing a shorter endurance event and pushing up into like Z3, Z4 and some of those higher intensities that you can maintain and sustain in some of those shorter duration events, then you probably want to be working from that. But I mean, if people are really wanting to get into the weeds with this and spend a little bit of money, if you go in and get a metabolic cart test done, it'll give you kind of your own personal blueprint according to your current training and nutritional inputs at least. And then you can kind of start seeing where those numbers actually lie for you and, and build your fueling strategy a bit around that and what that would be like. I'm thinking for myself as an athlete, what that would tell me, right, is if it's like, um, if if, uh, my aerobic threshold is, let's say 135 beats per minute, it's like if I go and get a heart test and if it tells me that at 135 beats per minute, I'm at 5050 and it would get it would then spit out the total, uh, caloric burn per hour at that work rate. And if it was that 400, and if it was 5050, then that would be simple $200 an hour, which pretty much makes sense to a Clif Bar is like 250. Um, and so that kind of. Right. And that's also what you mentioned at the upper end. So, you know, when we're in the last three miles of the 12 mile segment and I'm out of water and I've been giving all my bars away, I can kind of just get into the aid station and then slam a few PB and J's, which is pretty much how it went down. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And well, the other thing I think is kind of nice about those sort of tools is, like you were saying before, is a lot of it is just establishing a level of confidence and belief that, okay, I have a strategy that's going to work that I can trust in, and that just helps so much with just the the nerves and the anxiety and the doubt that can creep in and the days leading in or in the event itself, just kind of knowing like, all right, I, I did the same thing. Like you go into a task when you did your homework, it's like, okay, I'm confident I know what I'm doing versus I didn't study at all for this task. So what's going to happen? Yeah, yeah. Um, no. That's sweet. That's, uh. That's a good evolution. You're helping me out here as an athlete and a coach. That's cool. Awesome. No, I'd love to hear it. Uh, so. So what are you training for right now, Ryan? Um, so my main race this year is I qualify for Ironman World, so I'm going Ironman nice in September. Um, so I got that as kind of my, you know, North Star. But at the same point, you know, I qualified. So, you know, performance isn't really the biggest focus for this. For me. I'm just looking to enjoy the experience. I've never been to Europe. My whole family's going, um, I'm running the Leadville Trail Marathon, which I'm really freaking excited about. Uh, end of June. Um, and that, to me is a little bit of an evolution of like, you know, I feel like I've actually become, uh, you know, real solid on the trails. I remember in my Zionsville last year, it was like these three hour efforts, five hour efforts. Like, I was kind of falling apart in them. Um, and now it's just like, damn, dude, another year of consistency. And, like, the compounding effect is just crazy. So those are the two main things that I'm focused on. Um, I, I've been getting into some uphill skiing, so I've been doing uphill ski events. I got a couple more that I'm going to do in the spring that are really just for fun. Um, I'm hosting a trail fest for tribal athletes that's, uh, a bit more of like, a kind of a family Experience. That's going to include a real solid effort for the athletes. Probably 50 K range on the front range of Boulder. So that'll be something that I just kind of rip off. Um, so yeah, that's a little bit where my head's at, uh, for, for this year. Um, my main focus is just being more consistent. Um, Gordo Byrne, one of my buddies online. Uh, I'm sure you've seen some of his stuff. He had a really, uh, good annual reflection process that helped me out, that made me realize that last year I just allowed too many of my weeks to dip in total volume, whether it was because I was traveling or it was because I was doing something with my family or whatever else. So my focus is very much on, uh, hitting my five hours on the bike per week in, uh, in, you know, these winter months. Last year, I was only like 2.5 hours because I was so ultra focused. Uh, no gaps in my swimming. I'm five K in the water per week, which is not crazy volume, but just making me show up and be better day to day. Um, it's kind of a bit where I'm at. Uh, I have a little bit of interest in running Black Canyon 100 K next year. That race that just went down. Yeah. Um, talking about some of that, that speed race for tribal people, that's where my head's at right now. On what might be a good option for that. So that's a little bit farther out. Obviously a full year, but that's pretty much where my head's at on events for me. Awesome. Well, Ryan, it's always fun to chat with you about the ins and outs of training. I know you put up a bunch of content also online around just navigating your career and your business and things like that, which I think think is such a cool thing to see because you're helping people reach their goals in fitness, but you're also highlighting, hey, this isn't just wake up, train, eat, sleep and repeat. There are the other inputs between family, career and life and things that you have to also include. And sometimes moving all those parts around is uh, the majority of the puzzle to solve. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, it's really cool. As tribalism has grown and expanded, it's become even more and more true to just how I've lived my life and, and the moves that I've made. So we've had a bunch of guys launch side hustles, start online coaching businesses, and in any kind of category, we've got a guy building out a financial coaching business right now. We got a guy who's building out a spice business right now. Um, so yeah, the endurance is kind of the start, but it tends to make people question where they're maybe settling a little bit in life, uh, all around. And so that's all the stuff that I'm really into. And it's just been really fun. So thanks for having me, dude. It's been awesome to chat about all this. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, your passion is clear, so, uh, I'd love to see it. And I want to make sure I give you a chance to share where the listeners can find you if they want to check out, uh, tribal training or follow you on socials and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm most active on Twitter. Uh, the Ryan dryer is my handle. I'm on Substack as well. My Substack is called the Tribal Journal. Uh, and train tribal comm. If you want to check out what we're going on and some of our philosophy and get in touch with me. Awesome. Ryan. Well, hopefully I'll bump into an event down the road. Maybe. Maybe Black Canyon soon enough. Soon enough? Definitely. Yeah. It's, uh. It's exciting. I'm excited to keep getting into the ultra world and keep connecting with more people like you. Perfect. Ryan. Take care. Sweet. I'll see you.