Episode 449: Nick Bare - BPN Moves into Endurance

Nick Bare is the founder of Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN), and has built a large brand around sharing his journey chasing fitness goals. Recently, Nick and BPN launched a Last Man Standing event called, G1M Ultramarathon on his ranch in Texas. It went viral despite little pre event mainstream ultra media coverage, but rather exploded from participants and BPN creating live and pre/post event content around it. We chat about Nick's current build for an Ironman, the future of BPN Ultramarathon and their move into the endurance world.

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Episode Transcript:

It becomes when you start doing bigger days in a row. If you screw up hydration on that first day, you notice it so much that second day, oh, easily. It's probably the hardest thing. It's almost more important than nutrition to some degree when you're at this time of year anyway. Like just making sure you stay hydrated. Yeah, it's like something to to navigate for sure. Yeah, yeah. And you're gearing up for a triathlon? Yeah. It's like Ironman. November 16th. Okay, this is officially two weeks into prep, and it's Ironman Arizona. Huh? And I haven't done an Ironman since 2021. So it's like relearning nutrition at this level. Fueling at this level, training volume and intensity and balancing all those things. So it's fun to re-navigate all of that once again. But getting back into something like, like after this, I'm going for a swim and just getting like the, the movement patterns of the swim down again is the most challenging part for me. Yeah. Yeah, I would imagine just. You're just figuring out the pattern of the sports, where your strengths and weaknesses are, and then putting the pulling the levers at the right time. But yeah, the nutrition side too. Because if you hadn't done it since 2021, you would probably last time, maybe right before some of the hyper carbohydrate strategies that are now getting more and more popular. Have you looked at like, I'm going to feel this thing a lot differently than I did? I'm feeling completely different. Are you okay? What does it look like, or do you have any ideas at this point? so right now I'm tracking all my nutrition and it's pretty consistent. It's like on an average day, I'm like 100g of fat. I'm like 200g of protein. And at a minimum, it's like 550 or 600g of carbs. Okay. And then a lot of fueling around the workout specifically. So like yesterday for example I had a 90 minute ride. And within that 90 minute ride I had 150g of carbs. Okay. So I'm like I feel so much better on high carb. Are you still doing low carb, high fat? I'm actually like, I think it was maybe four weeks ago at this point, I switched to a moderate carb diet. Moderate moderate to high carb diet. Because I want to try racing high carb. Okay. Because I haven't done it, I did low carb for 14 years and all my 100 miles have been low carb. I've done a handful of 50 milers on high carb before I switched to low carb, so I just want to figure out, see what it's like to see if I can get because, well, I guess there's maybe a little more to that. Then when we started seeing these like hyper carb fueling strategies where people were going above and beyond what we would reasonably see necessary from just like, all right, your fat ox and your carbohydrate oxidations are here. Maybe you need like say 80 90g and you see guys doing like 110. One 2150. It's like right, right. So they're going above what their physiological requirement would be. And they're reporting benefits. So it's like my thought was like, well I wonder how that plays because my fueling strategies in the past would be. I'd go into a lab. I'd do the metabolic car test. I'd see where my fat ox my car box was at, at the pace I was going to race at. And that's usually. I'd probably feel the high end of the carb on that. Just to make sure, like I was getting enough. But then with all that stuff coming out now with the really high stuff, I was like, oh, I wonder if you could do more? If I would do even more than that. If that would give me an additional benefit. But with the context of my normal low carb diet, because for me, like at my 100 mile intensity, my carb requirement based on fat ox charts is only like 40g an hour. So it's really low, relatively speaking. But I was like, well, wait, maybe if I do like 60, I can get whatever benefit we're assuming is there based on, like all the Tour de France athletes and cyclists and things that are kind of reporting these really high numbers. I tried that in a race and I didn't really notice a difference. So my first thought was, well, maybe it's something to do with the fact that I'm on a low carb diet. Normally, in order to really leverage that, I would have to be on a moderate high carb diet going into the race. So that's kind of like the follow up to that. I'm going to do a moderate high carb diet. See if I can push. I'll have to push even higher now because I'm sure they'll shift my fat ox rates to a degree. Now you know, my intra race carb need is probably going to be closer to like, say, 80g during the 100 mile. And then maybe I can test going up to 100 plus and see if that if I see something that is above and beyond what I would expect just by matching the physiological need. Yeah. So it's an interesting experiment. We'll see what happens, I guess when you see your moderate right now, what do you consider moderate? It's like about 60% of my intake is from carbohydrates. What would you say roughly gram wise? so depending on the day, I'm probably at, I'm hitting probably like 3500 to 4000 calories a day on, like, a decent training day. So I'm probably getting up to, like, what would that be like? 6600, maybe 700g at most. Yeah. Yeah, I can tell a huge difference on these days. I've under fueled the days prior, especially going into a big day. Like today I. Today I have a relatively lower volume day of training. So at Nine Mile Run this morning and I had about an hour swim this afternoon. Yesterday was a bigger day. Yesterday was a 3.5 hour training day and I ate a ton yesterday. So this morning I woke up feeling solid. But in that first week of training back, trying to just, like, get my legs under me again with this type of volume and intensity. Last week I sat under fuel. Under consumed. This week, I'm kind of, like, figured out. but I was looking back at, like, Ironman videos for my first Ironman triathlon in 2019. and, I really had no clue what I was doing in terms of fueling. Yeah, because I've documented all this along the way so I can go back and watch these old videos, and I look at my diet then compared to now. And. My fuel requirements haven't necessarily changed, but the amount of fuel that I'm shoveling in now compared to then is night and day. I'm just finding I'm recovering and training a lot more efficiently. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I, I'm, I haven't gotten to like the real hard part of the plan yet where I think I can see where, where I'm, I think where I, if I see a big difference, my guess is I'm going to see it during doing like short intervals and long intervals and stuff like that. and I'm just starting to kind of get into that side of the training. I had been doing quite a bit of that on the bike, but I didn't really have a good perspective of that. Everything was kind of new. All the data points I would get were like, I didn't have a comparator on low carb to compare it to. So, you know, maybe it was better and I just don't know. But I'm curious, like, if I get out on a track and do like 400 meter repeats or like 60s hard type stuff, if I'll notice some benefits from the higher carbohydrate stuff, because that's where technically should show up. And then it just becomes a question of like, okay, does that do it? Can I raise the ceiling a little bit with that extra and then pull up my aerobic threshold, which is where the kind of the important intensity would be for 100 miles. And if so, then as long as I can keep fuel high and get away with it, then maybe I can run a little bit faster with it. So. Yeah. How are you using the bike for training right now? So it started out basically just doing it exclusively where I would do like a heavy amount of like zone two and like two quality sessions, like usually like something around threshold and something around VO2 max once per week, and then maybe a third session where I was just a little more kind of spontaneous, just like chasing segments on Zwift or something like that. and then as my Achilles tendon started loosening up and allowing me to do more running, I started kind of phasing in, more running and pulling a little bit back on the bike. Now I'm at a point where I've done a few speed workouts on the run, where I feel comfortable that I can. My Achilles is ready for that. So I'm starting to sort of shift some of the speed work off of the bike and then onto the run, and I'll try to. I think my plan is going to be kind of, when I get into the meat of the training for the 100 miler is I'm going to try to keep a good five to maybe seven hours worth of volume on the bike alongside the running volume, and just keep my running volume a little bit lower than I would historically for a race. and do I'll probably do mostly zone two on the bike going forward, but I might do like one session that's got some quality in it. When I'm feeling like I've got a little bit of extra gas in the tank on the higher intensity stuff along the aerobic intensity spectrum. So, I'm still kind of playing around with it a little bit. Are you using a threshold based off of. ftp. FTP. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So I threw another big wrench in it too. So like when I, I didn't plan on the Achilles injury. Go figure. Right. And so that happened. And then I was like okay I can't run for a little bit. So I had just like a stationary bike that I could use. and then I'm like, I'm going to use this for like a month and decide if it's something I'm actually going to make use of. And if it does, I'm going to update to something more thorough. So I could even do some Zwift races or something like that if I wanted to. So I got to that point where I was like, okay, this is something I want to really kind of keep into the program more structured wise. So I got the, where's the Garmin? it's over there, the neo T2 smart thing. So that's like step one. Now I have to get the bike for it. And then, I'm going to redo all my FTP tests and stuff on that just to see, because there would probably be some variance between that and just the stationary bike. But yeah, that's what I've been kind of planning or doing all the workouts on. Did the FTP test and then have used that as like what's to kind of guide the interval sessions. What's your FTP right now? 305. That's solid. Yeah I think it was like 4.7W/kg or something solid. Yeah. So it's been fun. I love the bike. Like I started riding again when I had a leg injury earlier this year, and I couldn't run for a few weeks. And that's what gave me this. That was like the bite of the bug. Yeah, that kind of put in my ear of, hey, maybe like a triathlon is in the future and it's such a different level of cardiovascular and muscular endurance training. You know, it's really hard for me at least, to simulate that type of effort on a run that I can get on a bike. Yeah. And reduce risk of injury. I've been loving it. Yeah. There were some interesting things I noticed when I did my first set of strides and then my first short interval session running. I was shocked at how quickly I got up to pace. Like I would describe myself with short intervals historically it's like I kind of get into them. So it's like I'm better off, like kind of being maybe a little on the slow end of average in the beginning and working up to it, and then kind of finishing the interval a little bit stronger. It was like the exact opposite. It was like I had to hold myself back in the beginning. And I think it was just like, you get such good turnover from high pedal stroke rates on the bike. and then probably just like more of a low impact balance between biking and running, that when I go out and do something fast, like my leg turnover just wanted to they just wanted to spin quicker and, and I had to like kind of watch the paces to make sure I wasn't like overshooting the target right away in the beginning and having to pull back. And that was something new, that I can only really associate with the bike. but yeah. Yeah, it's a cool input. Yeah. you were training for a marathon not that long ago, I think, and then had a bike accident, didn't you? And had to. Yeah. So I was training for grandma's marathon, and the goal there was that I was going to go for 230, because my last marathon PR was California International Marathon SIM in 2023. Was it? 239. Yeah. And I wanted to go after like 230 is my lifetime PR goal that I want to chase down. But what ended up happening was in December of 2020. Four. I actually got hit by a car when I was running, so that took me out of running for quite some time. And I had a lot of kind of like direct trauma to the leg from that car accident. And then I jumped back into Marathon Prep, probably looking back to early. Yeah. And just the compounding, you know, stress of running on top of those injuries. I thought it was actually a torn Achilles at first. And then I got an MRI and the Achilles was fine, but there were just a lot of bone contusions. Yeah. And problems within my feet. So I took six weeks off from running completely. That's what forced me to get back on the bike and then didn't really want to jump back into marathon prep and triathlon was just calling me. I was just ready for something different, something new, and had some variation for multiple reasons. One, just like the physical challenge of and as someone who creates content, it just is, it felt more interesting to create a series around an Ironman as opposed to. Yeah, something I've done in the past being a marathon. That's the coolest thing about your brand is you, you're all you can go whatever direction is calling you. But you're also incentivized to do that because I think the people I mean I know when I follow your stuff, like when you're building up to something and you finish it once you finish it. My next slide is like, okay, he's going to do something different. And it's the difference in what I'm usually looking for. Yeah. So like and that's just kind of the balance I usually find. Like I try to find it in ultrarunning to some degree where there's just a wide variety of different ultra-type races where if you get sick of one, you can kind of pivot to something different for a while and hit the reset button. But I mean, your, your, your ranges from bodybuilding to marathoning to ultra running. So I love all things performance and fitness. Yeah. And that's what's fun for me is like I'll go all in for a prep. And document the process. And like when I'm in a prep I am dialed I am focused like right now being in this Ironman prep it's like I always train, I'm always on top of my diet. But when I'm in prep it's on another level. It's like complete focus. and like, when I finish one prep, it's like, well, what do I want to pursue next? Like, what is what is calling me? What feels interesting? You know, like last year. Last June, actually, I started training for my first class. I did Hierarchs Dallas in November, which was a completely different style of training that I've done. Yeah, the last couple of years. Very humbling in many ways. and like, I learned so much from that process. And for me, that's what's fun is like while I'm going through this experience and documenting it, I'm learning along the way and then sharing what I'm learning in the content and the journey and the stories to help people, you know, pursue something similar. That's like, for me, there's so many different angles of why I love pursuing these goals. Do you find when you kind of pivot, you get a lot of motivation from, okay, I'm starting something that has some competing inputs compared to what I was doing, and then you see some probably earlier progress that really kind of ignites the drive. Or is that something that's just kind of passively along the way? I think it's probably something that's just passively along the way. I do love being a student in all aspects of life. So like when I'm in like a clear example, when I was in my prep for high rocks, when I started that prep, I had no clue anything about high rocks. So all of the content I was consuming during that training block was like a High Rocks specific podcast. And, you know, like high intensity interval training studies and articles and learn how to fuel for that type of race and effort. And just being a student in the process is very humbling. and I have no problem. I've never had any problem admitting to like I don't know what I'm doing right now. Sure. And even going back into this Ironman prep, the last Ironman prep I did was 2020, 2021. I am relearning things that I haven't done in 4 or 5 years. So it keeps things very fresh and interesting, but it puts me back in that position of being a student. Learning something either for the first time or relearning it. And that for me makes things super interesting. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point because there is like there's the rabbit hole you can go down, especially if it's brand new, like high rocks where like, like if you redo a marathon, you can go down some new rabbit holes, I'm sure. But you've gone down a lot of those already. But High Rocks is totally new. And then there's that whole process of just kind of immersing yourself in a very new community and building something around it. So do you find that now that, you know, VPN is so big and your brand is so big when you jump into something like that? Does it feel like there is like a wave of momentum that comes with you into that sport? If it's small enough, I guess. Well, even if it was relatively big, I think there would probably be a big enough wave of momentum to be noticeable. But do you kind of feel that when you do those things? For sure. Yeah, and I say this very humbly, but I think a good example is like Leadville 100. Leadville 100 for me was a race that I knew of for many, many years. And I would put my name in the lottery and my name didn't get picked. And then in 2021, it was actually when I was in my last Ironman prep, in the middle of it, I found out that my lottery ticket got pulled. So I had the opportunity to run Leadville that year, and I really didn't know much about the race. I knew it was like this famous, respected, very challenging foot race, you know, a hundred miles through the Rocky Mountains of Leadville, Colorado. But when we created the doc around that race and, you know, we showcased the entire process, I know there was like a whole new level of exposure to Leadville 100. and then kind of the same thing with high rocks, like all these sports and all of these competitions, they are massive on their own. But I think one of the things that we can do with my platform and VPN is showcase it and tell a story in a different way, and maybe someone who hasn't been familiar with that style of training or that race or that competition, showing them like this type of thing exists. When I was younger, I did not know 100 plus mile races even existed, right? Yeah. Growing up in central Pennsylvania, no one was running that I knew of 100 plus mile races. Yeah. And then to find out, there's this race. It's 100 miles. It starts at 10,000ft of elevation. Which just sounds impossible. So I think there's a lot of people out there in the world that don't know these things exist. And we can use these platforms to introduce them to these experiences that can be life changing and transformational. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a couple examples of that exact thing. Sort of a first. Like when I got into ultrarunning, I knew so little about the sport. I ended up doing the Desert Solstice Track Invitational for the first time in 2013. So the sport was really just starting to get kind of popular again. I knew about the 100 mile distance, obviously, and I went to that race to see how fast over 100 miles. I found out at mile 90 that there was a 12 hour world record that I was on pace for. I didn't even know about it until 90 miles into the race, though. So I was like, there's like this whole element of, like the sport that I had no exposure to. No idea about that. Like had to be told to me, you know. Well into the race itself, that was, was actually an aspect of it. So yeah, there's a lot of uncertainty about the sport even within it. And then do you break the world record for that race? Yeah, I broke a world record that I didn't know existed when I started the race. So did you, you only found out about it at mile 90. Did you leave some in the tank up until mile 90? Do you think you could have gone faster if you would have known that early on? You know, I actually think it might have worked in my favor because my main goal was still to try to break the American record for 100 miles. So I was on pace for that. And I think at mile 90, I was on pace for like 1152 or something like that. And the current American record was like 1159. And the race director came up to me and said, I remember like right before he came up to me, I remember thinking, because you can see these lap splits every 400m. So I knew exactly where I was at, what my projection was. And I remember thinking like, I can't go a second per lap faster, but I can go this pace for the rest of the race. And that would have gotten me like, you know, something in the low 1150s, I think like 1152. What pace was that? that would have been like something about I was on pace for like a 706 or something like that at that point. But then he came and told me. There's a 12 hour world record that you're on pace for, so don't let off. And he also told me when you because they were assuming I was going to hit 100 miles before I got to 12 hours. So he's like, when you hit 100 miles, don't stop. Keep going, because you're gonna have time left to add to that 12 hours or to get to. You can add distance between when you hit 100 miles and could however far you go between that and 12 hours, because I would have just stopped at 100 miles otherwise because I had no clue the 12 hour record even existed. And so that kind of lit a fire under me, because now all of a sudden, I had been thinking about chasing this 100 mile thing, and you get mental fatigue from thinking the same thing all day long, and all of a sudden there's this other thing there, too. So I actually ended up speeding up to something like four seconds per lap, for basically the remainder of that race, because he gave me that information because before that, I was convinced I wasn't going a second faster in my mind. And I ended up running. 1147 versus what I was projected to get to at that point in time. And that one, I think was like a seven ended up being 700 for pace for 100 miles, and then I went 101 points. I think it was 101 points. Seven miles for 12 hours, which at the time was the world record for that. And that sort of launched me into this. Like, all right, I want to find really fast venues and see how fast I can actually run 100 miles. And then, you know, it took me like almost six years, but I got it down to 11, 19 and then 104.8 for 12 hours. But that was kind of like a defining piece of ultrarunning for me, was just kind of like learning that new area that I hardly knew existed before. At what point in a race like that does it get hard for you? it depends. I would say like there's a couple pinch points. I would say there's like a, there's a, there's a cognitive pinch point around 30 to 40 miles usually where I'm getting up to the duration of where I would typically do a single long run. And now it's like, you know, your mind kind of goes back to like those 2 or 3 months prior where that's usually where you stop and you got to kind of get past that point and be like, okay, no, today we're going much further. And you, you have to fight this battle of not thinking about the entirety of it at that point, because you just don't want to try to wrap your head around 60, 70 miles. At that point, you want to be thinking about what the next stage is. So that part is always like a little bit of a mental hurdle to get over. Sometimes 50 miles can be difficult just because, like, you can start running the thought experiment of, okay, that was too hard to do twice, and you don't want to be thinking of it like that. So that can be a challenge if I overshoot. Something or make a mistake where I'm not having the best day. 70 to 80 is a really tough spot physically, where I'm sure some interplay of mental, physical and probably nutrition and hydration all kind of culminating together. But you just get to this point where you're just like, I can't go any faster. And you know, that can, like, degrade pretty, pretty badly if you keep letting it kind of slow down and then say again, I can't go faster. And then before you know it, you're running a couple minutes per mile slower than your average pace and you're really grinding it out. So I've had a few like that to where it gets really hard there. But when they go, well, you can kind of, you almost can feel better during those phases too. Like, you see them as benchmarks that you checked off. And then you look at it and you're like, okay, I actually feel better than average here. I feel the way I should feel right here. And then that gives you kind of positive momentum. So it gets really hard to kind of tease out what is like, how much of that is mental, how much that's physical, how much of that is influenced by just hitting your fueling. Right. Your hydration. Right. Caffeine at the right time. So your mental state is in the right spot at the right time and things like that. But yeah, those would be kind of like the key spots, though from my experience, there are such levels too. Just like the amazing ability of the human body. Yeah. Human performance man. Like, as I think about running a hundred miles at that pace, it is almost. I mean, it is unfathomable to me. So as you're explaining that, I'm thinking, like, for you as this elite athlete who has conquered amazing goals, what is the most impressive, impressive physical feat you've watched someone else accomplish? Oh, that's a great question. There's a few that stand out, I would say. If we're looking a little more recently, Megan Eckhart ran. Was it 603 miles in six days, broke the women's world record for six days by, I think 42 miles or something like that. Just, you know, these multi-day things are just fascinating to me because for one, I haven't done one yet, so it's still kind of this, like, unknown territory. Do you want to? Yeah, I do. I'm going to get into it. I've dived into the history of it. Have you looked into the history of multi-day? Oh my God. Oh, yeah. See, this was another blind spot. I had to for a while. Where? Ultra running is like this. Really deep history dates back to the 1700s, and it got super popular in the late 1800s early 1900s where they were packing. What was Madison Square Garden at the time, just full of spectators like celebrities would go to watch. People would be betting, drinking, just having a good time, partying, watching these people running around this little loop for six days. And the six day thing came up because it was the longest duration they could have without infringing on on Sunday. So it's like, okay, we'll do our six days, then everyone's got to go to church. So it's kind of funny how these like numbers come, come to be. But the six day event was very popular. It was like the equivalent of your major sports nowadays where people were paying attention to these characters to the same degree. We would be like our NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball players are today. they were I mean, sport in general was different back then, but they would be from a prize money standpoint, they'd be making like, what was it? I'm trying to. Look, I had, there's a guy, Davy Crockett, who he's done, like, I think a dozen books now on the history of ultra marathoning and stuff like that. And he goes, I had him on the podcast a while back, and he goes into the weeds with this stuff. But yeah, they're making like millions of dollars in today's standard, just running ultramarathons. It's like so it sort of started to die off though in like the 1920s mainly, I think because of the bike. The bike was invented. And now all of a sudden it was like, well, we could watch these people slog around this track at four miles per hour, or we could watch these people on these bikes who are going to more likely crash than not at some point and are going 20mph. So that's sort of like the popularity of it. And then there was a lot of competition amongst the theater. and I think some of the religious organizations just like these things turned out to be like they were. You say ultrarunning today seems like this relatively wholesome. Like, I mean, it's masochistic, but it's all like self-inflicted stuff. Whereas, like, back then it was like poisoning your competition. Like, people are at these things getting drunk and like. Like just doing crazy stuff and truly being violent. Right. Yeah. So. So it was kind of maybe a little more frowned upon by some of some, some areas of society, too. So they got a lot of pressure from, like, theater from religious organizations and stuff like that as well, that I think kind of, you know, it was all kind of economy based stuff where you do these like six day events and people are going to go to one thing or another. So you're in competition to some degree with them, and you know that. And the bike and everything kind of whittled down to basically nothing now because, I mean, you hardly hear about six day events as much anymore. They're starting to get a little more popular now, but, to the degree they used to be like the premier event, and not just ultrarunning, but in sport in general is pretty mind boggling. So, just diving into the history of that stuff has gotten me interested in it. So I kind of want to try to do one at some point. I have a little bit of it. Conflicting goals in my head where it's like I'm 39 now, so I probably have a few years left where I could realistically still PR in the 100 mile before it's like, okay, you've done that enough, you've taken enough swings, you're not going to get any faster at this point. What your time was is focused on something different. And then so part of me is like, don't give up too much of that last bit of time. I probably have to maximize my 100 mile performance before getting into stuff that's probably definitely less speed dependent, and that I could argue that I could be just as good in my mid 40s late 40s as I would be in, you know, my age now. So part of me is just trying to be patient with it, too. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. What are you seeing in the sport of ultrarunning that is kind of transforming or revolutionizing performance? You know, one of the things we were talking about earlier is like this new high carb approach is something these athletes are taking. Is there something else that athletes are incorporating or using, whether nutrition wise, supplementation training protocols that's revolutionizing the sport that you're seeing? Yeah. Yeah. There's so much because like when the sport started to grow and continues to grow, we just knew so little about optimization. So there's like a like. All those things you mentioned have been all improving. You see now, like Western states end up becoming a pretty good spot to watch because it's so high stakes for athletes, coaches, brands that I paced. Sally. Yeah that's right. Yeah. So you've been out there. Yeah. Amazing experience. And every year it just ratchets up just in terms of how much you see at like Robinsons or I'm sorry at Forest Hill aid station that one at 100, 100 K where you start pacing and like. Yeah. So I would say things like heat training, proper cooling strategies during events, especially if even if heat's not apparent like at Western states, it's obvious you have to manage it because it could be 100 degrees in the canyons. But if you're doing a race that's 7075 degrees, heat management can be used effectively because ideally you'd be running in something cooler than that. So that's something I think that has moved the needle quite a bit. And that's like an intra race strategy as well. Maybe I should do some runs in heat for 60 to 90 minutes or hop in a sauna for 30 minutes after my training session to try to get the benefits from that. Another thing I think we're seeing with just the professionalization of the sport is people are putting themselves in positions to be more specific. More successful on the course is they're racing. So more people that are getting out on like Leadville cause a month or two in advance, or moving out to Chaminade to train on Ultra Trail Mont Blanc course prior to that race itself or, you know, training specifics to the course itself, have, I think, moved the needle a lot on performance, just training theory in general to where I think when I started the sport, it was just a lot of people running a lot. And then you kind of do some. You still see some of this, I think, like Courtney do Walter and Meg Eckhart, the person I was telling you just now who broke the world record, they seem to have pretty low key. They're training a lot, but it's not like, all right, I got this calendar, and on Tuesdays I'm doing VO2 Max. On Thursdays I'm hitting threshold intervals and then they're going on running a ton. And then when they feel good, they run fast. It is kind of their mold. But most people are getting a lot more specific with that. And they're, they're, they're training to speak. They're, they're training in a way that would be I'm going to make myself a really, really good runner. And then I'm going to use the final space of this training plan to really maximize my potential for the thing I'm actually doing. So that might look like 24 weeks out. I spent 16 weeks just becoming a really, really good runner, hitting some of those key improvement points at aerobic threshold, lactate threshold, VO2 max, leveraging that fitness into the specifics they're going to use on race day, and then putting in a ton of work specific to that. So on race day, they're ready for the the the specifics of it all while practicing the fueling and hydration that they're going to do, getting tasks so they actually know, like I lose this amount of electrolytes per liter of sweat versus somebody else, getting an idea of like, how much fluid can I process per hour? Or how much am I going to lose at different temperatures? They're just getting a little more precise versus a lot more guesswork, trial and error, with that sort of thing moving the needle quite a bit. and then strategy, I think one of the bigger movers we'll see coming up that hasn't hit hard enough yet is proper pacing. I still think that we get out a little too fast in some of these races. And, right now it sort of incentivizes that because we have some really fast runners in the sport now, and it just takes one person to go out and then it's like pulling everyone out a little bit. And then I think you have a scenario where you get ten, say you get ten guys who have the skill set to win a race if they all go out a little aggressive. You're going to get 2 or 3 of them that are probably going to have their best day, and they're going to run a really, really fast time. But I think to get to that, we remove a slight amount of optimization by staying like maybe within a couple percentage points of an even split. I think we're probably seeing a little further outside of that towards a positive split. That could improve times a little bit on some of them. It gets hard because these courses are varied in terrain and weather patterns changing things. So it's not as exact as when I get on the track at the Pettit Center where temperatures are 55 degrees all day, the loop doesn't change, the lighting doesn't change that. You can really see the pace varying from one mile to the next cleanly. But I think pacing is going to be another thing that gets better or has been getting maybe a little better, but has a good chance to make some noticeable improvements if it continues to get better. Although I think when you get into the multi-day stuff now, that sort of shifts a little bit because now pacing has a component of sleep variable in this, and this I think we're seeing in these last man standing races, which is another topic I wanted to talk to you about. This is a perfect transition. Did you have interest in it last month? Yeah, absolutely. So I had, you come to ask next? Yeah, I think I want to, I think I think I'm gonna sign up for it. If it works out, I think that would be a fun one to do. We're gonna move it to April of next year. Okay. Cool. So, a little better weather. It'll be a little cooler. Yeah. Which was, That might not be good, though. Then it's longer. It should be longer. You know, it's interesting. Chad, right? Came out and did it earlier this year. Yeah. And he showed up and he came over and we were talking, and Chad showed up in a long sleeved shirt. He had a big hat on that was covering his neck. and he was like, hey, Nick, you see all these people out here? You got these guys over here shirtless. This guy, sleeveless shirt. Everyone's exposed. Yeah. He's like, this heat's gonna crush people. Which it did. so just like Chad was, was smart enough, and he had the experience to know that. For him to be less affected by the heat. Especially for Central Texas. Late May very little like tree coverage. He was wearing long sleeves, shirts and hats that covered the majority of his head and body to protect himself from the heat and the sun. Yeah, which is a great strategy, but those style races are amazing. I would love to see you throw down at ours. Yeah, I got really curious about it because I had Phil Gore on just recently, I think actually just last week. And he just broke the world record 119 yards, which is just one lap under five days. And I had Sam Harvey who I think was out crewing at your event. He was crewing Kendall. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So he came on prior to that and was because he was part of that group that really, I think, put the last man standing stuff on the map a little bit within the ultra community, because Sam, Phil Gore, Sam Harvey and Harvey Lewis, I think there was one other person in that group, blanking on who it was, but, They just threw down. And like, I think they all went past the prior world record and people were just mind boggling by it. So I'm like, I got to learn more about this because my first thought with these things was like, the cool thing about it is, it kind of feels like at first glance, it takes the speed component out where you could be the fastest guy on. I mean, your event maybe showed this a little bit. You got like, I mean, Mitch did great, obviously, but he didn't win and Mitch was probably the fastest runner in that group I would imagine. Yeah. Easily. So it's like Mitch is 216. Marathon ability doesn't necessarily do him any favors in the sense that he doesn't need to be that fast to finish the loop with plenty of time to spare. So my first thought was like, okay, well, you could just be a grinder and do like 50, 55 minutes and then you get someone who could just go at a similar intensity and finish in 40, 45 minutes. It doesn't really do a whole lot of favors. But then after talking to Sam Harvey and Phil Gore, they're like, no, here's the thing. Like, this becomes like, that was the original theory. And that was kind of where we got to some early milestones. But then when we really pushed it beyond and got to like day four and where he had it up to where he finished. You know, you have to. The crazy thing about these is you need two people, right? Or because it ends as soon as the last second, the last guy drops out. So, Phil was telling me he thought he could go for a whole nother day when Sam dropped out at dead Kalgoorlie a few weeks ago. And he said the reason why is because the way he sets his up is he does slow laps during the day. So like 50, 55 minutes. So he still has time to eat, get his stuff, foot care, make sure there's nothing that's going to, you know, sabotage him that way. But then at night he goes faster. He goes like 40 minutes or quicker. And then banks ten, 15 minutes naps each lap. So then every night he's getting like a couple hours of sleep and net over the course of that time. And he's like, that really adds up when you get into days three four and up next to five. And he's like, that's what I think is really going to let us get into some of those really longer days that we'll end up seeing eventually with more competitive pressure and more event opportunities and things like that. So I found that really interesting. That and that kind of brings a little bit more of the speed component back into it too, because if you're going to commit to ripping 40-35 minute laps consistently on day three overnight. You've probably got to have at least a decent amount of speed. You can't be just a complete slugger. that can just go forever. But it does kind of blend that a little bit still, too. It doesn't take, you know, there's less of a speed component for it, but there's also the sleep deprivation side of it. The other thing Phil shared with me is his foot care routine, where he starts out every 12 hours, he does a full foot bath just to make sure there's no extra little sand in there and things like that. And then he titrated that down to eight hours as he went on to the degree where after his most recent one, his feet were pretty much the same condition as they were when he started. So he's like, I identified that as a spot that was going to potentially pull me out of the race if I don't take care of it. So I made sure I took care of it. And yeah, so it's, it's just there's so many moving parts. Yeah. It was so interesting to witness, because like, like you said, you need two runners to really push that race. Yeah. And I think Mitch dropped out, I want to say our. 30, maybe. and it went an additional 26 hours after Mitch dropped out. Just between two runners, Kendall and Kim. And those guys kept pushing each other. I mean, they would toe the line every hour on the hour, looking just as fresh. And we were fully prepared for that race to go. A whole nother day. But you could tell because Sam Harvey was Kendall's coach. There was a lot of strategy built into their plan. So as soon as Kendall would come across, the start finish line. I can't remember exactly when he was typically coming in. Maybe 50 minutes per loop throughout the night. They would pull this air mattress up to the start finish line. Yeah. And he would literally cross the line, face plant down into the air mattress. They'd put earplugs in his ears. They'd cover his eyes up. They let him sleep for five minutes. He'd wake up. They'd force feed food into his mouth and send him out on another loop. So there was a really strong sleep strategy built into Kendall's plan. Yeah. And then Kim didn't necessarily have that built in. His family was screwing him. He actually fell asleep on the course. I was wondering about that. If that would be a strategy. If you don't get in in time to take a nap, if you just say, all right, I'm gonna. I guess you probably need some sort of alarm to wake you up, but you could take a nap and you just gotta start, right? You don't have to be moving at the same pace the whole way. Yeah. He is literally out on the course. I can't remember what hour it was deep into the race. He sat down for one second and fell asleep, and then he barely made it across the start finish line for that next loop he was sprinting in to get across. But those guys like there, I mean, there's so many factors, as you know, like your stomach has to hold up over the course of that race especially, we had 96, 97, 98 degree days. It was hot. So the heat was beating down on them, staying on top of hydration and sodium balance and then foot care. Like for me personally, my feet are always the first to go. I have soft feet. Yeah, they're always wrecked. Like I haven't done an ultra in years. My toes are still wrecked. I still wrecked my last ultra in 2023. Like they just don't. They're like they're permanently on this point. But there's so many factors. I mean, you're just problem solving the entire way through a multi-day effort. But watching those guys just toe the line hour after hour after hour, it was insane to watch and witness. And ultimately, what ended that race was this huge storm that came in. Yeah, through central Texas and just completely crushed our course, our tents, everything ended so fast. Yeah, yeah. It was like biblical weather. I remember that well. And that's like. That's another thing. I wanted to talk to you about this specifically because it was like it was so interesting because we've seen this interest. It kind of goes back to what we're talking about before with just the growth of the sport and how and why it grows and who and what are bringing in new participants and new communities into the sport that weren't there originally. And one of it's the media stuff where, like now , you have YouTube channels that are just live streams. There is a whole media side of that company now that goes out to a bunch of races and just does a pretty good live production. Like Western States. This year was a noticeable upgrade in terms of what it looked like from a spectator standpoint that wasn't actually at the event until now. Like I would say, like up until maybe last year, you were way better off being at the event to experience it. Now, I think if you're going to be out there at the event you want to experience, it's so I mean, you know, you were there like it's just a unique experience, but you're missing out if you're not watching the live stream now because there's so much cool stuff and so much stories that are developing. If you're able to kind of tune into that and they can actually get to the runners and the crew and stuff. And the thing about yours that was really interesting was it just blew up on Instagram. It blew up. Yeah. We haven't seen that from a race organization standpoint where like Instagram Ram was the outlet that worked for it because it almost seems wrong, like in the sense that it would be a mismatch. You have these events that last forever. You have a platform that incentivizes short form. So but then with the nature of that event where it's like people kind of want to see the start and the finish of each lap and then be held in suspense or be fed some cool, interesting quick clip stories along the way. And you guys had it set up so perfect where you went live at the start, you went live at the finish. And so we got to see that kind of like, who's going to make it in, who's going to start going out. And then in between those laps there'd be clips and stories and things popping up from the VPN account, as well as some of the participants of just random stuff that had happened in between in the lab. So you sort of got that whole picture and short form version where there was like, I think there was like 30,000 people viewing one of the lives on, on, on the VPN Instagram page at one point. So it was like right up there with some of the top media viewership stuff that we see in Western states. And Coca-Cola is another one that's blown up recently. From a media standpoint. Utmb is probably still the biggest. But yeah, it was like right up there. I knew it was going to be big as we were preparing for it, just because we put a lot of planning and preparation into this race. This year it was our first year having the ranch. We invested a lot of time and resources into building out the ranch and the course and really refining it and getting it set up. But if you would have asked me before the race started, I would have said the biggest return on that whole race for us from a company perspective and media was going to be the doc that we're launching September 5th. I didn't think that the race would go viral while it was happening. I think we weren't prepared for that. Yeah, we didn't think so many people would tune in. I mean, I was getting sent photos from people I haven't talked to for a decade saying that we're having a watch party at our house tonight where they, like people, invited friends over, ordered pizza and put it on their TV to watch the race. And we were documenting the whole race through, but we actually weren't planning on doing a live stream. But as we launched the race, it started becoming more popular. I mean, we gained 50,000 Instagram followers in 72 hours. Yeah, all these people were begging for live streams. So Trey Freeman, who runs Communication and Social for BP when he was just running around on the phone on Instagram Live because it was a pivot that we just decided to implement during the race and tens of thousands of people were tuning in. So it was a huge win for the brand. It was, I would argue, the first time we ever went viral with any sort of marketing event or campaign or event. But what's so awesome about going viral in this sense is that, like, we went viral for something that's so closely tied to our brand. Go on Mars. Our tagline the race is called Going more. The last man standing race is the definition of going one more. So it was very closely aligned with our mission and what we're about. But it made us really think about next year. Like how do we do this even better? How do we do this? You know, how do we create the same sort of level of interest and impact and respect the sport, respect the style of race that it is, but do it bigger and larger? Yeah. Yeah. I've been talking to Harvey, Louis. And I'm like, we're trying to get him out for next year's race. So I think the level of athletes that are there next year, I'd love for you to be there. I think this race is potentially going to break records. Yeah, I think I have to be there now. Yes. I can't say no. It's just one of those races. Dude, I threw my first, last love. If you were there. Okay, I'll, I'll soft commit right now. It's in April. April. Okay. Yeah, that should work. And it's gonna be a big one. Yeah. It'll be too fun to be, not be part of. I'll regret not doing it. I think it's got to be one of those situations, so. Cool, man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the other thing I thought that was really interesting about about that particular event too, was it goes kind of back to what we were talking about before, where, you know, when you were talking about you did Leadville and then, you know, people got interested in Leadville that maybe wouldn't otherwise. I'd put like campaigns in the same department here where it's like you brought in like this huge group of people from, like, the hunting community into ultrarunning that maybe weren't as invested into it as, like a parallel to what they were doing. I mean, I still get people that sign up for coaching and I'll have on the intake form, it'll be like, oh, like, you know, what race do you want to do? Why do you want to do it? And I'll get them. They'll be like they got into Leadville and learned about it from Nick Beyer. And this is like what year was it when you did Leadville like 20 2121. Yeah. So four years ago. And that's still like feeding people into that event. So I mean, and to kind of connect it with the VPN, Last Man Standing was like that got such media attention within the sport. I think it caught people by surprise because like, we're the more traditional ultrarunning venues. That and then the media outlets that typically cover them, they weren't involved in it at all. So it's like. It was just like, how did it get that big? And, you know, and I think they're like, I remember there were conversations around, are we having like, is this sport going in like a bunch of different directions where it's not like there's really no uniform like this. This is where we go to get our ultra news or something like that. Not that it's ever really had that level of uniformity, but it's gotten more consolidated. I would say, over the years, whereas this was like a whole new picture where the no one expected it to happen, whereas usually now, like if the thing is going to have a big live stream, you kind of see it bubbling up in the weeks beforehand to the degree that like, people are getting ready to watch it and stuff like this. this one was like a new cast of characters, right? Like a lot of the people at That Last Man standing, they weren't like, oh, they were seventh at Western States or fifth at Utmb or at, at, Big's backyard or something like that. So it was like a different group of participants and then like a different media outlet to just making a huge splash with a relatively new event, too, because the last Man Standing stuff hasn't been around for that terribly long, just in general. So it's just kind of shows like how much opportunity there is within, like the vast space that is ultra running to like grow something, build something, promote something, and then share it with people to the degree where like tons of people find out about something, that there will be people now that know of ultra running because of VPN and last Man Standing. Yeah. And ten years ago, that wouldn't even be possible because last man standings weren't even happening. And like, how big was VPN ten years ago compared to today? Probably not big enough to like, draw people into ultra running anyway. Tiny. Yeah, yeah. Well, I came across the last Man Standing style race, actually, from Jesse Hitler years ago, and I watched him. He signed up for and was the last man standing in Pylon Farms, Maine. And back then I thought that was the only last man standing race. So in 2023 I signed up for the Pylon Farms last man standing race. Yeah. Because I thought again that it was the only last man standing race. I didn't know it was like this thing across the world. Right. Yeah. So I signed up and I ran 100 miles and. It was just as equally hard as it was mentally hard. It was a completely different experience of race compared to Leadville 100 and then Rocky Raccoon. You know, I did Rocky Raccoon. I worked with you. Yeah, you do that. But the last man standing in Pineland Farms, Maine. That was transformational for me. Like, I fell in love with it because it was so closely tied. Like I said, to go one more. And one thing I want to be very clear about is that, you know, when we host these races or even when we show up to races and competitions, we never want to make it the VPN show or even like the Nick bear show. We want to truly respect and honor the competition, the race. So when we hosted the go in more Ultra in May, our team worked really hard to make sure that we're going to honor and respect the race and the style and the runners and and everything throughout that. And I'd say we were very successful at that. My fearsome time is when we host these races, or we bring attention to these styles of races or competitions as other brands or companies see that success. They try to replicate it, but they don't honor and respect the style and the sport as it is. They turn it into their thing just to monetize. Yeah, yeah. That's something we're always very careful about. Now that's a good point because yeah, I mean, I watched basically the whole thing while I was awake and there wasn't really any advertising. I mean, it was on the VPN Instagram page, but it wasn't like after every clip, get your go get you get your gel, you know, there was none of that. So like a lot of brands have hit us up post race to sponsor next year's race. Oh really? Yeah. So they want in. They want in. But we want to keep it very raw, real disruptive. Yeah. Honor and respect the race as it is. Yeah yeah it's a cool setup I think it's now on people's calendars. I'm sure that I probably didn't know about it beforehand. So that's really cool. It's kind of got a similar feel to like the Speed project where it's one of those things where like it kind of like popped up out of nowhere and then now it's got like a ton of momentum behind it, but it's still trying to kind of keep the same like energy originally had of kind of no rules. We'll tell you when we're going to launch it, when we tell you and all that sort of stuff. The Speed project is fun. I did that 1 in 2020. Three, I believe it was, and that was a great experience. Yeah. But again, like, super disruptive start to this. Have you done it before? I did the year before you I think 2222 I think yeah, it's a wild experience. It is just like the energy at the Santa Monica pier. And they're yelling that chant. Yeah. And cops are rolling in and trying to break it apart, and everyone just disperses and in a million different directions. Yeah. That was such an energetic experience, huh? Like, those are the moments that I live for. You know, if we look at races in general, it's kind of boring, right? Like, they start really high and then you settle in, you realize it's going to be a long process and then you just kind of work through. Yeah, the journey. But there's always these highs like one of the greatest highs I've ever had from a race. When I towed the line at the California International Marathon in 2023, you know, it's early in the morning and that's a point to point race. They bust you out at the start line. And I was standing at the starting line just thinking about the next 26.2 miles in every mile in my pacing strategy and my fueling strategy and just controlling my heart rate. And I was standing at the starting line, shaking with so much energy and so focused, I didn't see anyone to the left of me, to the right of me, behind me, in front of me. I didn't hear anything. It was just like this, this mute, buzz in my ear and that amount of intentionality and focus and clarity you just can't create out of nowhere. It has to be built. And when you're prepared for something and you go into it, you're about to enter it. It's like this thing that you only get to experience so many times, and it's absolutely incredible. Yeah, yeah, I know you hit it on the head. I think the other interesting thing with the Speed project is just for me, that was the first event I did that wasn't like, all right, you start and you keep going and you really don't stop, other than for maybe like a brief aid station or bathroom break or something like that, where we had it set up, where we had three groups of, two, I'm sorry. Two groups of three, and we would leapfrog each other. So you'd have like these? Like two, sometimes almost three hour breaks while the other group was on en route. So it's like you could sleep and you could stay hydrated and you could stay fueled. So we got to that last 20 mile stretch where it's like there's a gradual downhill on the roads and we're just ripping so fast. I was like, man, how are we still running this fast? After all of that? You'd think there'd be more attrition than what there was. But with just the nature of how that thing is set up and the incentives of getting like how to structure the relay setup and things like that is that's a really cool event too. Yeah. We were doing one mile segments that lasted like 20 plus miles. Yep, along the road. And we were holding at a six minute per mile pace. Yeah. Just cooking in Vegas. We had a really interesting experience at the speed project where we plan to get on to the power line route. of course, to save some mileage. but we had to get on that route earlier than we expected because there was a detour on that highway. Oh, yeah. So we got on power lines maybe like 15 to 20 miles prior to planning, and the map and the route didn't reflect where we were heading. We got super lost. Oh, yeah. Super lost in the middle of the night. Finally got back on course, and it was a dumpster fire. but got back on course. Got through it. So it was a journey, for sure. Yeah, it's. I'm curious how you guys strategized it. I know, like, when I did it, I just got lucky. I was like, I got asked. Ultra footwear was launching a shoe that they wanted to do a bunch of promo stuff with, and they're like, hey, you want to do the speed project? We're putting a team together. I'm like, sure, why not? So they did like all the planning and everything. I just had to show up and run, and they hired somebody to go out there like, well in advance to kind of, well, this person already had a route because she was associated with the event. So she kind of knew, like generally the fastest route that you could go through the power line. But then it got so complex to the degree where she'd go out there. The weeks leading up to look at which spots on the power line have the least amount of ATV tracking, because those ATVs get out there and they create almost like wakes on the or like, I guess, like they'd be kind of like, like if you're skiing like moguls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, you got to take a Jeep through there in order to relay your runners. So it's like if you find well, and you have to run over it too. So it's like you want to cut the course as short as possible, but you also want to avoid the harshest terrain if you can. So some of it was like literally trying to figure out which one of these routes is going to be the least trafficked by the ATV vehicles. Yeah. Weeks leading into the race. And it's just like, man, that's like such a level of like logistical planning that goes on top of, like some of the shoe brands are probably the big ones that put together the teams that are doing that sort of thing. Oh, it's just as much a logistical operation as it is a race. So we had someone who knew the race or had done the race prior to that was part of our team on our media side. So they helped us build out the skeleton of the route we were going to take. But then it ended up being my responsibility, which wasn't the initial plan. But once we started the race, they kind of just fell into my lap. Yeah, that I was going to guide the runners and I was going to guide the RV's in the vehicles turn by turn, and we were heading. So I'd go run my segment, come back into town in a chair, plant the map. and then pull up like Strava. And I was reflecting on where we were at based off of where we were trying to get to. so I really didn't sleep at all because I was either navigating and directing or running. Which ended up being a lot. Yeah. That is a lot because I remember I got really motion sick on one of the power line segments overnight where it was like I was just like when we finished that segment, I was just like, man, I just cost us a ton of time. Just like stumbling around out there. And I just, like, passed out for like, two hours, maybe even a little longer than that and woke up and was, like, totally reset. It was perfectly fine from there on for. But without that, I don't know what my state of performance would have been like. So yeah, if you're not able to sleep or you have another job on the side, then you got a little bit of extra going for you. That's what I'm finding for me as an athlete, because I'm not a professional athlete, and being an athlete isn't necessarily my main job, but I could argue that's part of my job. I love endurance training. I love endurance races and competitions. But for me, it's not trying to and has never been trying to be the best triathlete possible or trying to be the best marathoner possible, or trying to be the best ultra runner possible. But it's this passion I have of endurance training and then learning how I can apply it to different experiences. You know, if I look at the last eight years of my life, 2018, I've got to experience ultras and the Rocky Mountains. I've got to experience triathlons and Iron Man's, in Mexico and then, you know, in Florida and then marathons. And, you know, it's taken me to different places. Speed projects, clear examples. Yeah. Like just these different experiences that you can apply your fitness to. That can be both physically, mentally and emotionally challenging and taxing. And, you know, the speed project is a really good example where. When I did the speed project, I was six years removed from the military. I transitioned out of the Army in 2017, but being back in that speed project kind of environment, you're with a team. I'm working on a map. I'm trying to move an element across a certain distance to get to a certain objective. It took me back to when I was in the Army leading a platoon, and I only could have experienced that again through endurance training in the sport and the competition. So it's taking me to different places and experiences that I would have never been able to if I wanted to have started running seriously in 2018. Yeah, yeah. No, you're. Yeah, that's exactly my experience. That is just like I think back now. It's just like when I first got in the sport. And you would like to travel internationally for a race or something like that, and you'd take it seriously, you know, do the sightseeing and all that stuff. And it was like, it's one of those things where it was fun and motivating at the time, but it's even more fun and motivating. Looking back at it now, I'm thinking, wow, I got to do that because of this. because I chose to focus on ultramarathons of all things. But yeah, the team aspect thing too is interesting, and I wonder if that will have any sort of growth. I've there's been attempts at it in the past that haven't really panned out, but like for me, I've been on the USA's Hunter K World Championship team three times and it's just nothing like it. It's like you get all the, like, interesting stuff about running an ultramarathon, but you have this extra thing of like, okay, there's people that are also depending on me staying on track. And, you know, my performance is impacting them too. And you get that extra thing similar with the speed project where I want to slow down right now. But, you know, like, I just got to get this up to this next person because they're counting on me getting there. And yeah, and I just wonder, like, how do we I wonder how the sport would, like, deliver that sort of experience at a broader scale, because it's like only so many people are going to get on world championship teams or get into the speed project and be able to kind of experience those things. You think there's maybe an opportunity within the sport to try to share that side of the experience with more people. Do you do much training with other people or is it typically solo? It's a lot of solo, but I notice that if I do that for too long, I start craving some company when I'm running and things like that. So then I'll like to jump in with a group and run for a bit and stuff like that. So there's a balance there. I think, you know, I ran in college, in high school and that was like everything with a team. And I like that for periods of time. But I always did like when summer would come up and then, okay, I have this block of time right now, I can train on my own and you can just really focus on not doing what the group is doing, but doing what you need for a little bit of time. But, I think there's probably a good way maybe for me, like an 80 over 20 balance of solo training to like, training with someone else or with a group. Yeah, most of my training is done solo. If I'm in a big training block, I have found like on Wednesdays it's going to do my speed work. It's either tempo or critical velocity on the track. I'll occasionally go train with Jeff Cunningham's crew. Sure. And all of those runners are so much faster than me, and I will be cooked after one of those workouts, but it pushes me, yeah, significantly. And that's where I really started learning how to become faster. But my most successful marathon prep ever. Every workout, every run was done solo. That was when we were living in Nashville for the California International Marathon. Even my speed workouts, like my track days, weren't done on a track. It was done on a road. You just find a 800 meter segment and you go back and forth. Yeah. Ten times. Yeah, yeah. So that's how I trained for that race. But for me, I personally enjoy training solo. That's where I'm doing a lot of my thinking. It's where I get a lot of clarity into my thoughts and planning for the day. And that's like me time. Yeah, for the day too. Yeah. Well. And you got it. You know, you got a wife, kids. And how many employees does VPN have now like you're dealing with? I shouldn't say dealing, but you're engaging with people probably nonstop. So like, when you do train, I bet that probably feels a little bit like. All right, this is a chance just to kind of like, quiet all of that for a moment of time. I mean, I'm yeah, I'm naturally an introvert too. So you need it to recharge in my alone time. You know, we were just on family vacation two weeks ago, and it was my wife's side of the family and some of my side of the family. And for a week, it was. It was no alone time. Huh? which was a great realization for me or for me to be the best version of me possible. I need a little, just me time. Yeah, because that's where I recharge. Uh-Uh. And for some people, it's the opposite. Like some people recharge as an extrovert with other companies. Yeah, yeah. But for me, like, especially engaging with people and calls and meetings all the time at work. Like if I don't get that, just me alone time, which is typically when I'm training, it puts me into a different energy headspace. That isn't the best version of me. Yeah, it is interesting because I would say, like, Nicole and I talk about this all the time because we both have similar tendencies. I think in terms of how much like a person , like group atmospheres we want, like what is our total like if you could put a number on it, like what percentage of time do you want to be spending with groups versus by yourself? We're pretty close in that. But for me it's like I could go like a week or two, just total hermit monk mode and then all of a sudden spend like three days with a big group of people and be like, just totally satisfied with that. Whereas she's kind of more like, all right. Like, I, I can, I can grind for like a day, maybe a two by myself. But then I need a brief exposure point to a group of people for like a couple hours. Then I want to go back. So she kind of needs smaller, more frequent inputs. And I can do longer stretches and then bigger bonuses. And it's always kind of fun to just kind of find the balance between two people when you have similarities and those differences in that, in that side of things. But it's interesting. I was just listening to a podcast about this. I'm curious about your thoughts, because there's differences between like spending time with a community that is your people, you know them, you're familiar with them. And then there's, you know, the separate case study of just spending time with anyone, which could be a group of people who you aren't super familiar with, but it's just a social interaction that provides you energy. Yeah. Have you found that it's either one or the other? Is it just being around people or or your people? Oh, yeah. That's a great question. I think where my personality ends up going with that is if it's someone I really know well and I already have a good amount of like just banked experience of like, this is what this is going to be like, then I think I can. I don't necessarily want a shorter period of time with them, but I can get what I need out of it in a shorter period of time. Whereas if it's a group of people where I'm unfamiliar, I sort of warm up and then like, I can spend a lot of time with them, but it's like I'm going to get more and more excited about the experience. I'm going to be more happy that I decide to do it the further into it I get. Yeah, if that makes sense. So like, yeah, I might think that that's probably the biggest difference between the two. So to some degree I like to know that about myself. So it's like it's an environment where I'm less aware of the group. Then I kind of almost say, okay, you need to put yourself in this full scale versus just trying to, like, dip your toe in and then leave because the fun part is going to be once you've kind of gotten comfortable in there, and that's just going to take a little bit more time. Yeah, yeah, I'm similar in a sense. I enjoy spending time with people when I have the ability to go deep into conversation, whether it's someone I know very well or someone I'm just meeting for the first time. Yeah, I typically like, go, not like deep, meaningful conversation. But I want to talk about some, like, some meaty stuff. Something fun. Yeah. Fun. Like right away and, you know, one of my favorite things to do. Me and my wife both are going to dinner and we'll come into Austin and we'll go. Go on to dinner with another couple or some friends and, you know, just spend time. Literally breaking bread and having meals with people and just having a really. Great conversation. That's not surface level, but it's it's it's. Exploring curiosity as an interest and learning about people and their backgrounds and what they're doing for work and all these things that fills my cup a lot. Like I leave feeling energized. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is fun stuff. I think too, I think I think some of it is true. Just like putting yourself in a position where there's a routine there, and this is something that I think we probably could do a better job of, is just like, it sounds like you have that where like you go out on a certain night every week and just kind of say, okay, this is what we're doing. And then you've got that kind of built into the schedule. Yeah, we had our weekly date night. There you go. Yeah. Date night. The kids are getting watched. And then, we typically drive into Austin because it's where all the food spots we want to check out. Yeah, right. But it's time every week where, like, it's built in, we know we're gonna get some quality time together. And, we try to do it weekly, but, you know, things change. Especially when I'm in prep. It's probably not as fun for my wife because I'm extremely dialed. Yeah. So I'm more intentional about where we're going to eat and yeah, I'm not really, you know, having that glass of wine with dinner. Just very focused. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. The seasons probably impact that to some degree. So for sure. Cool. Anything interesting coming up with VPN? Any new stuff or. I know April I guess is the big return of The Last Man Standing. Yeah. We're gonna host, so we have, like, three marquee events every year. So this fall, we're going to have a 50 mile overnight ultra on the ranch. Okay. Yeah, yeah. You guys have done that one before, I think. Yeah. Yeah, we called it, Survive the Night. and then in January. In February, we are the nutrition sponsor of the Austin Half Marathon. Austin full marathons will do a huge activation around that. We were the main nutrition sponsor of the Austin Marathon last year, which we have a great partnership with, with that crew and that team. and then we'll host the ultra again in April. So we're going to launch the lottery early to mid September. The going more ultra doc from 2025. That happened two months ago. that goes live September 5th. And then a week after that, we're launching the lottery for that race. And then we'll kind of be ramping up in preparation for that. But this fall, I mean, what's interesting about our business, because we've changed so much since the origin in 2012. You know, we started as a bodybuilding powerlifting supplement company. Over the years, have evolved to now being strictly an endurance focused brand. Yeah. We used to experience seasonality. Like most health supplement companies, January or February. Oh, yeah. But since shifting towards endurance, and I'd say serving more of a committed, dedicated endurance consumer base, we don't experience seasonality in January or February like we used to. It's now summer and fall as people are ramping up for the main race season, or at least marathon season. Yeah. So the fall for us is really busy because sales increase and it's marathon season. So we're extremely active within the community races, our athletes. So we're about to enter a pretty busy season. Yeah, yeah, it is interesting how that shift would take place. So that's cool though. Yeah. The Austin Marathon looks that's I still haven't done the Austin Marathon despite being here for like three versions of it. So maybe I'll try to jump into that one too. I'm biased. It's my favorite race because it was my first marathon ever okay. Yeah. And there's just so much history behind that race and me falling in love with running and endurance training. But of all the races I've done, all the marathons, I'd say any type of race. The energy of the Austin Marathon is unmatched. Huh? I love it. I think it's incredible. But we're coming off a crazy busy summer. You know, we moved into a new HQ, so that was a big project. We had the ultra, we launched a new product called, Sport Plus, and then, working on this doc, and it was a crazy summer. So now we're kind of settling in for kind of just some normalcy after the madness of the summer of 2025, my book launch. So like that, on top of all those things, it was a crazy summer for us. Yeah, it's hard to believe there's not three of you, although there probably technically is with all the, the, the different just like, partnerships you have with your employees and things of build helping build stuff out. But I have a solid team. I'm extremely grateful for our team. We have 45 ish full time employees at our HQ in Round Rock. But one of the things that I've had to, I think, has been a strength my entire life for most of my life is time management. But since getting married and then having kids like my, my daughter will be, you know, she just turned three actually last week. My son turns one in August. So two young kids. and then running a business. I've, I've had to learn how to become extremely efficient with my time. Sure. And I think that one of my greatest strengths now is just learning how to be a manager of my time and being extremely consistent. But it's just these small refinements over, over time. I wish there were three of me. Yeah. I do, but unfortunately there's just one right now. But I have a really solid team to be grateful for. Yeah. You could have that swim workout done and this podcast recorded. That'd be nice. That'd be nice. The swim. I'm actually, like, learning to enjoy. Not the pool. but open water. Yeah. Because the lifetime here is in Austin. The one off breaker. Yeah. The domain. I don't know if you know this, but they have a quarry. Oh, yeah. Yep. Yeah. That's right. Amazing. So it's just for swimmers and, like, paddle boarders. No one's ever in it. So I'll go do all my open water swimming there. It's the only lifetime in, I believe, North America that has a quarry or a lake as part of their membership. And I love doing open water swims, which is nice because obviously Ironman Arizona, it's a, it's a river swim. and it's gonna be cold enough so I can wear a wetsuit. Just float. But I enjoy open water swims. I can kind of just like. My mind goes away kind of like a, you know, an easy morning run. And you forget your swimming and you can just think and I get lost in it. So I enjoy that. The pool. Not so much. Gotta worry about hitting the wall and flipping. I don't do flip turns. I have not matched the flip turn especially after taking five years off from swimming. Yeah, so I just touch the wall, go back down, touch the wall, go back down. Huh? But I actually do enjoy, like, the open water swimming. Yeah, yeah. That's right, I had forgotten that they had that up there. When we first moved here we were renting kind of up north of Austin and were lifetime members of lifetime. and I think I went to that spot and I saw that I never actually used it, but I thought it was kind of a unique setup. It's cool. It's clean. They have, like, docks and buoys and it's like the coolest thing that I've come across. I mean, it's massive too. Yeah. Awesome. Well, perfect for triathlon. Are you? Are you biking outside then or. No. Most of my biking right now is just on the trainer. Yeah, I find I can get a much more efficient workout within the timespan that I have. Yeah, yeah. And in our new HQ, I actually, I put a private door from my office. It was my only request. I have a private door from my office right in the gym. So I will get off a call and literally get off the call. Turn around, walk 20ft out of my door onto my bike, cycle for 90 minutes, get off. Walk back on a call. Back on a call. So like, it is the most time efficient. As we get deeper into this prep, I'll start doing some rides outside just to get used to it, just to get used to it. But for example, time management, Max, you know, maxing out time, I find that trainer is effective and efficient and also just safe. Yeah, I just, like, after getting hit by a car running. Yeah. trying to be low risk, right? As much as possible. Yeah. No doubt. Yeah. And, yeah, you can be so efficient on an indoor trainer too, because it's like if you want a specific intensity, you don't have to worry about anything other than just hitting the pedals at the right stroke rate and all that stuff. So it's nice. Yeah. I just run Zwift, put it on erg mode. Right? Yeah. Like yesterday's workout was, it was a juicy one. It was a 90 minute session, but it was primarily focused on sweet spots. So there were two 20 minute intervals at 265W. And like, you know, towards the end of the 20 minute intervals. You are building up lactate in the blood. But it's getting clear just enough, right? So you can keep going, but you can feel that lactate just accumulating in that last five, six, seven, eight minutes. It's like, dude, come on, just clear. Just clear. So it was a good one though. Yeah, yeah. I just wish it saved me. It's so, so much fun to gamify it. That's what it is. It really does gamify it. Yeah, yeah. I'm sold. So cool. Good stuff. Triathlon coming up. VPN is doing everything and everything they can in the endurance world. Trying to. Trying to. Yeah. And then we got you coming to the go. One more. That's true. You got me to sign up 26. I've got my first race of 2026 on the calendar and I love it. Awesome. Nick. Well, where can people find you? Yeah, outside of just googling your name. YouTube. You know, I've been documenting my life on YouTube since 2014. So if you search Nick bear on YouTube, I have over a thousand videos now at this point. We've documented all the preps, all the races, building the business and really just my life as a whole. I host a podcast called the Nick Bear Podcast we release every Monday, and then on Instagram it's Nick Bear Fitness. Perfect. Well, I'll link all that stuff in the show notes, too, so listeners can, if they don't already know, head over and check out what's coming up. Appreciate, Zach. Thank you. Awesome. We'll have a great swim. Thanks, man. Take care.