Episode 454: Running Shoe Innovation | Todd Falker

Todd Falker is a life long runner, completing 100 marathons and FKT across Michigan (225mi/362k). He is the Product Lead at Puma. With his time at Puma, Todd has become a key member in growth and innovation, helping bring shoes testing at the peak of performance efficiency to market.

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Timestamps/Topics: :

00:00 Introduction, Sponsors & Show Overview

01:48 Guest's Running Background & Transition to Fatherhood

04:50 Balancing Training, Sleep, and Lifestyle After Becoming a Parent

09:00 Shifts in Motivation & Living Abroad

12:31 International Races and Finding New Motivation

16:14 Mountain Running Challenges vs. Flat Races

20:27 Handling Race Setbacks & Mental Approach

24:44 Ultramarathon Pacing Strategies and Training

29:54 Adjusting Training with Age and Injury

35:16 Approaching The Fall 50 and Racing History

37:50 Goal Setting and Pacing for Long Races

43:20 Pacing, Heart Rate, and Effort for Ultras

47:28 The Role of Walking Breaks in Ultra Performance

51:20 Choosing the Right Shoes for Long Races

56:00 Super Shoes: Efficiency, Training, and Adaptation

01:00:51 Shoe Technology, Adaptation, and Personal Experiences

01:05:12 Innovation in Running Shoe Foams & Materials

01:10:53 Market Trends: Stack Heights, Regulations, and Cushioning

01:16:56 Performance Limits, Rules, and The Future of Shoe Design

01:22:21 Reflecting on Racing, Motivation, and Life Balance

01:24:12 Where to Follow the Guest & Final Thoughts

01:25:12 Sponsor How-To's & Closing Remarks

Episode Transcript:

You're like a sneaker head outside of just your job, right? Everywhere. Everywhere. Yeah. I've got the collection. I actually put most of that in my basement in Boston, so, yeah. Awesome. Well, you're exploring dad's life these days, so that's got to be a pretty big shift in the lifestyle. I would imagine being a father and kind of trying to keep everything else going that was there prior. It's so funny. I was, Yeah. I mean, I was talking to a friend of mine just a little bit ago. I'm like, yeah, I can still get in good runs, but there's just like, not the same sleep, not the same recovery. And in theory, it's balancing those things out and then the cascade of being over 40 and then being like okay, wait, so how do I plan what training but then what recovery? And then like set realistic goals and maybe we can go into that a little bit as well because I, you know, I should probably hire you for your services at some point. But you know, maybe maybe we sneak in some, some free advice here, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Why not? We can do a little troubleshooting. It's funny, I run with a group here in Austin a few days a week, and one of the, one of the guys that I run with, Matt, he, he just had his daughter like a few weeks ago. So we always ask him about, hey, how is the sleep going so far? Matt. Yeah. Well, and actually, it was funny watching states because I think my daughter is maybe born the same day as Caleb Olson's. Okay. And really interesting hearing him talk about it being like, yeah, man, she was just in charge of the sleep. And like me, my Christine is doing the same thing, but, yeah. Yeah, it's a different thing. I mean, yeah, I, I will say I really, really like it though. but yeah, Alex is amazing, so. Have you found that your motivations have shifted at all? Like with training or anything like that, is there just anything? I don't know, I always find when I just reflect back on, like any training cycle I've done, it's fun to kind of think like, where was my like motivation from that time? What was drawing my attention or kind of getting me a little bit of extra juice that maybe was unique about that one versus other ones and things like that? Yeah. Can I also ask, like, have we already started recording or we're already going off? Yeah. We want to cover your life too. We don't want to just talk. No. Fair enough. All right, so we're kicking it off. Go for it. What? What we. What were you saying? Say it again. Yeah, I was just curious if, like, when you're going through your training and stuff like that, if you have any, like, new motivations and things now that you're a dad. And has that kind of changed, just like your perspective out there when you're kind of putting in the hard miles? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I moved to Europe about a year ago. and being on the older side of 40 now, like goal setting is, I don't know, somehow somewhere between like no point and I don't know, you know, there's so much to do. Like, the world is so big. and I've been lucky to live in a lot of places. East coast, West coast, in the middle was in Utah, even for a little bit. And one of the main motivations for myself and my partner is German Christina, but was to actually be able to come here and be able to do, you know, I've already done this year Chianti in Italy and Istria and Croatia and to go and see a lot of places. And I think, even going back to the time we met, which was, you know, ten, maybe 12 years ago, probably around 2015. Like you were, I was living in Utah and working for a running brand, and you could get to any race and go anywhere. And, you know, you do so, so many races and events just because it's fun and then coming here, okay. It's not like Puma sponsors so much stuff. But I also was just like, I just want to be here and like to see a different part of the world. Like, I'm not a mountain runner. but like the motivation is purely, I think for me just to get in and see new things. And I've certainly done some things that are not in my, in my wheelhouse. I did like a marathon. It was, I don't know, almost 50 K in Austria. I think I walked like the whole thing for nine hours, like it was walking 5000ft up, you know, going down on a trail that's not really a trail. And I'm like, I'm not jumping from rock to rock, like this isn't working for me. So I was kind of walking down and then, okay, now we're going to go up a different mountain. And it was a little bit different. But those are the things it's like, okay, now I can also come and say, I checked Austria off my list and kind of go on to the next thing you know. Yeah. Yeah. You get into those mountain courses and it's a skill set. Doesn't it? Yeah. I usually follow the framework of like, fitness is the big moving variable there. But yeah, some of those courses you could make an argument for. To some degree just you know, if you're if you can't run down the technical descents and someone else can, then it's like they close gaps and create gaps quite quickly. So it's true. And also I mean you talk about gaps that implies you're racing like just trying. Yeah. One of the, one of the things that I keep saying to myself is just purely downhill running, and I've been saying it for actually maybe from Austria is when I learned it and now I've been trying to do it. But yesterday I did, just two by two miles downhill on a treadmill and you can get like 30 to 60 smiles faster than you would otherwise, but I think there's just no replacement for that, that pounding. And, you know, I'm from Michigan. It's flat. I've lived in a lot of flat places. Done. Not saying you've done only flat stuff, but like, I've mostly stayed more towards flat races. And every time Christina is like, yeah, the people that do those races, like they live in the mountains, they're running up and down like a lunch run is 1500 feet and down for them, you know, and it's and it's trying to simulate that pounding is just so hard. and I think I'll be able to do it and adapt a little bit more towards it. But yeah, it's like a huge, huge variable like you said. Yeah, well, in the short term, you don't have to worry about that so much because of the fall. 50 in Door County is a lot more runnable. I forgot that I texted you about that plan. Can I give you a little bit of back history? So I tried to run. It's called the Mauer Vague, which means basically the Berlin Wall. So the Berlin Wall itself is about 95 miles, 100 and 155km. So they actually have a really, really cool, 100 miler there that's pretty flat, pretty fast. Obviously. It should be at least. and I went and, you know, my daughter's like three months old, and, I should tell you a little bit more to, like, I've been trying Morton's. I've tried the bicarb a little bit, and it absolutely wrecks me. Now, I'd also been in the US for three weeks and was super jet lagged and whatever, but I basically got to about mile eight of this 100 and my stomach was gone and it was like, okay, it's too early to quit, it's too early to quit. So I made it another I don't know, I think I made it to just shy of mile 35, but like just never got the stomach on. So then that puts you in a really, really weird place. And also, you know, my my, my in-law parents were there and Christina and the three month old and I was just like, I'd rather go grab a pizza in Berlin than, than the, you know, walking or. yeah, mostly walking with some sparse jogging for the next 28 hours or whatever, you know, 20 hours more until whatever the cutoff was. So we went and got that pizza. But then that puts you in a weird mental place where you've kind of trained. I had a pretty solid three month block. You get a little taper, you feel a little sick, you don't have your great race day. And I was actually just listening to you talking to Alyssa Clark two, and it's so true. And one of the things you guys said was, hey, a lot of these people are aiming at, you know, three key races a year. I forget if you were talking about Katie Scheid or whoever it was. And it's like, yeah, but you can put a lot in. But then if those things don't go well, then what do you do? And that's a little bit where I am right now. Like I was running the next day. Like I'm not sore, I'm not burnt out. It's just a little bit of new dad life. Like, how much time do you want to spend and where is that motivation? Yeah. Yeah. You've definitely got a lot going on. I know like a lot of times when, when I'm talking with coaching clients, one of the first things we usually do is just look at what is a reasonable target from a volume standpoint to even dedicate towards whatever you're training for. Because if you start trying to impede upon nonnegotiables, then there's a consistency pattern that usually doesn't kind of match up well. So it's better to kind of maybe find whatever training strategy is going to work within the parameters that you can, you can tolerate everything else that's going on in life. But it sounds like you have been getting decent training. It's just, navigating the race day and everything that kind of goes into that is maybe the, the big variable for, for fall 50. I mean, running and running in life. It's a journey. Right. And you go through all these things. When I was in high school, I had a pretty bad injury and broke my kneecap and then had to come back and when. Yeah, when I was living in Utah, I had a pretty monster ankle surgery and ended up having one turn into four of them. And then there's like some of that weakness, some of that stability coupled with that 2018 was right when everybody started running in carbon plates more. And then you just end up with Achilles soreness for years and you're like, wait, what do we do? And I finally kind of figured out the stretches and the things to get beyond that. But it's a journey. And I think it's hard for me at my age to slowly adjust those variables down and think, you know, tempo, pace forever was whatever, 608, right? And I could just go do that any, any day. And to be like, wait, is it a mile slower? Wait. If I run faster than a seven minute pace, my leg feels like it's gonna fall off. Like what? What adjustments do we make to the training, to the goals, to kind of all that stuff? So. Yeah, yeah no doubt. Yeah, but a full 50 will be fun. I just love that course that time of year out in that spot is gonna just never disappoint. So I'm excited for you to be. You've done that race before, though, right? You've been out there. I've done it twice. Yeah. The family history is we always go to the North or South Dakota pheasant hunting like that week. And so a couple times I've been like, oh, I'll just go hop in this race and have a good one. And, my first 50 miler ever landed between the lakes. I ran like 706. It was pretty quick. And I was like, oh yeah, I'll go under seven easily soon. And I've just never gotten faster. And I've run like seven hours around many times. So one time I ran fall 50, but I went through halfway at like dead on 330 and I was like, oh, I'm not going to negative split, what do I do? And that was one of the few drops that I've had. Then the other time I ran pretty good. I forget if it was 725 or 735 it was in the middle. But that's the conundrum again. And maybe I'll ask your advice on that one. You know, if you're not sure about a goal, and a goal, if you can really hit it and do it, like in theory, if it was a marathon, you'd say, we'll go out a little bit slower and you can pick it up, but but 50 milers are a little bit different. I think it's a challenge for a lot of people to run a negative split. But yeah, short of saying, well, hey, be realistic about your fitness and if your fitness is only X, then try to run X. But if you have a super goal, you know what? We're what you would typically recommend to people on that. Yeah, I would say my belief around pacing with ultramarathons is like it probably should be reasonably close to even, maybe not. Like I don't think there's necessarily like let's say a 2% negative split going to be better than a 2% positive split. But I think once we start getting up, it's kind of like what we normally see in ultramarathons, where I want to say the average is around 10% positive. So most people are in good company with a little bit of a harder finish than a harder start or like a conservative start fast finish type of scenario. Yeah. And I think some of that might just be pacing strategies, and just and just the extra, you know, it's tough to predict what is a goal. Time for something 50 miles or further. So to some degree, I think maybe it gets a little bit harder to do that in general. but what I think is it's a little easier if you have a goal time. So like if you did have a goal time of say like I want to finish just under seven hours, the first thing I would do is I kind of reverse engineer that and say, okay, what what pacing, especially for a course like fall 50 where there's some variance there, there's some climbs in there, some downhills in there, but generally it's going to smooth out fairly evenly over the course of that one versus, you know, some of these mountain races where yeah, you could be pushing way harder on the first half of the second half. And if that profile is varied by a lot, then it's kind of hard to tease the data out as to whether you're actually going positive or negative. But full 50, you can get a little closer. So then I would look at it like, all right, what pace is that? And then just kind of exploring where that lands in training in terms of where it falls on the intensity like the aerobic intensity spectrum. So like when someone starts getting too far beyond their aerobic threshold, it's just getting more and more risky because that's going to be a pretty difficult intensity to tolerate for seven hours in a lot of cases. But if you can get that pace, then I really like the aerobic threshold. That's sort of a benchmark for ultramarathons, especially the longer they get, because it kind of is like this line where, yeah, you can probably cross it a bit, but you don't want to be consistently above it in a lot of cases. Or then you probably are setting yourself up for the reality of I'm going to be going quite a bit slower at the end, and then you have to ask the question if the trade off is worth it. yeah, there's different theories out there. I think when you start getting up maybe above, like. 5% positive. You're probably leaving something on the table versus an alternative pacing strategy. so yeah, I mean, and then and then to some degree, you can kind of use that framework, I guess, to kind of see like where things are at from what your pace is, at like that, that or what your intensity is at, whether you're using heart rate or going in and getting a lab test done and kind of figuring out where that lands on the aerobic intensity spectrum and, and, and start trying to work it down if you need some work to get it to be really realistic or or at least know, like where it lands on the conservative to moderate to aggressive scale. And then, you know, people have different tolerances if they want to try to go for the aggressive goal or they want to be a little more conservative and, and make it maybe a little more predictable or somewhere in between. Yeah. I also think sometimes I think a lot about the difference between, let's say, like an elite like yourself and a non-elite, that's maybe aspirational to be good. And I've been okay, I've won some things. I think there's also just a big difference between, let's say if you're running like 50 miles a week versus a hundred, because I think some of that drop off is just going to be completely different. And, you know, in high school, like running the mile, my first lap was like always 60. And I wasn't running a four minute mile. It was just like no, 61, 62 and you just go out and then you chill and run like 69, 69 and then and then have a kick and, and even my first 50 miler and not that. yeah, I don't know. That's stuck in my head for a while. It's been a goal of mine, because there I ran my first ten miles at like seven, and the second ten were at eights. And then, you know, running ten, ten 30s by the end, I remember around mile 35 or 40 falling like 2 or 3 times in the woods. Right? And you're just like, I don't have any legs left. But there's something weird to me about ultras where it's like, oh, this is so long. I should go slow. I should go slow where you almost slowed down so much, and then you get tired running slow. Maybe hopefully less than you would running fast. But it's such a mental game and there's probably more specific training that would get me there. And I think the estimate is a tough thing. One of the things that I maybe love your perspective on. Oh, and when you say, thresholds as well, are you talking more paces or are you looking at heart rate. So you would probably say those should correlate. Yeah. Yeah. I mean to a degree I think like I like to look at well, so when it comes down to race goal time, we kind of have to deviate towards pacing because that's what's going to be required to to hit the target. So then it becomes like, well, where does that land on the intensity scale. And there you can kind of use heart rate, at least directionally, to try to figure out, especially if someone has a really good understanding of where their zones are. And it's been kind of thoroughly tested. So, you know, say between like 130, 150 beats per minute, they're pretty, pretty reliably know where they are within that. I think heart rate can be a decent kind of proxy for some of that stuff. But at the end of the day, perceived effort is probably going to be a better gauge in a lot of cases. For someone who's got as much running experience as you do. So the hard part, I think with ultras, especially as you get into the longer stuff, is like. Perceived effort is going to still be there on race day, but it is also going to be something where easy is going to feel easy, but even easier than what normally would be. Easy might be the target. So then I think some pace parameters can be really useful. And if you can tease out where those places land at those perceived efforts on kind of similar course terrain, then you might have a little bit of a better idea of what to be looking for on your watch when you're out there. not to pivot too much, but I do think there's like now this depends on the goal time as well, because like if you're running fast enough, there's just less room for something like this. But I think a lot of ultra runners also neglect structured walking breaks. They walk when they need to because their body says, hey, you better walk here. versus like in the early stages, thinking of it more like an interval session where, you know, we're going to kind of take a break from this mechanical loading that the running is going to produce versus walking. And, and I think that probably adds up over the course of a long race, too. If you have a little bit more of a balance between your walking breaks in the first half, as you do in the second half. Yeah, yeah. I think that brings up two things for me, though. One is like I went back and looked at, some I mean, my 100 mile up here right now is 1909. Donna Brazile has been and it was interesting. I went back to look at that data and say, okay, what could I glean right from I don't know, I don't know, nine 30s and then tens or whatever. I was at 181 heart rate. Were you so freaking much of that? Zach, I am not kidding you. And I hear you about, like, the math and the negative splits and, like, zone two and heart rate and all these things. Part of me just wonders if I grew up in a time when running was just freaking hard and it was just all out, and you just run all out, and then when you start to have a little bit of a low spot, like you figure it out and then you just go harder again. And I think it's also hard when you're not, let's say, trained like, to me, ideal training for a hundred miler would be like, I don't know, 140 a week or for a 50 miler it would be like 70, 80 like there is that threshold. And not being a pro, I'm a little bit short of that. So you're like somehow rolling the dice. But that just really throws such a wrench when I'm trying to look at the things that I've done and I'm like, wait a minute, it's just. And I'm like, is the data bad? You know a lot of that. But I do need to give you credit for that as well because yeah, I did Braavos that 19 was pre injury and then post injury. I did both 23 and 21. And you literally with that walk strategy saved me that two hours. and it was pretty awesome actually. Even in Berlin when I dropped I had a good buddy named Kieran that was still out there slogging and having trouble, and we ran. I told him a little bit about your idea and he was like, oh my gosh. Yeah, the walk breaks like before you're dead and have to do it. My I, it's really, I think tried in two strategies. So you helped me help you help somebody else for sure as well. Very cool, you know. Glad to hear it. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough with courses like Bravo. So because it's so flat and controlled, then there's just not like this intuitive spot to do any walking or hiking in the early stages. And it can be easy to kind of get out ahead of yourself then and, and then find yourself maybe walking a little more on those last couple loops than, than you would have liked to, because it's just not like getting hit with a nice steep climb where like, yeah, I should probably hike this. It's just a little more predictable. That's true, that's true. Awesome. So here's a question I have for you. Are you going to wear the fast R threes for fall 50? That was 100%. I am all in on fast R three for fall 50. That was actually my plan for Berlin was to experiment in the month six weeks before to see like how much can I run in. You know obviously I've got I've got the guy right here. How much can I run in something with extreme geometry. The long plate. Really bouncy. I don't know the answer. And, Berlin was also weird. They didn't have, like, a drop bag aid station until, like, mile 38. So that was a lot of commitment to be like, do I want to run 40 miles on this? Like, what if I don't think this is working? And I had it in my drop back there and I'd quit before then because I was a walking mess. I wasn't like, oh yeah, let's run and be able to run a little bit faster. But no, 100%. And I think, that's, you know, that's what I love. And I said it and I'll say it again, that's what I love about running right now. It used to be like, hey man, what are your tempo bases, your speed work in your long run? And okay, then if you're doing, you know, hill, hill, hill, hilly mountain and stuff like what's your vert used to be very, very simple things nowadays it's like are you doing heat adaptation. You know, I talked a little bit about bicarb as a way that people are doing more. There's so many different ways. And I think footwear is a huge, huge thing. Like the shoes are super fast, like I'm. I don't know, let's say on average at least eight beats a minute, lower heart rate at the same pace. And when we talk about efficiency or energy savings, I mean, the math on faster three is about 3.5% more efficient. But people say, well, that makes you run faster. Well, maybe you can run faster with it. But what it means is you'll be more efficient at a given pace. So yeah, that's my plan and my goal. My longest run was probably 17 miles and faster, and I think I was okay. but that would definitely be the goal for something like fall 50. Just go. Just be all in and and and I respect your advice. I also might just go like, forget it and just hammer from the gun with the fast shoe and, like, figure it out and see if I can, you know, as I say, find some old man magic, I don't know. Yeah, it is interesting with the performance shoes now because like you said, like the, the, the designs and the, the tech in there are such that like, it gets very itchy to say like, oh well if I'm going to be that much more efficient or for example, like when, when you guys sent me the faster early on, I think it was just before Boston, before it kind of really blew up with all the all the marketing you all did with that. I had just come off Achilles tendinitis, so I was running in the first shoe that I could run in pain free was the New Balance 1080, which is about as slow of a shoe as you're going to find on the market. But that's what I had. So I got to a point where, like, I'd done enough rehab, where it was time to start introducing different stuff and start thinking about like, well, what you am I going to try to wear on a future race and start getting that into the rotation enough where I could start, you know, getting used to it. So I would do like a run, and then I come back and I'd throw a pair on or like more of a performance shoe and just do like a mile in it just to kind of test to see how was the Achilles going to respond to this? But the other data point I would get from that would just be like, I'd be doing this run at a pretty consistent pace. And then also I switch the shoes and start again so I could get a little bit of a look at where the variance was. And when I put them on, I was like 15 20s to a mile faster in that shoe than the New Balance 1080, which 1080 is going to be slower than most control shoes. But more than that, you're maybe at 6 or 8% at that point when you take it halfway and play and yeah, all the things. Yeah. Yeah. So well and that was interesting to me because like, I tried enough of the super shoes on the market now where I have a kind of a feel of where I gravitate towards in terms of what feels the fastest. I still need to go in with Dustin and get tested efficiently. But when he tested the faster versus, I think he was. Was it that he was the alpha fly. is like his like that? That's the one. I think he's always tested the best. And I think, it's always like zoom max. I think foam is something that he usually tests right around 4% in most of those high models. And then the faster was like, I think the first shoe that he ever produced, a statistically significant increase in efficiency above and beyond that. So at that point I was like, okay, well, that's really interesting to me because that matches my perception as well in terms of what I felt in that shoe. So then it was like, okay, this one's on the short list. And now the games begin like, how long can I tolerate that for 100 miles with a shoe like that or not? And that's, you know, there's always gonna be some guesswork for that, because I'm not gonna go around 100 miles before the race itself. I have to, you know, take some, assume some risk in an effort to find optimal performance at the end of the day. It's true. I think any n equals one is a little bit difficult, as. I mean, I know you said statistically significant. It's like, okay, a big, big jump for him. For him. Yeah. That's what's tough right. Is averaging all of those things out. but that's what's crazy for us about fast. R3 for Puma is like every single one, usually there's variance, right? There's different foams, different geometries, different rockers, different all these things. And people in theory respond differently to some of them. So, you know, even with a shoe like eight three, which was a great shoe, we saw on average 0.5% running economy, let's say not improvement, but just like, well, improvement, I guess, or a half percent better than everything. But that was on average. And when you're that close and you have a swing of 2 to 3%, some are going to be a lot lower, some are going to be this blah, blah. And that's where the average is. And that's what's mind blowing faster. Three, everybody has tested faster and faster in it. We've never actually had a lab data point that I haven't heard ever of anyone having one where they had a more efficient run in, in a competitor. and I think that actually brings me to like it used to be, like, oh, like you should do, you know, your speed days or your long runs maybe. And like, you're super sure what to do. And I, I would love to hear your thoughts from an ultra perspective because for me, I'm. I feel like I would like to even maybe spend more time on it. I'm like, well, wait, if you're going to actually really do 100 miles in the shoe, shouldn't you just say, this is the only shoe I'm running in this week? Shouldn't you? Because. Because the other reason, it's like the plates are, you know, fast arts extended. It's all this crazy geometry, but let's say it is unique, right? Where your muscles and tendons are somehow working differently. I'm like, wouldn't you want a ton of experience when it comes to an ultra, so that you're not pushing some of those forces around and overworking a certain muscle or tendon or calf or whatever it is? I don't know what your thoughts are on that. My current theory right now is that, if you zoom out long enough, it can be something where in the early stages maybe you use it briefly and then as you get further and further in the training, you start phasing it more and more. And that just matches well with my training approach too, because like early in my training, I'm usually doing more like short and long interval type work and my long run is more traditional in its structure. So in that phase, I might use it for, say like some of the short intervals early on. And then once I start getting maybe a little bit near the end of the interval side of the training and the long runs get at least decently built out at a once per week frequency, then maybe I start adding it to the long run too. So I add another exposure point, and then I enter a phase where I'm going to be doing like I'm going to be focusing the majority of my training load on things that are pretty close to race intensity. And I'm pulling back quite a bit on speed work and I'm trying to. I guess the way to maybe think about it is I'm shifting like the interval stuff and the speed work towards maintenance versus adaptation generating in terms of the programming. So then I can cut back on quite a bit of it and then free up some of that training load for like back to back long runs on the weekend, or just more volume that's distributed out over the course of the week. And at that phase, I think that's where you might be thinking that's where I think I would say, like, at that point, you probably want to be getting in that shoe. You're going to race a lot. maybe doesn't have to be every run during the week. But, you know, for someone like myself where I might peak up. To 150 miles in some cases, like, I probably would want a good 100 miles on that shoe in one of those weeks just to really, like you described, kind of get really comfortable in it. And even to somebody stress test it. Because if you can't get through a training week in the shoe, are you going to be able to get through 100 miles straight? That's exactly my point. And it used to be like, I generally am a person that's I'm a naturalist or ever. You want to say it right? Like I believe in our bodies working. I believe in things like feet having flexibility and toes having space. And I believe in a lot of those things. But I think if you just do all that and then you try to put on a super shoe with a really weird or unique geometry, and I mean, you can talk about Puma, but, you know, Mizuno has a unique geometry. There's a lot of these shoes that are just like, wait, what? That's a shoe. Like how? And I'm like, okay, I get it. And it's a tool. But I'm like, all those little stabilizers and all those little things and and part of it for me is having had the Achilles surgery and had Glenn's deformity and taken off in a lot of those things. Anytime you put a cast on something, you're going to atrophy. Basically everything that doesn't move for however many weeks or months, right? And so when you have that weakness, trying to build it back up, I mean, I think that's one of the sad things for, for me, when I look at my, let's call it running career, I think that every time I've had a major injury and a major setback, I don't think I've ever really gotten back to the full level. and I mean, going back to my sophomore year of high school where, you know, as a freshman, I went from four oh, sorry, 509 to like 442. Right. And had whatever it was, eight races in a row and a mile where you're pairing and you're like, wow. And, you know, I had a state champ that was on my team and like, really, really good, good stuff. And then you then break something like a kneecap and you're trying to come back and, you know, I don't know how good of teams and stuff we had, but yeah, I think I think I think that's a challenge. And I think certainly some people now are more focused on some things. And if they're just running okay, you know, I don't know if Jacob Ingebrigtsen or whoever has ever had a basketball injury. Right. Like right. Like being pretty focused in the one main sport. But I think that these things, these shoes are tools. The super shoes are tools, and I think that you have to adapt to them. That's, that's and I would love to do it and get adapted and then go, yeah, I did this and it worked. But I, I think all these things that are new, you have to kind of figure out, like, does this work for me? How does it work? And I'm in the middle of that process right now. Well and I mean there is that, that whole, the whole conversation around like what is the specifics of what you're doing too. Because like, you know, for me if things go well at 100 miles between the two races I've got scheduled this fall, like at least one of them hopefully is like well into the six minute range and continuously there too. So like that level of consistency and kind of more running focused is just going to be different than say like if I did 100 mile or somewhere or maybe not, I guess I'm gonna use myself as a competitor if I did a longer like multi-day thing or something where there's going to be walking breaks, there's going to be slower pacing, there's going to be like mechanical differences. Then it's like I think at that point you start having to ask the question about like, like you said, like, which is the tool that you really need to actually perform at your best here. And you get into the world of performance versus stability and, and comfort and all that stuff at that point. It's true. Yeah. And I still remember, I mean, Ian Sharman when he ran fast at Rocky Raccoon saying, yeah, I was just training for a marathon and you know, and I went and did a fast ultra and that's always stuck with me. But I don't think I've also really done it in the last almost 15 years now that I've been doing ultras, I'm like, ultras are a long way, let's do ultra training. And I keep saying, oh, I should train for a fast marathon or I should go that other direction. But you would say when you're training for your ultras, how close are you to like, peak marathon shape? I mean, probably not, right? Probably you're more really, really focused at the ultra that you're aiming at, right? Yeah, I would say the biggest difference would be like about midway through the plan, if I were to say, all right, I'm going to go for a marathon instead of choosing to go for a 100 mile. My focus would become, I need to get as fast and as durable as I can at lactate threshold, whereas with 100 miles I'm kind of running that same mindset, but with aerobic threshold. I want to see my pace get as low as I can get it at aerobic threshold, which just changes the inputs to some degree where, you know, the marathon, I'm doing a lot more marathon paced work, a lot more long intervals and things like that. During that last sharpening phase and kind of building out a single long run per week. Whereas with the 100 mile stuff, you know, I'm doing less of the interval stuff, more of like the zone two, zone three stuff, and sometimes maybe like reserving upwards to 50, 60 miles of my training week and two days on back to back sessions. So, it kind of. Yeah, they compete with each other to some degree once you start. Kind of like choosing that path. But, I would say a good half or if not a little bit more of the training would probably feed into a pretty productive marathon if I would decide to, like, spend that last 8 to 10 weeks going that direction instead. You know, it's interesting enough. I've, you know, I've built kind of a career around running fast, running 100 miles so that's got that. That sort of takes up a lot of the time and energy. But I have always thought maybe one of these seasons I should just say like, screw it. I'm just going to try to see if I can run a fast marathon and see where that lands me. because I've really never actually even done what I would consider a well structured marathon training plan and raced, I've raced quite a few marathons, but they've been like, oh, I'm five weeks out from this 100 mile run, I'm going to be at this marathon. I'll do it as kind of a high quality, long run structure. And then, you know, that's usually landed me in like the low two 30s. So I'd like to think with some specificity, I could, you know, take a shot at something kind of in the low two 20s or maybe go under that. yeah. Now we have the shoes. So do you still think you're close enough to your peak where you could, could, could maximize it? Or do you think when you were younger that you would have had a few extra minutes on there as well, like faster? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, because I'm 39, so I'm not going to argue that I'm at probably the optimal marathon age. Maybe at best you could argue I'd be near the end of it. So I, you know, if you were to ask me this like three months ago, I would have said, yeah, those days, like, I would be reaching for whatever the new normal is in terms of my capabilities versus. What is actually what I would have been able to maybe do in like my late 20s or early 30s. But this training block has gone so well that I'm not sure that that's necessarily the case. I'm hitting paces for durations that I have rarely seen before, so that tells me maybe there is a little bit more, more still left for something like that if I wanted to do it. But then I have to decide whether I want to spend that energy towards a marathon versus trying to run a fast 100 miler. So, I mean, the same question comes back to what motivates you, right? Like, what makes you want to want to go and do something? And that's where I'm a little bit afraid of, of this fall 50. I'm not calling it a trap, but like I had a good build. I had a race day. It didn't go well. I would love to shut it down. And I have enough tickets and stones and qualifiers and all that crap. I really hope I'm getting into Utah or Western States next year. I'm really, really hopeful for December. And I was like, wait, but it's two more months until October and then I would have two months to chill and then and then hopefully get into something. But, but, yeah, it's like you guys were saying. I mean, sometimes you get one shot in a lifetime. You know, at some of those things. And so, for me, if it's Umb this year, or next year, that would be amazing. Western States is still, for me, a big, big dream race. Actually, I wanted to ask you that when you ran states. Like, I always wonder when it comes to fast people like you, I'm like, why not just go to the front? Why not just just own that and just go for it? I mean, I think you're in, what, 18 hours or something? You ran a pretty good time there, but I, I always wonder that. Yeah, I made mistakes. It was actually my first 100 miler. I was 1653 I think, or 5052 or 53 the first time. The second time it was a little. Yeah, yeah. I got 50 miles into the Ice Age. It was one of the I, it was the Montreal Ultra Cup at that point, which is basically the same thing as with the Golden Ticket series now. And my goal was just to, you know, compete at the ice age 50. I had no interest in the actual western state spot, but I won and then was told I'd be an idiot if I didn't take that spot. So I was like, well, you know, don't want to, don't want to be an idiot. So I guess we're doing this. So you mean, I mean 16 hours. That's moving. That's pretty good in the heat and hills and all that there. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of learning that went on that day for sure. And you know, it was the first mountain race I had done either. And you know, you get to the, you know, mountain is a pretty loose term I guess. And someone like Kilian would describe Western states as like the entry to mountains at best. Whereas someone like myself, coming from the Midwest, it was very much a mountain. Yeah, well, there is a mountain where you start the race. Yeah, straight up a mountain. But that's part of the allure of that. Right. You've got three different atmospheres and three different stages. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. But it, it, it just goes to show you just the variety within the sport too. It is just like the kind of sport we were talking about before with specific courses and then temperatures and things to people are just going to have different strengths and weaknesses. And then you know training inputs to a degree can impact how you do out there. And now to just with the evolution of the sport and what we know works and then access to the resources for it. Like if you follow the live stream of Western and the last couple of years, it's like just almost formula one level support at the aid stations versus what you see in like, in like the documentaries from like 2010 and things like that, where, you know, guys are just like a couple of handhelds, maybe, maybe a nice bandana and. Yeah, Okay. Well so and this brings me to maybe the number one question that I wanted to ask you. And I mean, I know you were with the same brand for a long time. You were there a real long time. And now you're a free agent. And now there's this whole world of shoes and craziness and advancement and that's, you know, I'm never going to break 240 for the marathon. And I look at my time and I'm like, oh, with the shoes, how much could I subtract off? But this is my real question to you. Like how much do you feel like the shoes are making a difference? Have you found a favorite or do you have one? I would love to hear your top 2 or 3 favorite shoes that maybe also work with you. Because we've run together. I've seen you run. You definitely have a different stride. I don't know if you describe yourself as super nature, but to me you're way, way much, much further on the outside of your foot than nearly anyone that I've ever seen. And I would be like, oh, I don't know how efficient that is. And then I see you run a hundred miles, all at 643 or whatever the heck it was, and I go, okay, it's efficient. Zach, you've proven it. So, I love your assessment on race day and super shoe, industry and. Yeah, how the shoes are working for you. Yeah. No, that's a great question. I would say like. From my experience so far. Like a short list of what I think I would be looking at for something like a fast, runnable, paved or tracked 100 mile would be, Puma faster. Asics meta speed is probably one that would be a pity. Don't you have to say ad paid for before you say my. I'm just kidding. Sponsored by. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, if I could get all these brands that I'm about to mention to sponsor me at the same time now, now I'm winning. That's that's that's the move. Well, you got the podcast, but. So no, there's a whole exclusivity thing that gets in the way there. No, that's good. The other one I'm really interested in with respect to ultramarathon is like the Adidas, light Strike Pro stuff, like, I think, like, there's, that that shoe just feels like they maybe have threaded the needle a bit with stability and performance, which when you get to these longer races, becomes like, If I'm doing a marathon tomorrow, I'm wearing the faster for sure. if it's a 100 miles, I think that kind of brings a couple other options onto the table where I could make the argument where, like maybe I tasked a percentage better with the faster. But it's possible that given the rigors of 100 miles and how I'm going to feel that 7080 miles might change kind of the dynamics of how that would happen. And I'm feeling at that point in time. To me, some of that, though, is just to say, like if there's a shoe that I perform the most efficiently in. It almost becomes my responsibility from there to try to find a way to get access to that efficiency. So if that means, like what we were talking about before, doing more work in it, so that I build up the tolerance to be able to sustain that for 100 miles, then that's the path forward, and then it's just finding out what the timeline required to do that is. And I mean, it's sort of a mindset I've had with footwear from the beginning, like when I was early on in ultrarunning. This is prior to super foams and all these premium footwear stuff. It was like, well, if I'm looking for efficiency, like I probably want as little cushion in that shoe as possible and be low profile racing flat style. You know, the pinch point there for ultramarathons is that it's a long way to run in a shoe like that. And if your foot breaks down and fatigue sets in and you know it's game over, it doesn't matter if the shoe is faster or not. So my mindset with that was like, well, make it sustainable. So I did the work to make it sustainable. And I've done 100 miles in like sub four round shoes and things like that. And you know that that was great for that time. But now that's not as efficient as the super shoes are. So now you have this interesting dynamic of you can stack up and get that kind of. Preservation of the lower leg as well as the improved performance. So now it's like, okay, that was fine for that time period. But if I'm looking at it through the lens of performance now, I have to get myself tolerant to the faster stuff on the market that, you know, the sports more or less adopted at this point. No, it's true, it's true. Yeah. And I, I also remember a long time ago in Runner's World reading, they were like, what's, what's healthier like trails or road running because trail people say soft services are healthier. And road people say, well, you get hurt in the mountains or whatever. They would say, yeah. And the conclusion of the article actually basically said, both sides are right. Like when you get attuned for a certain surface, in terms of landing in terms of all those things that it actually does become somehow better for you. And I think that's one of the things my old peers were like, nothing, right? Like just saris on the track and all this. Yeah. Thin, thin thin like nothing there shoes. And I think when you come to super thick, bouncy, crazy foams, I mean many, many people have adapted well, but also many people we would call super responders right where they over get so much more. And that was, you know, going back to the first super shoot, some people were getting 1% and some people were getting 9%. And there is so many variables and I, I also, yeah, I mean, there are certain things that I think we could, scientifically say, like, because the foams are soft, light and bouncy, you should in some way almost try to over like if you have a longer stride or you try to over stride, it's going to help you a little bit more because sorry, you can you can expand your stride length more than you can your cadence, right. Cadence has a little bit of a natural limiter, but if you can jump out more, but then land and have a really efficient spring and good cushioning underneath, I mean, that's one of the ways to do it. So no, I, I couldn't agree more with you at a high level to that. I will say though, to like myself and the team at Puma, that's one of the things that we're doing when it comes to the shoes is like, okay, fast, our three fastest shoes in the history of the world, in my opinion, and in some researchers. Then the next question is, is there a way for us to do the same? Key elements of the shoe, that same geometry are that same whatever makes it so, so good. Materials of course, and to actually have that be a stable version. Right. And I mean, I, I agree with you on the assessment and I think for the comment and that's also something that inspires, I think, me and us to say, okay, so we're good in this and there's opportunity for improvement on that other side. And how do you work towards that? You know. Yeah. Yeah. Well and yeah event specific stuff dictates a lot of that too. And then the market demand from that to where it's like as a brand, I can appreciate that they're not going to likely sit down and be like, hey, let's see if we can build a very fastest controlled 100 mile shoe. Maybe that day will come. Actually a little bit of a pivot. I was going to ask you, did you follow any of Adidas? oh, yeah. 100 miles. Yeah. Or I'm sorry, the 100 kilometer project that they just did. It seems like they seem at least mildly like as far as big brands go, reasonably interested in flatter, controlled races, at least with that marketing push. So who knows, maybe they're looking at the ultra running growth and they're saying like, okay, there's like this deep history with these timed events, these flat, runnable stuff. It's going to grow along the way. At some point we want to be in on the front of it, or we can drive that to some degree with marketing. But that shoe specifically, if I mean, it was kind of weird, in my opinion, is just like, I get the I get the, the, the marketing drive with something like that, but I can't figure out why you would make the shoe illegal. Unless you're thinking of, like, there's a bigger market to sell this to people, or at least like some version of this because it likely won't, like, be that exact shoe. It can't be, actually, because they customized it to some of the athlete's feet, but they put it in a tube beforehand. They did a lot of special things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's like I think it was like 60 millimeters of stack height. So like what, like 50% above World Athletics regulations and yeah. So like I would have I, I don't have a problem with exhibition stuff like that. Like I didn't necessarily have a problem with the Kipchoge sub-two stuff. But I wish they would do it in a way where it was like, okay, well there's enough control here. So that actually feels comparable to when I look at Sorokin in that event he ran I think 604. He's ran 605 twice in the past. I put both those six oh fives as much better performances than his 604 because. You know that shoe he had on? Sure. Right. And to some degree. He's 43 now, too. So it's like there's, maybe he still has his his at these longer distances, has all the, all the ability he's ever had. But, you know, it's getting down to time for him to some degree as well. So it's like who knows where. I'd have to ask him about how he felt about the race versus some of those, those 2605 as he ran. But yeah, I mean it's like a it like, I, I don't I don't get why you wouldn't try. I guess maybe if you're looking at it through the lens, if we need one of these guys to break six hours to make the marketing work, and the only way for us to do that when they looked at the data was to put them in a 60mm stack height shoe. Then they're like, okay, well, that drives the decision making, but to me it'd be way more compelling if that shoe is World Athletics compliant. They're on a loop. It's measured, certified, and sure, it's not going to count as a world record, but like anyone watching that would be like, oh, that was like a reasonable amount of control. We'd like to test human limitation, but not too much mechanical input to the degree where now we're like an apples and orange comparison to like his prior best time. Yeah, yeah. I mean I don't know, it's a I mean, look, we're talking about that brand and that event because they did something right. And there were many elements from the shoe to, okay, the apparel to the cooling to the yeah, yeah. In parts of it. And so I mean. It was a marketing event, right? It wasn't. It wasn't a legal race. I don't know if it will. Will it actually count? Actually, no. Yeah. So they're they're following, you know. I mean, other brands have done a few of those things. I, am part of, for me moving to Germany, I'm sitting with the innovation team in for Puma here. and I think it's just really interesting. There's something about about inspiration. I mean, we can call it marketing, but, like, that sounds not as good as, like, a word like inspiration, right? Like showing people, hey, we're at the forefront of innovating and pushing boundaries and doing new things. And I mean, I think that was one of for me, the best things about fast are three. Not only is it crazy fast, but like people can get it and it works for everyone. Most everyone. These smaller runs of shoes. It definitely is a big question mark of like, what's the real impact on the world? Is it Instagram? Is it eyeballs? Okay. There's a marketing value to that, right? Like every brand has a big marketing budget. That's fine. and if that's what you're doing, that's one thing. I mean, I will just speak for me and my personal experience and my team, and we use. The projects that we do fast are B, for instance, things like that as a way to to I mean, they're in every one of our lives. We have boundaries, right? We have things set in that it's like, you have to do this thing, but you have to do it in this box and there's almost always a box. And the question is, can you can, you can. I'm losing my analogy. I'm like, can you bend a corner on the box or how can you do it? I mean, you know, I'm, I'm biking to work quite a bit right now. And it was 15.5 miles with some dirt and farmer's road, and I've got my 15.5 down to like 12.8 miles by trimming little pieces here and there. And, you know, my commute went from an hour 5 to 50, 50 minutes. Yet last night was my new best time. So there's like these little pieces of ways that we can find play. But just I think to be more efficient and in the the unsaid, which I think is somehow true, if you are doing crazy and advanced and innovative things and pushing boundaries do you apply those things directly to? Let's call it the core line or whatever. Some of them. Right. Like if you have the best absolute foams, you at least know how to do that. And you maybe don't use exactly that, but you could or some of those other learnings. So I think if there is something valuable to pushing boundaries in a way that can potentially take down, but also that it's like then you have this body of knowledge, right? Like you've read your research things, you know how to do things, and then you can potentially apply those learnings to many other and many other areas. Well, I mean, in terms of the direction that shoe marketing has gone over the last few years, it's like it's clear that it's going to be something where we're highlighting our performance line, and then maybe we maybe in the case of like Adidas, they don't bring that shoe to market, but they bring pieces of it to market in different shoes that they can say, hey, this was the shoe that broke six hours and 100 K, or this was the shoe that broke the world record in the marathon or something like that, and that's where they get the some value out of that. But as far as it goes from that angle of let's take our performance line and showcase this to get our brand awareness out, I can't think of a better one. I mean, I'd be curious to what extent that you can share, like with the marketing team at Puma, was thought of after the Boston Fast Star launch because I thought that was perfect because you picked a big race that everyone's watching. Boston two you brought a new shoe to market early enough so people could put it on their foot at the expo and decide to race in it. In some cases, I don't know how many runners ended up wearing it in Boston, but it was not an inconsequential number. and it was legal. So like, the shoe is like so like there's really not a lot of complaining that can be done. And then on top of it, it lived up to its hype. Like it didn't come back like, oh, we tested this in the lab now third party and it's like 2%. So it turns out like it wasn't faster than like, you know, any of the better options out there actually exceeded that. So it's like. I can't imagine, like after the fact, you guys had a whole lot of love. Oh, man, I wish we would have done this differently from that. That bill. No, and I would, I would, you know, I've been with a lot of companies in my 20 years and maybe nine brands and retailers. Right. Like, I worked with a lot of big companies, a lot of teams. It was simply one of the best executed products and processes across the entire board from briefing the innovation team, saying, hey, like, can we find a better foam? You know, them working with some sports scientists, like, what's the latest cutting edge and the way that we're designing shoes, getting a final. You want to know one of the fun facts: the number of prototypes that we did for fast R3 was basically one, like, really? Wow. Such a certain process that almost spit out the exact right answer at the beginning. I mean, there was so much work that had gone into it, but when we actually found a God of shoe like, yeah, fast start there were like 3 or 4 and it was like, oh, are we doing this or where are we putting all the questions. There weren't very many questions. Innovation executed an awesome shoe. We knew it was good. We were telling the marketing team they were thinking, okay, we don't have, you know, teams in Africa like some brands and whatever. And you know, and there's a lot of all that stuff. So it's like, if we're not going to do, you know, Berlin marathon record like some brands have done with women and stuff, it's like, how do we not just prove it on maybe one person, but how do we bring this to a lot of people? and I mean, fun fact that she was originally planned to launch like. December, like maybe even a couple months from now. And then we're like, no, it's good. We needed it like September. And we pushed it forward a couple of months and then we were like, no, we really want to hit the spring marathon season if we could. And we pushed it all the way forward to April. And I mean, again, Luke and the marketing team, like project three, was awesome, having 100 runners in Boston and 100 in London and having them have access to the Puma family. Right. So we got to know them a little bit. They got coaching, they got nutritional advice. They got to meet some of our athletes and, and really get the full experience. And it was actually just originally called project three. Like it wasn't like, oh, we're launching this new shoe, blah blah blah. It was like, hey, who wants to be a part of Puma FAM? Who wants to get a little bit of, you know, involvement with us as a brand? Obviously we all knew it, but they didn't immediately. But then they all got a faster three at the beginning of the program to practice in and do the acclimation, which is, you know, maybe the biggest theme of what we've been talking about. But then also that fresh pair on race day and, and yeah, I mean the PR speaks for themselves. you know, I think it was like 70 out of 180 people set a new PR, which, holy cow. And most of them were over in three minutes. And, you know, I don't know the number of hours and time that we save, but it was really, I think, a perfect storm of like. Briefing, execution on product, go to market marketing. And then and then obviously the sales of the shoe have been really, really strong when it's in stock because it just sells out like crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's got to be the hardest thing to predict is how many units we should produce. Because like, you don't know how it ends up. As successful as it was, you could almost have made an unlimited number and they'd just be flying off the shelves. I mean, you can, but there's so many considerations with them when you're using more premium materials, the lead times are longer. You know, factory capacity is definitely something that the average consumer doesn't think about. They think, well, if we wanted to make 10 million faster trees, of course you can do it. But yeah, things aren't quite as easy always. So no, we feel really, really good about it. I mean, it's you know, we still have as the plates go tumbling like deviates. The Elite three is still such a winner for so many people. And it works and it's smooth. It ended up being my 100 mile drop out. But that's what I ended up choosing as well because the geometry is good. The balance is like all the good things. So I think I generally still point most people towards the deviate elite. I think it's why I've heard from run groups all around Europe and the US. A lot of people say it's basically the perfect shoe. So I like that one summer, faster summer this or that. but just like great bounce, great roll, great everything. So I think most people would still benefit from something like that. And if they haven't tried a super shoe, but. Certainly fast. R3 is different. I'm not going to say it's not. So is there? Do you have inhouse? to the degree that you can share like percentage efficiency variance between the deviate nitro three and the faster? Yeah. I mean, it's a good question. We haven't been focused on that as much because we really wanted to prove fast. R3 against the competition. It is a little bit of a great question because if fast R3 is so extreme and so fast, our other super shoe is therefore not going to stack up like almost by definition. But it's not about that, right? The same way that, you know, Nike has alpha fly and they per fly and they're doing a little bit different things for different consumers. I think our two shoes both have a key target demographic that I don't want to say that it doesn't cross over. But for me it's exactly what you said it's like for a marathon, unless I'm doing fast R3, but for anything longer or when I need more stability, which by the way, a lot of people, that's important to them, right? Like, I think a lot of the competition in the marketplace could maybe make faster shoes, but they're actually focused on marathon shoes for comfort, which is great. A lot of people and consumers really want that. And so there's something to be said for that. And. You know, I mean, like I said, if I were to pick up and do a, you know, 16 week marathon training program, like, could I go after a PR? I really don't know. But I don't know if it would be worth it compared to when I was younger. Right. And so as people, everybody's at a different spot in their life, different priorities and sort of healthy running or maybe stability is more important. You got to have shoes for that too. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You can't just have premium options on the line. Yeah. Hey, everybody. 300, €500. That's all we buy anymore, right? Do you like it? People are like what is right? That doesn't make sense. So it's like those memes where they'll be someone, like walking through the grocery store in a pair of Alfa flies, and it's it's it's there all, all day long. I haven't seen many stars at the grocery store yet, but not yet. Yeah, maybe I'm gonna change that. I'm gonna start wearing mine around in the grocery store, and get some picks. Yeah. No. the one other thing I was going to ask you about, too, with respect to, just like the innovation stuff is, it seemed like kind of when the premium phones were coming out, like the standard was just like pizza was kind of this, like gold standard, where that's what was like to the degree where people are looking for that, where it's like, if it has that, then I'm heading in the right direction. If not, I might not even consider it as a way to almost select or narrow the selection process down, but then like the foam, I mean, it's just interesting. I think maybe, maybe once World Athletics came with the regulations of like 40 millimeter stack, a single plate, it gave a little bit more direction as to now, the brands had like something they had to operate within. And that allowed for more exploration outside of people, because now it's like they're not trying to also do a bunch of stuff outside of where the regulations were set at. What? Do you have any insight in terms of just kind of what was kind of the idea behind? Okay. We're going to take some other types of midsole foam and make something that can actually produce similar or greater efficiency to some of those, those earlier models. Yeah. I mean, the first brand of 2016. Pardon me, that was the first super shoe. I haven't seen or heard too much of how they actually came to their conclusion. Like they certainly told the story that they went to the Kenyans and said, you know, hey, you've been racing a marathon in a four ounce shoe. We're going to make a one ounce shoe. And it was like, wait, what? Like, yeah. And and it was not only we're going to make a lighter shoe, but it was, it was, it was our theme. It was. And you need to adapt to basically running a marathon barefoot because, you know, they're running it. Even though research would say no, there's been there's a benefit to cushioning. Like you can run more efficient in a shoe with cushion than you can purely barefoot. But anyway, that was the initial thing. And the athletes were like, ah, I don't know, man, that's going to hurt. Like I'm already hurting and this is going to hurt even more. And I didn't I've never really heard from them a clear story of when they went from, hey, basically a no shoe to like, oh, let's, let's over shoe. I'll speculate for one second its potential. When they said, hey, we're going to go from a four ounce shoe to a one ounce two, but we don't want to put nothing under your feet, foot, feet that they could have said, hey, let's actually find the least dense foam possible. Like, if I were in Oregon and that were like my project, that's how I would do is say, oh, well, we want to have, you know, I mean, I'm going to hold up a mag. Max, this is 300g, but we want this to a 100g and be the same thing. So you need something that's way, way less dense. I don't know if that's how they did it. and I will say from, you know, when they came out with that groundbreaking thing, like, I mean, you know, you and I were at the same brand at the time I pitched them. I said, hey, I don't know what this stuff is. We need to go get this right now. They didn't do it. I mean, we came out with with Ultra Ego, which was pretty good. It had a little bit more, you know, rubberized compounds in it, but but it certainly wasn't in that back vein. And, and, and even when I came to Puma and we started Nitro, that was I think part of the of the story was first like what's best in class in the industry for every day and for race day? And yes, P I mean, p backs is Kleenex, right? Like tissues. The name brand is Kleenex. Pee bar is polyester black? Am I whatever. And then P backs with the X is branded version. And they've done a great way of that. The same way you know Vibram has branded outsole, right? Like they've done a really, really good job with their marketing and also with product development. but for me at Puma, step one was like, hey, what's best in class? Everybody's doing this, okay. You got to get to there first. And then specifically working with Ramon on the innovation team. And sitting here is like. Okay, so historically it used to be foams or poo. And then there was Eva and then, you know, boost TPU and then and then there were some of these teepees and also the PBO. At some point it was like, well, wait, if we've actually used so many different plastics, plastics one, two, three, four, five that I just named, that was part of the brief. And the question was, well, what's number six? What's the next thing that's beyond all of the other things? And, and I mean, for me and my team, like that's I would say part of the process is of trying to stay advanced, but it's Zack, I gotta tell you, it's so many people. It's so many people working together in teams and knowledge. Because even if, you know, you know, a lot of brands are talking about aliphatic TPU and we're using stuff, there's still at least a hundred. I'm not a material. There's at least 100 variations of aliphatic TPU. Maybe the scientist sit next to you. You say 2 or 300, I don't know, like there's so much. And then we talk about paybacks or we talk about like, like this is just a plastic pellet, right? Yeah. That's not the formula. That's like saying if you want to run a marathon, Go for a run. Like. Oh, wait. So there's there's there's tempo. There's long runs. There's speed, there's lactate threshold. There's all these things. And it's the same with foam. You start with a with a raw material. There's processing time, there's temperature, there's heat, there's cooling, there's off gassing. There's all these different parts to it that I think go into that final formula. so I, I'll pass it back to you and you can kind of redirect me back to the torture question. But there's so much that goes into that process. Yeah. I guess, maybe to summarize, like somewhere along the way when Puma was deciding, we need to make a shoe that is gonna exceed market expectations as they currently stand, they saw that path forward with a TPU versus like a P bar. So, I mean, that I think is just interesting in and of itself that like we have because I or maybe the follow up question is more to the degree of just like we have. And I think you've sort of answered this to some degree. It's like my thought was like, once we put these parameters in a 40 millimeter stack, single plate. You know it's going to be a race within that category or within those parameters, but then it limits how much can be done. Like I guess if there were, it'd be really cool if we had a scale of like, we have like a limitless number of potential within these parameters still in terms of finding more performance or we're like really close to the end where at a certain point we're just going to hit like a roadblock, where within these parameters we just really can't get any faster. Yeah, I think there's a lot of things we can do on the product development side in terms of just building shoes. In my personal opinion the World Athletics rules were put in place to level the playing field and ground where, you know, Puma we have an innovation department. Other brands do not have that right. So dedication of resources and all that stuff. I mean that's what I think those rules were initially put in place that said like we're still innovating. Other brands are innovating. I mean, I think that's one of the other things where patents come in really, really strong, like there's so many carbon fiber plate patents. So, you know, I, I'm not sure what the root of the question is if it's like, oh, is everybody going to start copying or coming out with the same shoe? I mean, you every brand has to execute, right? Like, we still have to execute the supply chain in the supply and the demand and the design and the marketing. And like, all those pieces have to go together. I mean, you know, one good example for my memory is like Reebok, right? Like Reebok in 2018 was the second company to use backs to my memory. And I, I know I knew some people there and I was like, oh wait, this is like the best foam in the industry. And they didn't have the rest of the pieces put together in the same way. Right. So I think that's where it all has to come together. That's no shade on them. I actually haven't followed much of what they've been doing recently, but I'm just saying that they were way ahead of nine out of the top ten running brands. Right. But you have to do all the pieces to get it to the finish line. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. You have to. Yeah. You have to have the team in place to actually explore the edges of the regulations in order to really actually bring something to market that's going to do what we want, what you want it to do from that stand. Because it is funny because like people get pretty up, I don't know, maybe not upset, but they wonder like. Why hasn't Nike come out with something that kind of really advances their original model? To a larger degree, I think the expectation maybe was that that was going to be the case, and they sort of like, I mean, they came out of the gates hot, obviously, but then from there it basically kind of just plateaued. And then the other brands have now kind of caught up and in Puma's case to, you know, with at least some of the research we have suggests they surpassed it in certain cases anyway. But yeah, it is interesting because you'd think, you know, Nike's probably sitting in their development rooms and thinking about, okay, what are we doing next? But yeah, it's hard to. It's hard to it's fun to speculate, I guess. Yeah. And I don't I don't work there. I don't know all those answers either. I also wonder some of those questions. And I mean, they hit such a home run with actually with both shoes, like the first paper fly was, was like the best shoe in the industry by far. And even the Alpha Phi was also really, really good. And to your point, yeah, at some point you're seeing people in those shoes at the grocery store. They're selling a lot of that shoe, right? Yeah. So where's the draw drive, I guess, to make something else at that point. Yeah. And I don't know what's next for them. and I mean, I that was one of the funny things when we're putting out fast R3, we're like, oh, what's the what's the best shoes from the industry? But we tried the, you know, we tested against Adidas Evo one, but the two came out just a couple of weeks later. Right. And it's like, okay, wait, they they changed the phone. They changed the geometry. They changed. Like, where does that stack up? And that's where it's an ongoing. Like thing, but you don't know what's coming next and when. And I will say, for me, that's part of what I love about my job being, you know, product line manager and working on UN shoes and briefing a shoe or a foam or a different element and going, okay, this is what's the best now. But I wake up every day and there's, you know, new new YouTube videos to watch and new Instagram posts and new things. And it's like, man, people everywhere are working hard. And it's it stills, those two things. I said. Step one is to be the best in class, equal to what else is out there. Step two is to find your ways to elevate and do something different. And that's a little bit, I guess, my life philosophy or mantra right now. But there's so much going on and I will say to like, Connor, Damien, the guys that are on my team, they are also hawks on that stuff. And so anything that goes on, like I've always known my stuff about shoes when you got people around you that are even also hawkish on it, it's like, oh, okay, okay. It challenges you to have good teammates. You know. Absolutely. No. That's interesting. Yeah I did have one other kind of interesting thing that I would just love to hear your thoughts on. That caught me off guard a little bit when we got the World Athletic regulations. My thought was like, well, there's really no reason to make a shoe that's like 50 millimeter stack height or that deviates from that regulation. And then like we've got multiple brands now making shoes that they're technically illegal, but they found a spot in the market for them because from my perception, you know, you have the shoe, like you have the limitations where you kind of have this little bit of a competing interest between performance and stabilization. But when you take the rules off the board now, you can make a shoe that performs potentially similar but can be maybe a little bit heavier, a little more stable. And when someone's just looking about doing their normal training and they want to kind of get used to being in that sort of a product or get used to that foam, or maybe like, one of the guys at Brady Homer who helps review shoes with me, he had a bunch of injuries before the premium foams, and now he's at least partly convinced that, like, these foams have actually helped him stay healthy. So for him, it's like a brand comes out with a 46 millimeter stack height shoe that's got some stability to it, and he can do some training miles in that thing and stay healthy. That's awesome for him. So it's like it's just funny to me to think like that. That type of a product has got a big enough market demand that it, that that brand's not just one brand, but multiple brands are doing that. Well, I think this is something we've clearly seen in the last. Maybe ten years, but definitely five years. Where. and it's not just that foams are getting softer and lighter, so you can have the same weight shoe with more cushion. but I really and I, I don't know if I know the answer. Why? I think my best speculation as to why is more cushioning just feels a little bit better. And we've given every shoe a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more to where the old, like 32 millimeter then was like, no, 36 is the new normal. And it's like, oh, no, 40 is the new normal. And, you know, now mag Max is 46. And I actually, you know, speaking in my own personal, I actually have tried to stop running in some of those crazy overly max shoes because as I said earlier, like, I'm a little bit more of a naturalist and I also have a lot of cushioning in my foot. So I don't personally need a shoe to do a lot of cushioning, right? Somebody with a really rigid foot and a rigid arch, I would say, hey, you need you could benefit maybe from more cushioning. But my point is, if 40 is the new 36 or everybody's adapting to more and more cushioning, I don't know what the answer is other than like it feels normal. And so that's where the center and the meat of the market is. And as far as the rules go. I. Me personally, I think I am glad that there's that 40 millimeter cap. because otherwise I think it would get crazy. And I'm not, I mean, saying our shoes or anybody else's shoes, whatever. But like, there would be some really potentially weird things out there and maybe that would be good. Or maybe it would just be weird, I don't know, like the one that actually gets me, Zach, is that is the track, because I think the track spikes are all still limited at 20mm and 25 or something like that. Yeah, so it used to be 25. It's soon going to be 20. Oh, is it okay? Interesting. Know exactly what date that goes into effect. but they didn't just want to go all the way down, so they did 25 for a little bit. And then at some point it will be 20. And I struggled a little bit to understand that, I also thought, yeah, 25 or even 30. Like it's not crazy when there's 40 to the point where I'm like, you know, the, the African, that girl that tried to run the the one mile under four minutes, I'm like, if she's cheating and using pacers and doing all these things, I'm like, shouldn't she be in enough of I like, would that be more efficient than, than than her spike. I don't know the answer. But I think at the end of the day, their point is wanting to have fair competition, which I support. Yeah. Yeah. The Faith Kipping on the subfloor attempt was interesting. Yeah that's a good point. Yeah. If you're going to break the rules anyway then I guess maybe it kind of gets into the conversation before chasing 100 things. It's like they're going to break rules to try to show, but then at what point do people start to kind of lose interest because it comes to, comparable to anything they would actually see in real life. But yeah, I would think you've normalized alpha flies to a large degree now. So I don't think people would have been too upset if she had been wearing those. Yeah. And I mean, you can get in a taxi and somebody will say, oh yeah, I know the guy that broke two hours for the marathon. And it's like, well, okay. He didn't do it legally, like it doesn't come. But in the social atmosphere, like everybody says, no human is limited. Right. And that's like this guy did it. It's like well okay. He had extra wind help and and we can grade how much. But like technically it was against the rule. So I sometimes wonder myself I'm like what's the point? Like spiral. Do you remember spiral, the shoe with the springs in it? Yeah. Yeah yeah, yeah. They had guys running like 24 or 25 minute ten KS because I think they were in Mexico and it was a ten K where it lost like 3 or 5000ft. It's like what? Like what's the point? Like. Okay, great. I, I and that's just me person. I'm like, maybe I'm just more of a naturalist or I'm like, no, I want like, the real, real thing. What I do want though, and I don't know if you have this, but I do want like all my old peers, I want to know what the adjustments are. We need a conversion chart, a reliable conversion chart. We need we need, like, the closest I've seen is is it can be up to, I think, one one second to lap on the track or something like that. So I'm gonna, I'm going to take my 1500 from, from 358 down to 354. And you know, no, it doesn't bump. Yeah. Have you ever listened to, to to Kara and Des? Nobody asked us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're they're really funny duo that they're just like, gosh darn it, like 15 years ago. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, I, I'm like that too. So yeah. Yeah, it's a fun, fun speculation. we'll have to let the kids solve those problems for us though, since they get they get the all the, all the cool toys. Well, I think one of the best things that's going to come out of this talk is I was completely on the fence about fall 50, even though I have now you're doing it. No, I'm doing it, I'm doing it. And and I don't know if I'm going to be like, okay, so steady state is 144. Heart rate. Or if I'm just going to be like Zach, I'm going to go put down 182 and see how long I can hold. Max, you can always just throw like human physiology to the wind and just decide to see what happens. You never know. That's one of the sad things about 100 milers, I will say, is it's not as much fun. There isn't much of a as much of a variable of like, what am I going to get? And and sometimes it can be for me a little bit even demotivating if you're like wanting a PR and like real quick, like within a couple hours you can be like, I'm not getting a PR and it becomes and then it becomes a little bit of a different thing, but it's like, why am I out here? Yeah, yeah. And that's what I really liked about it, you're in Alice's talk, and I would tell everybody to go back and listen to it. When you were chasing that 100 mile world record and, you know, and you're like, so sick of doing 30 miles every day around the track. And I saw it. I saw like 30. I'm like, Zach, do you go clockwise or counterclockwise today? And then you went and did San Diego hundred something just totally different kind of cleared your mind. And then you ended up getting that world record. Not when you were aiming and going. You were just like you were fresh and you were clear and you did. It didn't. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It kind of shows just like yeah. You kind of need a cognitive break I think from, from some stuff every once in a while. And that kind of resets the motivation to some degree. And I mean to some, you could also maybe argue that doing San Diego hundred was just good in terms of like there's a lot of strength development running up mount Ord, which is almost you could be more inspirational about it. Don't make it so. So you gave them a mental break. You're like, I flipped something in my head. Yeah. Yeah. You're like the VO2 max. Well, no, Zach, I mean, honestly, that's one of the hardest things for me is, like, still wishing I could, like, chase really, really big times in between the body not being able to handle it and other things that are also important. It's like, that's why I'm like, you know what? Like I, I'm happy to just go explore the world, right? Like, running is great. You can go anywhere. You can really get to know a city when you're traveling or anywhere and just just get to do a little bit more. But, but no, I, yeah, I will definitely be requesting your coaching services if, if states or UTM or any of these things. There you go. And maybe, maybe I'll be a little bit more analytical about it. yeah. We'll make sure you don't end up, like, on the side of Forest Hill dropping out, that's for sure. Yeah, I definitely thought about David Roach when I was when I was at, you know, mile 35 and looking at my baby and I was like, oh, gosh, let's, let's go get a pizza. But, but that's okay too, right? Like like priorities. And, I'm so absolutely to have my little girl. I am so. No doubt. Well. Todd, it's been awesome chatting about a whole bunch of different stuff, I guess. but yeah, before I let you go, is there anywhere people can find you that you want them to know about? I mean, I'm on Instagram. I'm on LinkedIn. It's actually interesting. Like, you're. When we started Nitro 2021, I was posting everything, every win, everything that happened. now we have such a strong team that does so, so many good things. And and also for me, just like shifting a little bit more towards balance. Right? Like balancing running and family and work and keeping all those things in mix. So, no, I, I've done a lot of my best things. So if you want to do something, go, go like my Michigan post from when I, when I set my fk and it was like my 100th marathon. And I'm not saying I'll never do that again, but, sometimes it's good to also look back and just be be happy. I mean, when I was prepping for Berlin, I went and looked at my 100 mile PR and I looked at the splits and I was like, I ran 12 minute miles all night long. And I actually just instead of being like, I'm going to go crush it, I was like, I have respect for for what I've done in the past, right? You know, so it's a good, good perspective. It's okay to be proud of your your accomplishments for sure. So awesome. Well, I'll link that stuff to the show notes for people. Want to kind of check out what you're up to. But yeah, it's been awesome chatting, Todd. And looking forward to seeing how things go at the full 50. Well, I appreciate what you're doing too. It's good to, you know, you have so many good guests and it's good to dive a little bit deeper into some of these topics. So thanks for letting me be a part of your show. Absolutely.