Mark Bell's Power Project - Hybrid Training: Balance Running And Strength Training - Jeremy Miller || MBPP Ep. 1040

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

In episode 1040, Jeremy Miller Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about Jeremy's ability to deadlift 500lbs while still being able to run marathons and even run a sub 5 minute mile. Jeremy credits his hybrid style of exercising for why he's able to run 50-70 miles a week.   Follow Jeremy on IG: https://www.instagram.com/jeremymille.r/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/untapped ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

You have the ability to do a 500 pound deadlift and you can run a mile in five minutes. I'm like 170 right now. I had to put on a few pounds to get the 500 pound deadlift. What were the kind of weights that you hit in training most of the time compared to the 500 pound deadlift that you ended up doing? I don't think I ever did in training anything over like 435. Did building up the capacity to do that deadlift negatively affect any aspect of your ability to run well?

I think if anything it helps are there any like staple exercises that are going to carry over into running outside of either deadlift or squat like everything else is focused on just one leg specifically i run like anywhere from 40 to 70 miles a week so yeah just using shrink training really to mostly reduce your risk of injury so that i can run more i like that it's standing yeah dude never done a standing podcast i couldn't imagine having the next time you come back to me running we kind of did that yeah we were yeah little walking treadmills that that's possible yeah walking treadmills we can definitely do that how many steps we get in a day? Dude. I feel like I think way better when I'm out on a run. Yeah, that's true.

It flows way better. Yeah. Well, I thought we ran like four and a half miles. Then you're like, no, it was like seven. I was like, damn. There's track of time. I think what would be great is if this was, instead of just a standing podcast,

if it was a standing calf-raised podcast. So you're in the machine, and we're just here the whole time. Like, yeah, so what do you think about that? That's really interesting, right? What Greg Doucette said the other day. Why did he got to do that? Why did he got to use his name?

To get you fired up. I like Greg. Why are you looking so good today? Why am I looking good? I mean, you always look good, but like, well, this is like freshly shaved. Is it for Jeremy? Thank you. I had to, you know, I had to do well for this guy.

You know, I appreciate that. Fucking beautiful eyes and jaw of steel and shit. Dimples. Dimples. Dude. Yeah. Yeah. What's going on with all that? Lucky fiance, man.

It's all the running. Oh. That's all. That's my only. I don't, what's going on with all that? Lucky fiance, man. It's all the running. Oh. That's my only. I don't know. Just chewing on gum all day? Yeah. No, but real talk. You got one.

Why is that happening? I don't know. Okay. It's got genetics, I guess. I don't know. Okay. Okay. I don't know.

It's a good question. How long? I never thought about it. How long have you been running for? Did you start running when you were young? No. I mean, you're 26, so you're fucking young. I mean, I was 21 when I started, so five years ago.

Oh, shit. Yeah. And not much of a running background before that? No, I always hated running so much. I played sports. I played hockey and baseball. Hockey? That's unusual. Hockey. Yeah. In America. Yeah. And Wyoming, especially there's like 10 teams in the whole state. It is cold there though. It is cold. We got mountains and ice, but no, I always hated running because it was,

it was punishment in sports. So like I always had this really negative connotation with it that over running, I did something wrong. And yes, I started in 2021. I heard David Goggins on the Joe Rogan podcast. He told a story about running 100 miles and no training. And I thought that, that's fucking crazy. So at that point in my life too, I felt like I was kind of lost or searching for something too.

And that just seemed like a really interesting thing to get into and like a new way to challenge myself or explore my consciousness and uh yeah so i started running just like a mile a day i would go as hard as i could every single day just one mile full sprint uh what kind of times are you hitting that back i mean the only baseline knowledge i had was in seventh grade, I ran a 7.12 mile. We had to run the mile in PE, which is not bad for seventh grade. That's good. Yeah.

Yeah. And I was like, okay, as a 21-year-old, as long as I can beat my seventh grade self, then I'll be good, right? And so I'll just try and beat 7.12 every day. I think I maybe got down to like 6.30. I don't think I ever broke six minutes. That's crazy. and beat 712 every day i think i maybe got down to like 6 30. i don't think i ever broke six minutes and uh crazy and now my now my marathon time is like my marathon pace is like 6 10 6 15 a mile so which is it's absurd to me but yeah i did just a mile a day for probably like four or five months

and then learned like okay if i want to go farther i probably just slow down a little bit maybe learn how to train properly but But the first two years, I'm kind of stubborn and I don't like doing a lot of research. At least then I didn't like doing a lot of research and actually learning how to do it. I just wanted to figure it out on my own. I probably could have fast-tracked it

and made a lot more progress a lot quicker, but I was so stubborn that I'm like, I'm just going to figure this out on my own. And so I started learning, just slowing down. Okay, well, let's run like nine minutes a mile. So I could do like four or five miles. And then I think within the first year,

I worked my way up to about 10 miles. I did like one 10 mile run. And it felt like I was out there forever. It felt like a marathon. But hitting that like double digit gave me so much confidence. But yeah, we've done a lot since then in between now and then.

But no no long story short definitely did not have a background in running what did you uh what do you think it does for you from a mental side of things because you did mention that maybe you felt a little lost for a while yeah i feel like it it's a place of solitude for sure like you get to just think and meditate back then then I would listen to music. I couldn't go for a run without music. Um, now I don't listen to anything. I just go out and have my thoughts basically. But, uh, yeah, it's just a place to think and be by yourself. I feel like, especially with phones and technology, we're rarely within or we're rarely just by ourselves

with our own thoughts. And so I think it's important to have that. And I think it's a really tangible way to build self-confidence. Like you're building like this undeniable evidence for yourself that, okay, if I show up and do this every single day, I can actually progress and get better at something. And yeah, I think just any physical endeavor is a good way to do that. And yeah, it's a very tangible way to just make progress with yourself. So I think self-confidence was one of the biggest things. Yeah.

You're doing a workout yesterday, and you're one of those rare runners that lifts and runs, and you can tell the way you look too. So is that something that you had while running at the beginning, or did you realize later on that you need strength training with what you're doing right now? Yeah, definitely more of the latter. I lifted very unintentionally for a while. I started lifting when I was like 15, 16 in high school.

I just had like a conditioning class. I was never any good at it. I couldn't lift crazy weights or anything. And then after I got out of high school, I would, I would just go to the gym like four or five times a week. I'll just do machines. I do like kind of bodybuilding style stuff, uh, just really as a way to, to try and stay active and stay healthy.

Um, but I got kind of bored with it cause I wasn't making a ton of progress again. I was stubborn. So I don't, I didn't want to like take the time to research and like, okay, how do I actually get bigger and stronger? I just thought I could figure it out. And then when I started running a little bit more, again, I was kind of just a way to stay healthy. And again, like trying to learn something else about myself. I got injured a lot because I had like shin splints.

I had runner's knee, plantar fasciitis, all these weird little nagging things all the time. What's runner's knee specifically? There's a more scientific term for it but from what i know it's it's the like cartilage in your knee okay i think it's where your femur meets your kneecap um there's something in there that like gets broken down tissue wise um so i had all these things that just kept popping up and i was like okay okay, there's gotta be a way to, to avoid these. And so I started finally doing more research, learning about shrink training, how it can help with running, not only be a better, faster runner, but also reducing your risk of injury. And so now, now I lift cause I lifting feels good. I love lifting. I love the way it makes you feel, uh, and healthy and, you know, metabolically it makes you healthy too. But more so just for helping running, I think.

I think, again, reducing risk of injury and building muscular endurance so you can run longer. I love doing the longer stuff with running because I feel like you can learn more about yourself through the longer distances. I think the shorter distances are fun, but I prefer the longer stuff. And the longer stuff is just more wear and tear on your body,

so that's where the strength training comes into play even more. So yeah, just using strength training really to mostly reduce your risk of injury so that I can run more. Yeah, I'm sure you've noticed that your strength relative to your body weight is a really big factor. And you're not a heavy guy and you're also deadlifting like 500 pounds. You're handling some heavy weight. So that probably is something that makes you more durable than your average runner right yeah because from what i know of strength training is the more you lift the the stronger bone density you have for the more bone density and right you know it helps reduce your risk of stress fractures

um you know build up all that connective tissue in your knees and in your joints uh again reducing your risk of injury for for running but yeah, I'm like 170 right now. I had to put on a few pounds to get the 500 pound deadlift, or it seemed like I had to put on some weight. So I got up, not a lot, it was like 175, so just five pounds heavier, but I've always had such a hard time putting on weight. And so going even from 170 to 175 within,

it took like three or four months of intentionally putting on weight, that like, I had to eat so much food. You're doing a real deadlift. You know, it's interesting. Oh yeah, real man deadlift. You know, it's interesting,

like the things that each individual has to work for versus the things that they don't have to work for. Now you mentioned putting on five pounds, like, you know, I can put on five pounds by eating a sandwich. Yeah. You know, I can put on five pounds by eating a sandwich. I can put on five pounds super easy. I don't even remember the last time I weighed 175. I was probably like, I don't know, like 13 or something like that.

It was probably a long-ass time ago. But for you, running came pretty naturally. You ran, and without a whole lot of training um you ran like in gym class you ran like a seven minute mile and then later on you ran like a six so it's just it's interesting because in the fitness industry we're sharing information a lot of times with people and we don't know where someone's starting out and sometimes people look at us or they'll look to us for discipline, motivation. And what they might not realize is that maybe in the track of life, like we started off like a lap or two ahead of some people in some of these areas. And so I think it's just important for

people to kind of keep that in mind when they're listening to where some of us started out or some of the recommendations that we might have. No, a hundred percent. And I think we naturally gravitate towards what we're good at. Like, uh, I think you like being younger, you saw you were more gifted in lifting or you had more inherent strength than like your friends or your people around you. And so I think that's important to know is like, I think we naturally kind of go towards what we're, what we're good at. Like my bench sucks, my squat sucks, but I learned I was pretty good at deadlifting. So I was like, okay, how can I lean into that and try and get my deadlift up to a decent number and still again, trying to get my run faster, uh, because I learned that I'm decent at running. Um, but yeah,

that's an important point that like, you know, you take a snapshot of somebody and you think, oh, they've put in all this work. I mean, yeah, they probably have put in the work at some point, but yeah, some people might start a little bit ahead of others. And like, if I were to try and make a transition to powerlifting, like it'd take me way longer because I'm not maybe naturally gifted in that realm. Not like a predisposition. Exactly. Yeah. Same thing like you with running, maybe it feels more unnatural. You have to think about it more. Like even this morning when we were running, you asked me about like my form. Like I've never really thought about my form. I just do what feels good. And I think naturally I have a better running form. Same thing maybe with you with lifting is like,

you never really had to think too much about it. You would just do it. That was a question they had with Anderson Silva. Like they were at his house in Brazil and they were like, how did this all come to be? He's like, I don't know. I never really thought about it. Yeah. He's like, I started jujitsu when I was like five. Yeah. Yeah. And he just destroyed everybody, you know? That's crazy. Yeah. And I've always been super active. Like I'm definitely grateful my parents got me into sports and I was basically, as soon as I started walking, I started playing hockey. And hockey is obviously a very unnatural sport because whenever in nature are you skating on ice with knives on your feet? And so, uh, learning that and just like, you know, the balance and like hockey is kind of similar to running where it's

like a single leg activity. You're, you're always balancing on one leg. It requires a lot of stability. So I think that that probably translated pretty well. Demonstrating on Andrew, can you show us like when they pull the shirt, the jersey up over and they throw like the uppercuts on the guy? Yeah, I wish in high school they make you wear face masks like a full cage. There's not a lot of fighting but like it's like. Is there some at least?

There's some. It's like I'd call it I don't know if I'd call it fighting. It's like you're kind of just like wrestling with people. Like you'll throw punches but you have gloves on and they have a face mask on. The fact that you're still throwing punches, and they're okay with it in high school is wild to me. Yeah, it's a wild sport.

In the NHL, they separate. You know, they skate away from each other for half a second, and they go, and they throw their gloves off. That's how they throw their gloves off. They just go, bam, like that, and then they fucking go at it. Yeah, now in the NHL, they make people wear the half visor, the half whatever it is, glass thing, to try and reduce fighting, which kind of sucks

because that's such a draw of the sport. Still, people are fighting. They'll slam their bare knuckles into a fiberglass visor, which is crazy. But yeah, hockey players are wild. I think that sport definitely taught me a lot in terms of just grit and kind of that work to reward. It's fucking cold.

Relationship. And it's cold. I mean, I've gone to a bunch of hockey games. It was pretty popular in my high school and I'd freeze my ass off just going to the games. Yeah. I mean, it's like going out for a run in the cold though. Like maybe the first couple of minutes,

you might be chilly, but you get used to it. And you have all the gear on, all the pads and everything. So, yeah, I think it's a team sport, but it also requires so much grit at the same time. So, yeah, I'm biased, but that's definitely a team sport. You don't really hear people talk that much about hockey, but hockey players are extremely athletic. They're also massive i think that sometimes people don't realize how big some of these athletes are like a lot of the nhl guys are pretty big they also play a ton of games i want to say they play like 80 games or something

like that yeah it's the same as the nba yeah that's insane yeah i mean because it's such a physical sport yeah and it's uh the hockey players are like big they're not like shredded like they're not very lean because it's just it's a very power sport it's kind of like power lifting i guess like you don't there's no benefit to being like really lean like you just want to be big and strong but also agile and fast uh yeah it's a fun sport i definitely miss it um i think i've noticed like in my training for running i think a lot of the workouts that i'm i'm better at or like yesterday we did some 400 meter repeats you know it's like a minute 15 seconds per rep just going as hard as you can in hockey it's kind of the same thing where it's like a 45 to 60 second shift you're just going as hard as you can for a short period

of time then you go rest so I feel like with running that kind of helps too like that that same aerobic system of like these short spurts uh and these like intervals basically but so that was a hard transition for myself because i was always good at the shorter distance stuff because of the like high intensity sports but then trying to transition into the endurance side of things like a marathon or like a 50 mile it's like a totally different system that you're working is there anything specific with hockey where you train your legs in a particular way for skating and to reduce injury. I'm just kind of thinking, I mean, it seems like your groin would get kind of beat up,

your adductors and stuff like that would get beat up from a sport like that. Yeah, I wish I had a good answer because that was before I was really intentional and cared about a lot of this stuff. I feel like I just kind of relied on my natural abilities and just like the fact that I played since I was two years old. Because I, unfortunately, like one of my best friends in high school, we were on the JV team freshman year. And then by the senior year,

he was like already off playing somewhere else. He went and played D1 hockey. But, and you know, when we were 15 years old, we were at the same skill level. But the only difference was he would show up and put in more hours than me. He like work out after practice he'd go to the gym several times a week he'd be at home like messing with a stick and and uh a puck and i just never did that like i would just show up and do the bare minimum at the time and so i got by but

uh i feel like that just seeing somebody else show up and put in the work i was like okay he doesn't have some genetics or something that i don't have it's just he showed up and worked harder than I did So yeah, I try and take that into running now to like damn if I if I would have trained like this back then like I could have maybe gone play d1 sports or Gone beyond that but yeah Let me ask you this man because for example you you have the ability to do 500 500 pound deadlift and you can run a mile in five minutes. Did you find, because a lot of people are kind of,

they're against doing a lot of the big compound movements now, especially when it comes to those movements and sports or anything that has to do with gait. Did building up the capacity to do that deadlift, did it negatively affect any aspect of your ability to run well? Did you find, or are you finding that it is negatively impacting anything that you can tell so far? Yeah, that's a good question.

I think if anything, it helps. I mean, deadlift obviously is focused on the posterior chain. And I think in my experience, most of the deficiencies in runners or in myself is stemmed from the posterior chain like weak glutes specifically yeah uh like you know i think even if you have runner's knee or you have some issue with your knee or something a lot of it can be can be stemmed back to your your glutes and so um yeah i think if anything it helps okay and i liked i still do a lot of functional movements like yesterday we did

like a bunch of lunges box step ups bulgarian split squats try and do as many single leg things as i can. But the deadlift, I don't squat a whole lot, just regular back squat. But the deadlift specifically seems like it helps with running. I think it's just a posterior chain activation. You use your hamstrings a lot when you run, use your glutes a lot. And even maybe with posture, having a strong back probably helps a lot with running yeah I don't think it

in my experience it hasn't had any negative effects at some point it might make your ass so big that it slows you down yeah my girlfriend she does say I got a big butt

she likes that she's into the deadlifts yeah I don't know there is a point of diminishing returns with size and running like if I'm trying to really optimize like my marathon time, I'm probably not in the ideal body composition right now.

I'd probably have to lose some weight or some size, but I don't know if I'm really trying to optimize my marathon time. Like I want to just be able to run fast and lift heavy at the same time. I think not only does it make me feel good, but based on what I know from science, like that's the healthiest way to train is like do some zone two cardio, do some high intensity cardio, and then lift heavy things a few times a week.

So I'm probably running more than like the optimal in terms of like overall health and longevity. Cause I run like anywhere from 40 to 70 miles a week, depending on what I'm training for. But I think over time you can build up that tolerance to where now like doing 70 miles a week, depending on what I'm training for. But I think over time, you can build up that tolerance to it to where now doing 50 miles a week doesn't really feel like much, which is cool.

You just enjoy it. Yeah, I just like it. Even if it's like, like you're saying, it might not be the most optimal thing for health, longevity, but you're like, fuck it. I like it, and it doesn't feel like it's

doing anything negative right i can tell if i get over if i get over 50 or 60 miles for too many weeks i start to feel it uh but that baseline has also shifted up as i get more fit and as i get more accustomed to running so like i remember my first 50 mile week was just like a year and a half ago. And that felt like so many miles. Uh, and then now I think I'll probably hit like 50 miles this week and it doesn't really feel like much. So I think your body just becomes more attuned to it. Uh, and maybe even like, you know, the elite marathon guys who run, you know, a hundred miles a week for years, like it might seem crazy, but to their bodies are so adapted and accustomed to it. That's probably not that bad for them potentially um i don't know yeah there's i think everybody's just so different and so subjective to where you're at in your in your fitness and you know

how your genetics are all these different things there's so many factors at play to like set a number and say okay if you run over this many miles a week it's gonna ruin your health it's it's so subjective yeah pat project, we love beef on this podcast. We talk about it a lot. All right? We love our meat. But sometimes eating the same meat all the time can get a little bit boring.

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as well as the podcast show notes. When it comes to hard stuff, you were mentioning earlier that you kind of wish you pushed yourself a little bit more when you were younger, and then you said you like to kind of adopt some of this into um you're running nowadays and and kind of pushing what what like uh that's that's a tough spot to be in sometimes we were talking about this a little bit on the run i agree like doing hard things is important um i think a lot of people heard andrew huberman and david goggins

talking about how your mind can literally grow and expand when you do novel things that are difficult and when you really push into stuff that that maybe like we like running right but you have to make the running probably fairly uncomfortable at the same time. How do you make it uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable that you can't recover from it? You know what I mean? Like there's, there's a lot of things to think about. Um, and just going for it feels good and the expansion of the mind and what that does for you and the runner's high and like all these things feel so good. Uh, but sometimes it can be to our detriment in terms of like body breaking down and stuff. Like what are some of your thoughts on that? Yeah. That's like the million dollar question.

How do you get the mental stimulus out of running without overdoing it and destroying your body? I don't know if there's like a really like one hard answer to that. I think I like doing things maybe in like spurts or in like sprints. So likeints. So if I go and set a goal, like the most recent marathon I did, I wanted to run under two hours, 45 minutes. So I set the goal to run that. Training-wise, I probably was kind of always towing that line of overtraining

and maybe causing an injury or something. And when I would start to feel that, just through intuition, I'd maybe like, okay, instead of doing 10 miles a day, I'll do like eight and just pull back a little bit. So I think maybe the answer would be to, to find that intuition and, and find that, uh, that point with your body where you might be overdoing it. But I, I almost think that to some extent you have to push beyond that occasionally to really know where you're, where that line is is at because like the first race i ever did was uh it was a 12-hour endurance challenge in wyoming through the

mountains he had 12 hours to just do as many miles as you could and i wanted to do 50 miles at the time i was maybe running like 10 miles a week so severely under trained and uh i ended up doing 43 miles but i my my knee hurt afterwards uh like i got runner's knee, so I had to stop early. And so that was like, I pushed too far, but now I'm like, okay, now I can go back. I got to heal up from this, obviously. But now I can go back and say, okay, maybe I'll do like 30 miles next time. It's like you set a new baseline for yourself. So I think there is maybe some value in occasionally crossing that line

to really find where your limit might be. But I don't know how often you actually want to do that. There's probably two ways to go about it. Either that way or just kind of playing it safe and always being maybe under your true potential. But I don't know if you really want to live like that. I think I'd rather occasionally cross over that line and see like, okay.

How do you know if you'll come back safely though? Yeah, that's true. That's a risk, I guess, that you had to be willing to take. Yeah. I don't know. Like I'm training for a 100-mile race in June. Why? Exactly.

I want to find out why in the process. Is this your first one, right? First one. Yeah, the longest I've gone before this was 100K, which I did in a parking lot like a month and a half ago. Yeah, that was, would not recommend that. It was 62 miles, so 100 kilometers. Just going around in a circle?

Around a one-mile loop, so 62 laps. Dude, that's evil. Ew. I made this, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, there's some footage. The original race we were signing, or that i signed up for uh got canceled like three days before but there was like a hundred of us planning to run this it's like okay let's just adapt and pivot and we'll just make up our own

race and somebody knew somebody at this church so they're like let's use the parking lot we'll set up a one mile course some people did 100 miles, because they were training to run the hundred mile version of the race that got canceled. And, uh, yeah, it was, uh, it, that to me was the hardest thing mentally that I've done in like a physical endeavor. Um, because at 62 miles, it was nine and a half hours, just the same one mile loop over and over and over again. Like it, it kind of, my brain turned into mush almost like, cause as soon as I would it was nine and a half hours just the same one mile loop over and over and over again like it

kind of my brain turned into mush almost like because as soon as i would kind of start to forget about a part of the loop i would already be back to that point yeah and so i never really forgot about anything it was just kind of this one long continuous loop to the best oh god to the best of your ability can you kind of explain what the fuck happens to your mind when you're just doing something like that over and over and over and over? Were you listening to music? No. No, I never listened to music. I love

just seeing where my mind goes. And that's why I like running to begin with. Yes, it's a great way to stay healthy and keep yourself physically fit, but I love the mental side of things. And that's why I like doing ultra marathons. That's why I like, you know, signing up for these crazy long races and I'm doing a hundred miles later this year, but, um, it's really hard to explain, um, what I think you have to be present the whole time. That's one really powerful thing that I've

learned is you can't, your mind just won't wander that far because as soon as you kind of start to let it wander, you're instantly snapped back to, okay, we're running. This is very uncomfortable. Why are we doing this? And you're just kind of always in the present moment. And so it's like, to me, that's like, I've never found anything that makes me, thank you. I never found anything that makes me more present than, than running. And, um, I like that a lot. And it teaches you so much patience. Like when I have 62 laps to run and I'm on like the eighth lap, if I start thinking about, fuck, I have like 50 more of these things to do, like that'll screw you up and you'll probably, you might end up quitting.

So, um, again, that also forces you to be present okay just focus on the lap we're currently on focus on what we're doing right now um i've also i've done some like things with like psilocybin and mushrooms and i feel like in my experience uh like a a mushroom trip or a psychedelic trip is almost identical to you don't get like the visualizations during an ultra marathon, but that part of your brain that gets rewired, I feel like it's almost identical.

And I've heard Huberman, he didn't compare running and endurance events with psilocybin, but he talks about how it's, our brains are plastic and you can rewire your brain through like a traumatic experience or through psychedelics. And I feel like long distance endurance events kind of have that same effect. Trauma. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Pushing yourself through something that's difficult. And at some point you sometimes maybe think, you think you're not going to be okay.

Yeah. And you have to kind of convince yourself or talk yourself into like, no, this is what we trained for. This should be fine. But we are kind of, we're crossing the line a little bit today. Yeah, because you dip into like that survival mode a little bit, I think. And that fight or flight response, it gets triggered. And you just really start asking yourself,

why the heck am I doing this? Especially if it's a voluntary thing, like I didn't have to run 100 kilometers in a parking lot. But when it's a voluntary thing that's when you really start asking yourself why you're doing these things and like what the hell am i doing out here and i think that's powerful um because you can take that and translate it into everyday life which is cool you uh share a lot of ideas and concepts back and forth with uh pete

rubish right pete's the man and does he help you with lifting and stuff too? Yeah, so I worked with him. He's so good of a coach that I only needed him for nine weeks because my goal to do the 500-pound deadlift in the sub-five mile, I've always kind of had that in the back of my head, but I never actually took the time to train for it. And so I think it was like October, as soon as I finished my marathon, I started working with him.

At the time, I think my deadlift was like October, as soon as I finished my marathon, I started working with him. At the time, I think my deadlift was like 435. I could never get anything above that. And then, so within nine weeks, moving 435 to 500 pounds. So pretty big jump percentage-wise within less than three months, which is pretty cool. Pete's the man. He knows so much about health and fitness and powerlifting and even like blood work he's obsessed with blood work and any questions i have about that kind of stuff i'll just text him he knows the answer which is pretty cool um he helped me a ton with deadlifting though like the technique and uh honestly even more so just like building the confidence that i could

pull more weight than i thought i could like huge program'd program, say it was like, he had me do, it was like a 20 rep thing at like 300 pounds. And I was like, there's no fucking way I could do that. But I did it. It's just like having that person there to tell me and encourage me that I can do it. And yeah, I think that's the power of a coach is they're going to like tell you to go do something

that you probably wouldn't normally do under your own volition. And so having that external factor, that external presence to kind of push you, I think was a big thing. And again, technique wise, he helped me a lot too. That's like a high volume runner. Cause that's like your main thing for any runner that's listening. How, you know, when an athlete does multiple sports, sometimes they feel that they're too tired to actually do anything with lifting. There's a lot of people who grapple who are like uh lifting just takes so much energy

so how is it that you're able to figure out how to balance these during the week so that you still have really good running sessions and the lifting doesn't get in the way of your performance as a runner yeah it took a long time to build up to that okay i think you took a snapshot of this week like yesterday we did an eight mile speed workout and then went and trained legs pretty intensely for an hour. I definitely could have done that like a year or two ago. But just taking a lot of time to really intentionally build up to that point. So before I really – so I went from just lifting like four or five times a week, you know, like bodybuilding, just machines and stuff,

to then not lifting at all and really just running, because I thought to be a better runner, I needed to be smaller, I needed to lose weight, strength training is going to be bad for a runner, to then now doing both of them. So I had some experience doing both individually, but trying to combine those, it definitely just took a lot of time.

I think eating, obviously, like just making sure you're getting enough calories is probably the most tactical thing you can do because running is obviously a very calorically demanding activity. Like I think today, a seven mile run in an hour probably burned close to a thousand calories. And so making sure you're replenishing those. And I'm almost always probably still in a deficit, but intentionally trying to get in enough calories so that you can sustain that energy. And then, I mean, sleep is obviously huge. What you're eating is huge. I think there's all these little things you can do to help with the balance of the two, but I think more than anything, it's just giving your body enough time

to build those adaptations to be able to handle that much volume because if i'm doing 60 miles a week that's probably eight to ten hours of running and then tack on another four or five hours of lifting a week i mean that's so is that like what two or three lifting sessions uh i keep it the lifting sessions pretty short um it's usually like 45 minutes 30 to 45 minutes so it's not very long I lift usually four times a week so two lower body and then two upper body and again as a runner you don't really need the upper body

but I like to feel good and look good so why not so yeah I mean that's 10 to 15 hours a week of training which can definitely be a lot and again I wouldn't have been able to do that just a couple years ago so just really taking the time to let my body adapt to that

seems to be the biggest thing. We've been talking about deadlifts and I know you're a fan of lunges as well, but are there any staple exercises as a runner that you kind of, they're like your staple movements that are going to carry over into running? Have you discovered anything like that?

Yeah, I think anything single leg where you, you doesn't have to be literally on one leg, but at least loading one leg at a time. So like Bulgarian split squats are probably one of my favorites. I love box step ups. I think box step ups are the most, the closest simulation to, especially like mountain running. Like if you're going up a mountain or going up a big hill because you're like getting that upward movement that drive um i liked i love doing lunges whether it's like dumbbell kettlebell barbell any kind of lunges because that's still you're loading up one leg at a time you're in that functional like you're using your knees ankles hips all those main joints you're using when running uh yeah when I realized that running was a single leg activity, my like whole mind was blown. Cause I'm like, shit, it's so true. Like I never thought of it that way that you're never on both feet at the same time when you're

running. So why would you train, uh, with both feet on the ground or, or with your weight evenly distributed on both feet? And so, um, outside of either deadlift or squat, like everything else is focused on just one leg specifically. Um, i think just getting used to being balanced on one leg having that load uh and just teaching yourself how to have stability and have that balance is huge um yeah and i think through those like more functional movements you kind of hit all those like smaller muscles that are in there because i don't really do a lot of calf raises, or I know a lot of people do the tip raises. That probably would have helped maybe early on when I was doing the shin splints.

But I feel like through the more functional movements, I kind of am working all those same muscles and those same systems too. So, yeah, I really try to focus on single leg things as much as I can. Okay. When you were getting ready for that deadlift and you were trying to improve your deadlift to get to 500 pounds

from 435, what were the kind of weights that you hit in training most of the time compared to the 500 pound deadlift that you ended up doing? Yeah.

I have to look back on my training specifically. I remember I would do like 405 for about five reps. And one interesting thing that I learned from Pete was like, you don't really need a lot of sets. Like I think most deadlifting sessions,

it was like two to three sets most days. It wasn't a ton of volume. All the volume came in terms of the weight. Yeah, two or three main sets. Obviously, there's like little warm-ups and stuff like that. But once you get to your top set, it's like you do one to maybe three top sets, right? Right. Yeah, it was, I learned the warm-up sets.

Like that's, you don't really count those on paper. Right. But that is a way of building up to it. So, yeah, I remember we would do a lot of like sets of four or five around like 385. Yeah, I think, I don't think I ever did in training anything over 435, and that was for two reps maybe. Everything else was kind of in this percentage from, I would guess, maybe 70% to 80%. Was that quite a bit different than the way that you were training previously to get to the 435? Yeah, I had no idea what I was doing.

You'd always go 405 425 those ranges which are represents too large of a percentage to really make improvements yep um just to explain it to people a little bit further there's just uh in real general basic terms there's something called like a technical limit and i believe that when you're power lifting that your your best bet is to keep your form as clean as you can. There's a little bit of room to have some disruption in your form, but your form should be pretty smooth and clean. And when you can perform the reps correctly with weights that are near maximal,

those are good, clean reps. And those reps will now register as like a real positive for your body if you go to do a rep and you round over a ton and you shake a lot and you kind of barely make it to the top it's not that that that uh that type of work won't have any benefit for you it just can be difficult to recover from so if you do it from one week to the next to the next and so on, a lot of times you'll run into injury or the body just simply doesn't want to get better because you're kind of lifting in a slightly fatigued state each time. And all you can muster up every time

is that exact same weight. But if you train under that and you train with 385 rather than 415 or something like that, you'll have cleaner reps. You might be able to do three sets of two reps. So now you did six really clean reps. And the next time that you go to train, that work was inputted into your body, into your central nervous system. And the body then kind of says, hey, you did a good job with that we're gonna we're gonna count that you're gonna get a little stronger it kind of reminds me of like being in school uh with math they would say like show me your work how'd you get to this answer and how you get to your weight in strength training is the most important thing that you have to be able to show a certain amount of work if If your work was sloppy, it doesn't count. That's not the same. Yeah, that was something I actually realized was

I probably had the strength to pull 500 pounds even before working with Pete, when I had a 435 PR, but I just didn't have, one, the right technique and probably my nervous system wasn't attuned to being able to pull that much weight. And even just mentally being comfortable with that pull up off the ground. And like, because it's a very uncomfortable feeling when you've got that much weight in your hands.

Like everything feels like it's about to burst. Like just getting mentally comfortable with that. Because I always, you know, everybody talks about, oh, deadlifting is bad for your back. You know, I start getting the weight heavier and I'm like, oh, I don't blow out my spine or something. And just being comfortable with like, okay, we can, we can handle it, um, within reason, obviously. But, uh, yes. So probably I had the inherent strength, just had to, to put all those puzzle pieces together. And it's kind of the same thing with running. Like so much of it is your, your nervous system and, and getting your mind comfortable with those really uncomfortable paces. Like if

you're training for a marathon and you got to hold, in my case, a 6.15 pace for 26 miles, that's nearly a sprint basically. But being able to hold that and be comfortable mentally with that for two hours and 45 minutes, that's one of the biggest things. And so like in training with running, you spend a lot of time. I'll do like mile repeats at my marathon pace, which is like, okay, now I got to do that 26 times. It doesn't make sense on paper.

But being able to just build that kind of like cruise control almost with your mind and being able to get your body just comfortable at those paces. Even though you probably have the fitness already, you just got to, again, make sure it's all on the same page. What's your heart rate at when you're like keeping those types of paces? you probably have the fitness already. You just got to, again, make sure it's all on the same page. What's your heart rate at when you're like keeping those types of paces? Oh, it's my average heart rate when I did the 244 marathon was like 181. That was your average heart rate? Yeah.

And it progressively gets higher throughout. So the first maybe half marathon average is maybe like low 170s. And then as you get more fatigued, your effort level increases. So the last like six miles is just like i'm breathing really hard everything just is depleted at that point um and so overall towards the end of the marathon it's probably like high 180s yeah uh but overall

on average it's like 181 which is which is pretty nuts is there any consensus on like what's which is which is pretty nuts is there any consensus on like what's what would be i guess deemed as healthy for x amount of time like is has anyone kind of figured out like hey you know 180 is like kind of a lot and you probably shouldn't be in that range for more than like an hour you know or 30 minutes or something i've heard people like people comment on my videos and say stuff like that like dude you should let your heart rate get that high for that long like i can't be good for your heart but i mean like i'm okay now i feel good like my resting heart rate's really low it's like in the 40s typically so um yeah i don't i don't know if there's like a hard number like say you can't let your heart rate be over 170 for a certain amount

of time um i think there's like i think your your mind will probably stop you before you reach a point where you're going to cause physical damage to yourself. When I was doing my VO2 max test about a month ago, my heart rate got up. I think it was like 188, 189, like high 180s. And my mind stopped before my body did. I didn't pass out. I consciously hit the stop button on the treadmill because that was what i thought was my my limitation um so i think i don't think that's anything you have to be worried about when it comes to heart rate i think i think your

mind will always tap out before your body does yeah i'm not educated enough quite a bit on this topic but the small amount that i have heard and small amount that I do know, it does seem like, it does seem like you can do some damage. So it might be something to look into. Okay. Might be something to look into a little bit more because I think just as somebody who's like resting on the couch and not, you know, not being active, they may be damaging their heart with inactivity. we can also exhaust our heart a little bit too much too. And you might kind of be like with your skill set, you might be the perfect candidate for somebody that can almost like outrun their heart a little bit. So it might be something to think about.

But I know you train in a very intelligent way and you aren't typically in those higher ranges. That's mainly just for a race and stuff like that, right? Yeah. I mean, that's like twice a year. Right, right, right. And so that is probably a good point of like, I mean, you can't be doing that all the time. I don't think anybody should be running that intensely all the time. But I try to do a big effort like that maybe once or twice a year.

And so maybe, I mean, your heart's a muscle, and obviously you're building up the efficiency to it. And I mean, there's probably a point in which your muscle will just straight up fail, like your bicep or something. I don't know, I guess, enough about that. But in my experience, in my opinion, I guess, is my mind would tell me to stop or would force me to stop before my body would. But, um, I don't know. Yeah. That's a good point though.

It's important to redline here and there, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And it feels good sometimes I think too, like to get into that, that state mentally where you're just like, you can't push any farther or you don't think you can, at least. I think, I think there's some value to that for mental reasons. Do you know that you're going to be able to finish when you're just like, you can't push any farther or you don't think you can at least. I think there's some value to that for mental reasons. Do you know that you're going to be able to finish when you're in that zone? Or is it kind of sketchy in your head? Are you like, man, I'm not quite sure about this. Like, would that be like the end of a marathon or something?

Yeah. Yeah, I guess you don't ever really fully know. Going pretty hard and you're like, yeah, I think I got like three or four miles left and the mile marker comes and you actually have five more miles left. And you're like, all right, let's just, I will just see what happens. I haven't, I haven't reached a point where I can't keep going. So that's, that's something cool is like, I think there's, there's still so much untapped potential, which is fun. And, and with running is like, you can always run faster you can always go farther um so I've yet to reach the point where my body just stops like I mean I might cramp up maybe or like you know your your legs uh have

so much lactic acid build up or something that like they just literally won't move any faster but I've personally not reached that point yet. But I don't know. I do like during workouts to just to kind of go into the well a little bit and like reach that point for a couple minutes. And that's once a week. Like I train the 80-20 rule. So 80% of the time is very, very easy.

Like we ran today, zone two, just super chill, conversational. And then the other 20% more intense doing intervals um but that's such a small percentage sounds like you need to train with jason kalipa every once in a while he loves all that stuff he loves going crazy yeah it's fun to go fast like that and push yourself but it's just not sustainable and i i have learned like over time like the more resilience my body builds up i can handle more of the high intensity stuff. But I think in the long run, that 80-20 balance seems to be the best. Because there's a reason zone two works so well is because it just allows you to show up the next day. Like your effort level is so low, you're still getting some cardio benefit from zone two. But again, if you're

training longer distance stuff like a marathon, that's where it's going to be your legs that are holding you back rather than your cardio system. So the zone two works so good to just let yourself stack on all those miles. So somebody's like first marathon. I know it depends on where people are starting, but how long do you think somebody should give themselves before they're like, I'm going to tackle a marathon? Yeah. And yeah, there's probably general ideas for that. Yeah, I would say minimum four months and i mean if you really ask me i think anybody can go finish a marathon like it might take them

10 hours but they could go from point a to point b 26 miles uh i think if you want to get through a marathon unscathed and not yeah not have injuries and not turn into a big suffer fest. I would say minimum four months. Yeah. I think if you're really trying to optimize, like if you're going from the couch to a marathon, probably like six months. And you probably safely do that, I think. But again, it's so subjective depending on,

like if you played sports growing up, you're already healthy, you're already active, but you don't run at all and you're trying to run your first marathon, you probably get away with four months, I think. Sometimes it's super helpful for people to have that you know such a harsh goal you know they're going from the couch uh they heard a marathon's coming up somebody teased them about their weight or something at christmas time and they're pissed and they're

like fuck it man i'm gonna you know i'm gonna do this thing and sometimes it does motivate and it helps someone lose 40 pounds and they go do this marathon. But it's kind of rare. It's really rare to see that actually be a pivot point for somebody where it really turns around their life, you know, where they're like, yeah, I did this thing. And in six weeks, I lost 40 pounds. And then I did this marathon and it all started back then. And now I'm running, you know, eight minute mile clips for, you know, a hundred miles. Like it's really, really rare. You don't really hear people. That's not usually like the origin story. And the reason is, is like a lot of people, when they commit to something

like that, they usually fall off because the suffer fest that they had to go through was so demanding that they just were like, I'm probably not going to really ever do that again. Maybe they get hurt, unfortunately. And then the next thing you know, they're not really following their diet the same. They're not exercising at all anymore. And just it's like, man, like that was a cool idea. And it was great that you got fired up and excited for that. But maybe the full marathon wasn't a great place to start. Maybe a 5K, 10K. If you don't have much running experience, why don't we just sign up for some sort of run

rather than a marathon? Yeah, I think that's why a lot of people say they don't like running. It's because they probably tried to do too much too fast. They see people on Instagram running marathons or half marathons. And if you go straight off the couch, it's going to be miserable

because your body's just not used to that. 30 seconds. Yeah. 30 seconds is tough. Yeah. If you haven't run and you start running and you're actually trying to move like fairly quickly for 30 seconds or so, you're like, I'm garbage.

I can't believe I can't breathe. I can't believe my shins and calves are already lit up. Yeah. If you take long for some people. Yeah, if you... Yeah, I think obviously the smartest approach is just to start really slow, just like you did. I mean, either you're going to get mentally burnt out

or you're going to get injured, basically, if you go out too fast and go out and try and do way too much. Yeah, walk-run is what I always recommend. Yeah, I think... You said the same thing. Yeah, I think the walk-run is the number one thing you can do as a new runner. And it's going to be so boring, but it's going to allow you to enjoy it more. You can show up and do it every day.

You're not going to get injured. Yeah, because running is just such a high-impact, repetitive activity that if you don't grow up doing it, you're more often than not going to get injured if you don't really take a slow, methodical approach to it. So, yeah, I think playing the long game and just really easing into it is probably the number one thing you can do improving your sleep quality is as easy as shipping your mouth and what i mean by that is putting some tape on breathing through your nose will increase your sleep quality it's

no longer just something that only the bros do it's now been researched and people understand that if you can breathe through your nose while you're asleep you'll have better sleep quality. It's no longer just something that only the bros do. It's now been researched and people understand that if you can breathe through your nose while you're asleep, you'll have better sleep quality and you will wake up more rested. Hossa tape is also really awesome because I know what I used to do. I used to use a little bit of a cheaper tape and every time I'd wake up in the morning, the tape would be somewhere else on the bed or on my face, but it wouldn't be on my mouth anymore. But Hossa's tape, if you have a beard or if you don't, will stay comfortably on your mouth all through the night. And if you're someone who has a problem breathing through your nose, hostage also has nose strips.

So you can place those on your nose while you're asleep or if you want to be like one of those Hermosi guys, you can wear it during the day. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at hostage tape dot com slash power project where you guys will receive an entire year supply of mouth tape and the no strips for less than a dollar a night. Again, that's over at hostage tape.com slash power project links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes.

Think you can carry that a 72 pound rock up the hill that cam Haynes does faster than Andrew Huberman did. Dude, he reminds a freaking beast, man. I don't know if I could beat him. He's a stud. I would love to try that sometime, though. I've been following Cam for a while. He said it was brutal. I didn't realize the thing weighed 72 pounds. That's heavy.

That's heavy. I was like, oh, that's like 34, which is still, I thought it was like 30 or 40 pounds. His son, Truett, has, he just put out this challenge

a couple weeks ago. He just, I can't remember what he called it, like the 100 mile carry, or the 100 mile, or the 100 mile or sorry the 100 pound mile and you basically just pick any

device that weighs 100 pounds you could put a you know weight vest on and then carry some dumbbells or something however you want to carry 100 pounds

and just how fast can you cover a mile I've been wanting to test that out he did it like with a 100 pound sandbag but 100 pounds yeah for a mile yeah that's cool

i'd be really interested to see how quick i know uh our buddy uh ben alderman um he did the iron mile and he actually ended up naming his gym iron mile because i gave him this uh like yoke walk thing that we have in the gym i let him borrow it for a year or so and he ended up doing a like a full mile with it. I forget how much weight he had on there, but he called it the Iron Mile. And I always thought that was cool. Yeah. Yeah, I'd be interested.

I think it took him, I think it true it took him maybe like 20 minutes or something like that. That's, wow. That's impressive. Because like even just doing a regular mile in under 20 minutes is pretty good clip, pretty good pace. I mean, be able to walk that fast. Yeah. I mean, you got to really power walk to break 20. Or maybe like 17, 18 minutes if you're power walking.

I think that's something I could actually try. Yeah. Some stuff that people try that's kind of wacky, I'm like, I don't think I'm going to try that. But that actually doesn't sound too far out of my wheelhouse. Yeah. I mean, I guess you could kind of game it and make it easier. Like you could put ankle weights on.

Yeah. Like even distribute the weight, but... Ankle weights would suck, dog. Fucking having to pick up your feet. That's true. I mean, I think if you're going to do it the raw way, you'd probably want to just pick one device that weighs 100 pounds and just carry it from point A to point B.

Fucking walk around with a 100-pound dumbbell. That would be hard. Just one? Yeah. Maybe two. Anyway, yeah, i don't know um but for for somebody that is going from the couch to i want to get into running what should they have in mind should it be like just consistently showing up a couple times a week um for me i don't know if this was the right approach it was like i just wanted to be able to start running and not stop until i

hit a mile and when i didn't accomplish that it was like oh running's not stop until I hit a mile. And when I didn't accomplish that, it was like, oh, running's not for me. Like this sucks. And then if I had somebody early on, like Mark saying, oh, just run, walk, I'd probably get too bored. Right. But if maybe I was like, hey, you should focus on this instead. Like what should that be? Yeah. I think, uh, I think one of the best ways to get through that boredom is to sign up for a race. It doesn't need to be a marathon or half marathon, but maybe a 5K, 10K. Like having some goal to work towards I think helps a lot because you have that external motivation. I think that can help people get through the boredom phase because there's plenty of days you probably don't want to show up.

There's plenty of days I don't want to show up. But if you have that goal you're working towards, I think that helps. Yeah. I mean, running, it's a pretty boring activity when you think about it like there's just not a lot of mental stimulus yeah and so solitary yeah i think running with people can help a lot too uh to maybe fight that solitude if you're not ready for that uh like run groups like i lead a run group in austin and we get like 150 people out there every wednesday and most people only run at that run group one time a week. But it's cool because they can go out and get some miles in and they're with people.

So you don't have to think about running as much. It's more social, which is cool. Yeah, and then maybe music could help some people. I mean, that's where I started. I had to listen to music or put on a Goggins podcast and hear him call me a little bitch for an hour. That's the only way I could get through a run. So you really like Goggins, huh? I'm a big Goggins guy.

Okay. I mean, I think he serves as good motivation. I don't listen to him as much anymore because I don't feel like I need the motivation. But he got me off the couch. He got me to start running. I think that's a purpose he serves for a lot of people. I think he's brilliant. You know, like when he was talking

with Huberman, he's just sitting there with a big old smile on his face because huberman's telling him all this like research he found and goggins is like yep okay cool like that's what i've been doing that's exactly what i've been saying for the last five years he lived it he like yeah yeah he did it without the signs i guess he just the walking walking proof of it basically yeah i mean that guy, I don't know how his body hasn't totally broken down from all the shit he's done. I mean,

he always had like knee replacements and all this stuff, but I think it just shows the power of your mind, I guess. The fluid drain stuff, man. Yeah.

That stuff's wild. Pulling out like syringes of liquid out of his knee. Yeah. That's gross. Yeah. There was, the video I had pulled up earlier,

it seemed like you were testing out like a VO2 max, like machine versus a wearable. Yeah. What were the results with that? Yeah, so before the lab test, my watch said 57, and then the lab result was 69. So there's a pretty big discrepancy. Yeah.

Which I think normally they're relatively accurate. I don't know why mine was so far off um but normally they're pretty accurate within like i think plus or minus three points typically which is which is cool but uh yeah mine was really far off so 69 was like uh i think that puts me in like close to elite or near elite which is pretty cool um and i mean if you plug that into like race predictor calculators that put me like a 230 marathon you'd say you were saying you were speculating it might be off just because you kind of went nuts yeah yeah for the test i almost sold out you went all in yeah i think that's a big part of it like on a workout on the track like i'll never go to where i'm about to pass out um but there like there's people there it was controlled environment controlled environment. Like, I knew if I did pass out, like,

there'd be people there to catch me or something. And they had an AED on the wall, too. So, like, you know, could have revived me if needed. But, yeah, I told myself before the test, I was like, okay, I'm going to go. I really want to try and find my limit. I just want to go as hard as I can. And towards the end, my vision started tunneling.

It was all black. All I could see was the time on the treadmill. And I felt my body start drifting backwards. And I was like, oh. I had to come back, too, and hit the stop button. But I'd never pushed that hard before. So that could be why it was so much higher than my watch. What do you think is wrong with you?

I was going to say. This guy is so unassuming. He's so chill, and think's wrong with you? I was gonna say, right? This guy is like so unassuming. He's like so chill and he's just saying this shit. I'm like, what? Yeah, you can't get that shit from a Goggins podcast, dude. Like, that's built in. Where's your dad at? I mean...

Well, I mean, that's actually a good question. Oh! No, hey, we're the same. And we found the answer. I think, I mean, we were talking about that earlier. Like, I think, uh think having some kind of trauma in your childhood or some sort of like hardships in your real life, I think it's almost necessary to be a good athlete. Can be a superpower in some way, even though it may have been painful.

Yeah, 100%. Because it's like, not to go too deep down that, but anything that I've experienced running, like I'm there by choice and it's all voluntary. I have full control over it. Like that pain or discomfort would never match some real trauma in life that's out of your control, in my opinion.

So like, yeah, like my dad, he was definitely like psychologically abusive at times. And like, and my mom got divorced. It was like a super nasty divorce. This was like eight years ago and there's still shit going on from that so like having like i mean everybody's parents gets divorced if it seems like you're like i got nothing to complain about yeah it's not like it still sucks though yeah it's a good it's a good perspective though and i i like your perspective because you're right other people have dealt with this and have not melted down so how do i how do i find this other people have been dealt the same cards other people have been dealt worse cards

and they've done better or the same some people do worse right so it's like you still have an opportunity to figure things out, right? It's all about perspective. Right. And I think that's the biggest thing. And I've always thought of it as like a reverse role model. I think, I think. Oh yeah, I've heard Chris Williamson

talk about that on his podcast before. And yeah, I heard him say that not long ago. And I feel like I've kind of thought of it in that way. I just never. I've had a bunch of those. Yeah, I never knew how to put it into words, but that's exactly what it is. Obviously. I think a lot of people have role models or you should have role models, but I think a reverse role model is almost just

as important or, or just as powerful. It's like more blatant. It's easier to see. Like, I don't want it to be anything like that. Yeah. Like you see somebody doing something that you see where that got them. You're like, I'm going to avoid that at all costs. I don't know what the right thing to do is necessarily, but I just know I'm not going to do that. So that's, that's a way I've kind of interpreted that situation. And I think that that definitely has played a role in the endurance side of things. Cause it's, again, it's comparing these different discomforts.

It's like I'm running cause it's voluntary and I'm choosing to be there. So that's. Call my dad and I'm choosing to be there. I'm going to call my dad today and tell him to fuck off. I want to see what kind of performance enhancement I can get out of this. You know what I mean?

Doesn't he have to be the one to tell you to fuck off? Yeah, you can. You can't do that to him. Oh, shit. Okay. Yeah, maybe you got to make up something

or tell him like, hey, dad, can you just pretend to be a piece of shit so that way like I can like use that as motivation to improve? Maybe that'll work. I need something. A new performance enhancing drug.

I can't just call him up and yell at him. That doesn't work that way. I think he has to. Maybe we can get you a cameo where somebody can just be mean to you. Hey, tell me about this like lab testing. Like so you did a VO2 max, but you were also doing things where you're testing like your stride. And did you find some of that to be valuable? Do you think that's something that maybe people should consider?

Yeah, definitely. The VO2 max, I got so much out of that. We did like a resting metabolic rate, which was cool. So I know my maintenance calories to maintain weight or lose weight. Oh, they were telling you like when you burn carbs and fats and all that kind of stuff too, right? I think that's one of the most important things I got out of that was at any point in time, they could look at what percentage carbs versus fat

my body was using for fuel. And so typically like zone two or under your majority fat, and once you get above zone two, you're primarily carb burning. And I learned through that, that even to the point to exhaustion where I had to, to the point of failure, my body was still using fat, not majority, but it was like maybe five, 10%. And they told me that it's like super rare to have that, that most people, once they get into like zone four, zone five, they're a hundred percent carbs, a hundred percent

anaerobic. But I think it has to do with, I eat a pretty high fat diet, like mostly animal based. Uh, so lots of fats. And then, uh, I've trained anytime doing zone two easy runs, it's always fasted. Uh, and I do a lot of intermittent fasting. So like won't eat till noon most days. And, uh, I think there's definitely something to just getting your body more fat adapted. Um, so, when I did that marathon, I only took three gels throughout the whole thing, which on paper I should have probably had like five or six. So, close to double the gels, the carbs. And I never bonked, didn't have any issues, never hit the wall, never had carb depletion. The gels have what in them?

Each one has about 20 grams of carbs. Oh, wow. That's so much. Yeah, so you need to take them consistently every 30 minutes or so. Some of them are really weird, too. Yeah, they're strange. It's like someone just jizzed in your mouth while you're running. That's actually why I take them.

These are great. I have one every 15 minutes. What flavor is this one again? The consistency is like, you're like, man, I don't know about minutes. What flavor is this one again? The consistency is like, you're like, man, I don't know about this.

This is a lot. All right. So carbs and fats. Yeah. Carbs and fats. Yeah. Which is, that's why it kind of reassured me that I should keep training. There's like more low carb approach and like incorporating the higher fat diet.

You don't normally eat a lot of carbohydrate if i'm training for something fast i'll eat more like at like a marathon or shorter where i need the carbs but even then it's very limited and it's only around workouts every every every other time or like on a regular basis it's just low low carb higher fat basically under 100 uh yeah usually under 100 grams of carbs. And then if it's around a workout, I'll bump it up to like closer to 200, probably. Before a race, it's 600 grams of carbs per day

for three days. It's an insane amount of carbs. Load, wow. Yeah, trying to load up, trying to get glycogen stores up as high as possible. Does that ever make you feel like too full or anything like that or not really i try to do it so uh it's a three-day carb load so say the race is sunday i'll start thursday

friday saturday and then uh the first two days i'll stick to like the heavier stuff like a pasta or rice or things that are a little bit more uh filling i guess satiating and then like the day before the race, I'll do mostly fruit or just honey syrups, things that are like a lot lighter on your system. So yeah, the carb loading definitely works. I think that, I don't remember the exact percentage, but it's like 15 to 20% performance increase

for a marathon for carb loading versus not carb loading. So yeah, I think it makes a huge difference. My first marathon I did, I didn't carb load. I had like fucking salmon the night before because I didn't know anything. It's like, oh, I eat this before all my long runs, so I'll just eat this the night before a marathon. And yeah, and the cool thing with carb loading too

is it's almost, it's like a battery, your glycogen system, instead of like a gas tank. Like you can't just show up the night before, eat a bunch of pasta and be good to go. It takes days to kind of charge it up or to top up those stores. So, yeah,

I use this online calculator that you just plug in your height, weight, age, your like race time and then it'll spit out how many carbs you should eat. And for me, it's around 600 per day

for those three days. You remember what it's called? It's on Featherstone Nutrition. Okay. Yeah. She's like a dietician. It's a great website. Yeah.

And then the Run Lab? And then Run Lab, yeah. So that's a spot in Austin. I think they've got a few other locations throughout the US, but they bring you in, they put you on a treadmill. They'll have you run like your everyday easy pace. They'll film you. There's like a green screen.

And then they'll have you do whatever race you're training for. So for me at the time, it was a marathon. So they had me run at my marathon pace to try and make sure that's the most efficient and they'll they'll look at uh kind of two things yeah that's the carb loading website um but they'll have you uh so they'll have you do two different speeds like your easy run and then your race pace uh and they're looking at one how can you optimize your performance, like become the most efficient runner, but then also how can you reduce your risk of injury? Uh, like maybe you have some weird thing in your gate where like you're stepping on your heel too much or you're, you're like knees way out of line or something. And that's going to probably cause an injury over time.

And so that helped me a lot. Um, fortunately they said that my stride was like 99% good, which was cool. It's great. Yeah, they said that there was really nothing I could do. You're like, maybe I should be running this fucking lab. Why don't you get on the treadmill? Yeah. Yes, that was cool. They said that I really didn't have any kind of risk of injury,

anything that they noticed that would cause a risk of injury. But there were like two things I could do to like boost my efficiency and like maybe optimize their performance so the one of them was um they said my foot was like lingering too long behind me and my like the back of my stride and i needed to just like snap around a little bit quicker and then the other one which i guess is part of that was like focusing on driving my knees forward a little bit more. So now I consciously think of that, not every run, but when I'm running faster, I'll occasionally just kind of think about that for a couple of seconds.

Okay, drive my knees forward, snap my foot back around a little bit quicker. So yeah, I think stuff like that's super helpful because running form, obviously there's not one right way to do it necessarily, but there's a lot of wrong ways to do it. And so going into a place like that, or even, you know, have your friend take a video of you running and you're probably doing something that looks kind of funky, a lot of people would be. And so finding those little inefficiencies and just optimizing that. But I think more than anything, when it comes to running form, it's just, just do it feels natural. Everybody's body mechanics are a little bit different. Our anatomy is a little bit different. And I think really the best way to optimize your form is just to run more. Like my form for sure has changed from when I first started five years ago. Like it's way

more efficient now. Just I can feel it. If I see videos of myself running, I know it looks better. And that's another good point too, is like, if it looks good, it usually is pretty good. And if it looks like something weird is going on with your form then there's probably something you need to adjust so even simply just looking at it and if it if it looks good like you're probably on the right track nothing let me ask this because having 99 running form is pretty wild but like from when you started to now what are some of the big conscious changes you made to your gait, the way that you run? I think I have my hips are like more outset. And you talked about this this morning where like it almost feels like your feet, like your toes are pointed out a little bit when you run.

And if I see videos of myself, especially when I get tired towards the end of a run, my feet start to stray outward. My toes start pointing out. And so I try to consciously bring my toes in more and like just be more two-dimensional like this and not get too far out of that plane um and so i try to think of that um yeah i think the the cadence is probably one of the biggest things is just trying to have like a short fast cadence like not trying to overreach with my stride like so my easy run cadence is around 180 beats per minute and then even at my marathon pace where I'm running three minutes a mile faster my cadence is still about 180 so it's

the same amount of steps per minute it just one's a little bit shorter choppier steps on the easy runs and then one's a little bit more extended on the faster pace but I think cadence is huge uh because it just teaches you to like kind of utilize those those like faster twitch muscle fibers um because if you're just always running like 120 steps per minute or something it's like you're just you're spending so much time on the ground and the more time you spend on the ground the slower you're gonna run yeah and the more you're very you're very like bouncy and poppy right it's intentional athletic i don't i don't think of it as much, but when I first started running,

I remember my cadence was like 140, 150. It was way lower. And so I started consciously every run, just like, okay, just take shorter, choppier steps, get on my toes a little bit more. And then now I don't have to think about it. And it's, it's just kind of more subconscious. Was it kind of hard at first? Oh, definitely.

Yeah. I had to really consciously think about it. Takes a lot of energy kind of like pop yourself off the ground a little because it's not just choppier steps it's you're literally hopping off the ground a little quicker right the entire time yeah i mean running is just jumping really when you think about it like so you're jumping more per minute you know 140 times versus 180 times you're jumping 40 more times and so uh yeah it just takes more energy but over time again you're spending less time on the ground even though you're taking more steps um and it's just it's more efficient that way and uh yeah because every time your foot hits the ground you're breaking um or the more time you spend on the ground uh you're breaking

and so the quicker you can get off the ground, the less you'll have that breaking effect, basically. Gotcha. Andrew, you were mentioning earlier about being bored. Somebody going out on a run and they might kind of think running is not for them. They try running and they feel tired. They try a jog walk and the intensity is too low and they're like, this is stupid.

This is dumb. This is not fun. Try to be creative with it. Try to find somewhere where you can maybe run some stairs or run some hills. It doesn't have to – no one is saying that you have to go run like X amount of miles. But I do think that we could all agree like it's good to sort of race your body. It's good to like figure out some ways to like move your body through space whether it's jumping or whether it's running maybe a little bit of hill sprints maybe some stairs i can even just think certain areas that i go um i might be jogging and then boom i'll pop up some stairs and then i might hit like a little

bit of a sprint and then i might chill like Like sometimes I do that like just on a walk. So you might find it more fun to just open up the playbook a bunch and almost like parkour your walk and say, I'm going to, every time I see a bench, I'm going to jump, I'm going to jump on the bench 10 times. And every time I see the bench, I'm going to, you know, do a angled pushup on the bench for some reps. And then you just continue onward, just make shit up, and you can have a lot of fun. You mentioned step-ups. I do step-ups pretty often, just on a run. I just see something that I can do a step-up on, and I'm just like...

I do a lot of times on walks and things like that. So just be creative and start to think about more movement, maybe even run backwards, run sideways. Why want to just really, really mix it up. And if you can get some of that in a couple of times a week, shit to me, like that's great. I don't think people necessarily have to run. I think running can be really beneficial. I think some of the zone two stuff that we talk about can be really important for people. But even just what I just mentioned now I think would be huge for people, especially if you consider the fact that they're getting outside. Yeah, I mean, if your goal is to be as healthy as possible, live as long as possible, like VO2 max is probably one of the best metrics you can follow.

And obviously running is just a tool to increase that VO2 max. I mean, you can row, you can swim, you can bike. But I think one of the cool things with running is like, you don't really need equipment. You just need some shoes. You can go out and run. You're outside. It's easy to meet up with people.

You can do it anywhere. Like one of my favorite things is traveling and being able to go for a run somewhere. Like even coming here to Sacramento for the first time, like even in this industrial park i was like oh i'm running somewhere new it's kind of fun uh and you get to explore something or like we went to europe last year i got to run through like the mountains in switzerland every morning i was like damn like it always makes me feel so uh appreciative and grateful that like i have the ability and the capacity to be able to go for like a five mile run it's a great way to see a town or a city. It really is. Yeah. I mean,

cause you're, you're going to see things that you wouldn't see in a car. Like you're, you're exploring a place on foot and you can run by people and feel better than them. Cause they're sitting down eating a cheeseburger. Look at all you fat bastards. Just be all judgy. So let's say that you've already gotten your blood work done with Merrick Health. You've gotten the right supplementation. You've handled your nutrition. But how about the people close to you? How about the people in your life? Recently, I had my mom get her blood work done with Merrick Health, and she's gotten her blood work done many times in the past.

But Merrick did an amazing job at looking at her blood work and giving her the supplement ideas to help her move forward. Because one thing is, is when you go to hospitals and they get your blood work and they do your blood work, when they look at your numbers, they're comparing you to the average person. They're not trying to optimize you and help you move forward. They're just trying to make sure that you're not breaking. Whereas Merrick Health, when their patient care coordinators

look at your blood work, and when they looked at my mom's, they're trying to figure out how to optimize you and make you live the most vital life possible. So if you've gotten your blood work done, great. But think about the people close to you. Would it be good for them to get their blood work done and get this type of work done? If so, Andrew, how can they get in contact with Merrick Health? Yes, super important stuff, guys. Head over to merrickhealth.com slash power project. That's M-A-R-R-E-K health.com slash power project. And at checkout,

enter promo code power project to save 10% off the power project panel, the power project and at checkout enter promo code power project to save 10 off the power project panel the power project checkup panel or any lab that you select on their website again merrickhealth.com slash power project links in the description as well as the podcast show notes um shoes can be motivating right like you buy a new pair of shoes like i'm gonna go use these shoes to go running now 100 um any shoe recommendations like what do you use oh i kind of run in everything um one of the obviously benefits of being a creator in the running space is all the running brands send me just free stuff i have probably like 50 pairs of shoes way too many but they're

all from different brands uh and in my opinion like they're all kind of the same like i i have some preferences uh especially like the carbon-plated shoes. What were the ones I was wearing today? You had those sent to me. I appreciate that. Yeah, the New Balance. I think they're the SC Elites, like Super Comp Elites or something. And you can get those for people with chubby feet.

You can get those wide, and those were great. It's like some dad shoes that also have a carbon footplate in them. Yeah, the carbon plate is crazy. It's probably like lifting with like powerlifting gear, I'm sure. It makes a huge difference. Like if you're trying to run a fast marathon without carbon-plated shoes, you're definitely leaving. Explain a carbon-plated shoe to someone who's never heard us talk about it before.

Oh, man. Basically, carbon fiber foot plate is inserted into the middle of the foam underneath and the sole of the shoe. Look at that thing. That thing's crazy. A monster. Yeah, some of the shoes now are nuts. But basically that carbon plate in there, it's super

lightweight, so the carbon fiber, but it's like a spring almost, so it helps you spring forward. Yeah, if you try to bend it, if you bend the shoe in half, it has this energy to it. Yeah, it'll snap back. It'll snap back. It can jump off the ground. If you push it down on the ground and let it go up, it will literally jump off the ground.

Right. It's like corking a baseball bat almost. It's like you add that springiness to it. I think for some folks that are heavier and not used to running, I think I would strongly suggest that they look into something like that because I do think it is – I do think it makes that big of a difference that it's something that can just get you going. Like for those that are really dead set on like running a couple of miles right off the bat, they don't want to walk. They don't want to like take their time to get into it. Get yourself a pair of shoes that have a carbon foot plate in them.

Yeah. And I will say, I don't, I don't know if I would run every day in them just because they are so stiff. I find that it, it makes my like lower legs a little bit more sore or I feel a little bit more in my feet or my lower calves just because they are so stiff. So when I'm doing all my easy runs, I'll just run in like a super cushion, soft shoe without a carbon plate. Uh, and then when I want to go fast, I want to utilize that, that like springiness that's when I'll, I'll use those. But yeah, I mean, if it works for you, like if you can run in them every day and it doesn't, it doesn't affect you in any way, like I'd say go for it. But I do know a lot of people have issues if they wear them too much because of that stiffness in there. But it almost feels like cheating sometimes.

They're so fast. Like doing the same workout with a carbon-plated shoe versus without, like you're going to run faster without a doubt with the carbon-plated shoe. And it's like, that's lab tested too. I've noticed that I feel it less. Yeah. You know, so I can feel almost more miles a little bit less in those shoes. That's how big of a difference it can make yeah i guess maybe one question for you like would do you always like peak powerlifting did you lift with

uh powerlifting gear every time you lift or did you use it kind of strategically um in powerlifting i wore the powerlifting gear a lot yeah um i would do a lot of warm-ups and stuff and i would push uh raw without without the gear but then i would put it on and do my main working sets there because it was the most important thing was to learn um that equipment and to develop the strength and the skill set of that but when it comes to running um i don't i don't wear the carbon foot plate stuff uh that often but i in the, it was really helpful for me. It really made a difference. I was just not conditioned enough to really get going with running,

and it was recommended to me by Ryan Hall, who holds some all-time records. And I DMed him. I was like, he probably won't respond to me. He's like an Olympian or whatever. And he just said yeah you're a big boy like go get go get a carbon foot plate shoe and even though they weren't comfortable and it wasn't necessarily great for my foot because my foot was sort of wedged in there a bit

i didn't mind the trade-off because i'm like well at least it gets me in this perpetual motion and i get to run on a consistent basis yeah that's the biggest thing biggest thing. You can get so nitpicky with all these things. Don't wear the carbon plates too much. But whatever gets you out the door to go for a run and allows you to come back the next day, do whatever that thing is. Speaking of being nitpicky and getting kind of lost in the sauce, how about supplements?

Because that's another thing that can be motivating. But if you're like, oh, the only way I can do this four-mile run, whatever it may be, it's like I have to have my thing. When in actuality, maybe that thing's not doing anything. But do you have any recommendations for supplements? Yeah, that's a good point. I think you can feel like, oh, I can't go for my run without my gels or without my electrolytes.

And you obviously can, but I think they're there to help you. If it's going to optimize your performance, I mean, why not? Um, some of it could be placebo, but there are things. What about some of this stuff? What is that? This is good. This is your drink. Oh, switchback. Your electrolytes. I mean, electrolytes, uh, yeah, it's sodium stores are sort of like your glycogen stores. Like if you're consistently taking electrolytes and sodium, you can get through most workouts without it, like intro workout, but you got to consistently be taking it. One of my favorite products, it's called Tubifor. It's this New Zealand based company and it's a black currant powder, which is a type of berry that they have in New Zealand. And you guys probably heard of the endurance benefits of

like beet juice from like the nitrates. It's similar to that, but it's like double, like in a lab it's been tested to be double the the performance benefits which is cool um it's literally just a berry and then powder form um i take that most days uh i've also started called again black a black current black curry does it give you a boner uh i mean i do get those yeah why did you ask that correlation causation why wouldn't I I can't attribute

no no those products usually have like nitrous oxide impact and stuff like that so I didn't know how about you Mark

I've never tried it no okay I don't know running with a boner though it could be a new thing yeah probably lose some blood flow to the rest of your legs though oh yeah probably slow you down I don't know. Running with a boner, though, it could be a new thing. Yeah.

Probably lose some blood flow to the rest of your legs, though. Oh, yeah. Probably slow you down. Yeah. There's a little give and take to everything, guys. It's okay. Do you mess around with, like, cold plunging? And do you get any body work done, myofascial release, anything particular for recovery? I do cold plunge.

I think more for the mental side of things, though. I feel like, obviously, there are some benefits to the recovery, but I just like cold plunging because it makes me feel good. I think I've heard Huberman talk about the dopamine release is like six hours or something crazy. Yeah, isn't that wild? I love doing that. And I also find that the first 30 seconds of a cold plunge is almost identical to how you feel towards the end of a

really hard effort, like a hard marathon or something. Uh, because it's that fight or flight response. Like you're so uncomfortable. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. But you have to learn to like calm yourself down and like, Oh, okay. We're fine. But, uh, yeah, I like doing it for that. Um, I think the number one thing for recovery for me is just active recovery. Like I don't ever stretch. I don't foam roll. I don't, I really don't do any myofascial release. I just walk a lot.

I love walking. It's good. We have two golden retrievers. So I'll walk them like 30 minutes once a day and just use that as a time to be outside, time to kind of meditate and I don't take my phone or anything. And I think that the movement from walking helps a lot. just blood flow. And it's so low impact. Yeah. I would say motion is lotion. Love just like that feeling of just getting out and moving your body. Knees over toes type stuff. Do you mess around with anything like that? Do you try to

implement range of motion into some of your exercise? range of motion in into some of your exercise um outside of like strength training not really no I do

like reverse sled pulls as much as I can um I feel like that you'd consider that knees over toes I guess yeah yeah

um specific knees over toes like a Jefferson curl or something you know these deadlifts where you're kind of cat backing it or just trying to

you know exceed like going down you know past your feet type thing and um i've never i feel like i have pretty good uh mobility like my posterior chain that's why i'm decent at deadlifting so i don't do a lot of that stuff um i could probably be better without a lot of that but i think i'm just so stubborn that i'd like well it sounds like you're i mean look i'm i'm adding in like extra shit onto what you already do but you're you know i've seen your workouts and stuff before it looks like you're, I mean, look, I'm adding in like extra shit onto what you already do. But, you know, I've seen your workouts and stuff before. It looks like you're doing stuff with full range of motion.

It looks like you have good form and technique. So there's really, you know, if you were sitting there doing like these half reps and getting injured all the time and had this really tight, stiff body, then I would say, hey, you have to do it. Like, bro, like, listen, you know, take it from someone who is already tight and stiff. Like, this will really be helpful. But since you're already navigating it well, I don't think there's any reason to fuck with it at the moment. Right. It looks like you're doing well.

Yeah, I mean, you can always be more flexible, more mobile. It's like running. You can always go farther or faster. But I guess for what I'm doing now, I don't know if I don't feel like I need it, I guess. And it, whatever I'm doing now, it seems to be working. Um, but like, I'll do a yoga class occasionally with, with my fiance and like, I feel like I can do pretty good at those. Like I'm relatively flexible.

I mean, I can't like fucking put my foot behind my head or anything like that, but I don't really need to do that. So, uh, yeah, I feel like for whatever I'm doing now, I'm getting to probably optimize. You can always optimize everything or optimize something. But, yeah. Let me ask you real quick, rewinding back to your 99% gait, right? How is it that your foot strikes the ground?

What is it that you think about? Like, how does it strike? Because we've asked a few different runners. For example, Nick Bear said it's not even something he even thinks about so he doesn't really know but what is it with you yeah i i think naturally the faster you run the more up on your toes you're going to be because again it's like jumping yeah um i really i don't think about it a whole lot either i guess uh i do try to like the cue i tell myself sometimes or like a new runner, is landing on a bent knee. And the only way to actually do that is if your foot is directly under your body.

Because you can't land on a bent knee if your foot's out in front of you. You can't do that. And so landing on a bent knee, which therefore, if you looked at my side profile when I'm running, as soon as my foot hits the ground, my hip would be perfectly parallel to my ankle basically. And so trying to land, the goal is to land with your foot directly under your body because then that's, again, less time that your foot's on the ground. So it's more efficient that way. Yeah. But like my actual foot strike would be like midfoot to like four foot somewhere in that range um yeah

really the only way to heel strike and the reason that everybody talks about heel striking is just because your foot's out in front of you and that just puts a lot of pressure on your knee and again it's that breaking effect yeah so yeah i think just trying to land on a bent knee with your foot directly underneath you okay yeah uh was it uh being nick bear's cameraman the thing that got you in shape it definitely didn't hurt it definitely helped uh when you're trying to chase him around probably difficult oh i just skateboard so i don't do too much skateboard or a truck but um no yeah being around him just seeing like how he operates is cool like he's just he's by far the most consistent person I've ever seen.

Like that's probably the biggest lesson I took away from, from being around him is he wakes up at like 5am every day. He goes for an hour, hour and a half long run. He's in the office. He eats the same food at the same time every day. He trains right after work, goes home, hangs out with his family. Like it's, I don't want to say robotic, but it's just like so consistent every single day.

And I think that's, that's the name of the game with fitness. What a boring guy. Yeah, I mean, the boring stuff is what works usually. Absolutely.

Yeah, it's like the flashy shit, it's not sustainable usually. So, trying to find the most sustainable, consistent routine seems to be the best way to optimize fitness.

So, yeah, that was definitely what I took away from him was just be consistent, do the boring stuff. And just like, like even with him and his content, like he hasn't had like some big viral moment necessarily. Like his YouTube channel maybe has a couple videos that are over a million, but the vast majority are like a couple hundred thousand every single time, but it's consistent. He shows up every single week, a new YouTube video

every single week. Uh, so taking that same that same you know philosophy from fitness or content just playing that to everything else is there show up do the boring stuff just be consistent doesn't have to be some crazy flashy thing every time that's yeah definitely learn that from him i'm thinking about like when i got into like this fitness you know thing I guess I'll say um this was like maybe about 10 or so years ago um so I'm 38 now so I would have been still a little bit older than you are right now but I don't remember anybody my age really being into running like I just remember all the memes of like cardio is hardio like let's just go lift instead so like lifting was like super popular um are you finding

that like running is getting way more popular amongst like younger people now oh definitely that's cool yeah i mean i know the average age of marathon runners is like 40 it's like low 40s like 42 43 or something but i think that's getting younger uh and i think maybe a lot of it is just the patience that's required that a lot of young people don't have. But now it's social media and it's like becoming more mainstream and oh, I can get some running content out of this and I can make some fun videos. Like it kind of brings more excitement to it. And I feel like there's a lot of like fashion involved with running because like people want to be wearing the nicest stuff and the coolest shoes and how do you look the best. So I feel like there's maybe an element of that that attracts a

lot of young people but uh yeah it's definitely more mainstream like i always thought runners were fucking weirdos like when i was in high school like i thought all the cross-country kids were just like these nerds tiny short shorts yeah now i mean this morning i was wearing like two inch shorts yeah bright colored shoes yeah how did we get to zero-inch? You know what I mean? Like, why are these shorts out there all so long, you know? Yeah, I feel like it's becoming cooler, though. Yeah, that's awesome.

It's more mainstream, for sure. I would imagine a lot of it's just social media. It's like cold plunging. Like, if you don't post about your cold plunge, did you actually cold plunge? Or if you went for a run and you didn't post your watch photo, did you actually go for a run? It's yeah. Let me think of that video I sent you the other day where the guy was like celebrating. He's celebrating and all the people were applauding.

And it's like the way that you think people are going to react to your cold plunging. I think I saw that video. It's incredible. It's the same thing with running. Like, I mean, I do this myself. Like if I go run like 20 miles on a Saturday morning and then I go and hang out

with friends sometimes 20 miles this morning yeah I'm like you guys know what I did this morning like or even you're just

sitting there and you're like man these people don't know I just ran 20 miles it's like such a weird thing but it's a cool way to build confidence

for yourself too because you're going and doing something hard that the average person isn't doing it'll get so much worse if you start Jiu Jitsu that's right here because you'll just look at something hard that the average person isn't doing it'll get so much worse if you start jiu-jitsu that's right here

because you'll just look at a room alright guys take a shot none of you train right yeah sorry well I think we mentioned it twice already we did

so take your next shot yeah you guys are slacking but yeah anyway I just wanted to throw it in there yeah that's probably a cool feeling knowing you can just choke any of us out

right now yeah I mean he thinks about it often i've never met uh i couldn't catch you though i'll just give you 20 seconds yeah i can't catch i've never met a uh somebody that does jiu-jitsu that's that's not like super nice humble yeah person again you just got to meet more. There's a lot of BJJ assholes, man. There's a lot of them.

Just like there's a lot of running assholes, there's a lot of BJJ assholes. Well, and there's probably a lot of people that are still new to it. And maybe the gym or, you know, that they go to and where they train, maybe they don't have like the same culture as everywhere else, right? So it probably is highly dependent on some of that.

Yeah. I mean, there's got to be like a humbling aspect to it right like if you get choked out enough times yeah like you're like damn because that'll happen yeah it happens to everybody so like yeah most i i agree with you most people that get to a high level in jiu-jitsu are pretty cool yeah but there's some like in everything there's assholes in everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, running can be humbling, especially when you're first starting. Oh, 100%. Yeah. I suck at this.

Yeah. Any new endeavor that you're not used to, get humbled real quickly. Anything you think you might try outside of the running streak? Because obviously the 100 miler's coming up. I don't know what you may do after that, but is there anything that you're like,

I might dabble? The high rock stuff seems pretty cool. Ooh, okay. And I feel like I could be decent at that because it's cardio-based but requires a little bit of strength. So that seems interesting. Ironmans seem kind of interesting.

Swimming scares me. I'm not a good swimmer. No, you could be one. I could, yeah. It would take some practice. I did a sprint triathlon a couple years ago. And I didn't drown, but I definitely thought I was going to. So Ironman seemed fun.

Ironmans are just so time consuming. It's like 20 hours a week of training. But it would be a fun challenge. And I like that about stuff. That's what I like pursuing is things that are challenging and new. So, I mean, this 100 miles. I really don't know if I have any desire to do anything past 100 miles. I have a friend, he's 22 and he just did three 200 mile races this last summer.

And I'm like, I don't know if I have any desire to do that. It's like five days of running with little to no sleep. And I just don't know if I want to do that. I don't know what I'd get out of that past running 100 miles. I just don't know if I want to do that. I don't know what I'd get out of that past running 100 miles. Yeah, I mean, 100 miles, they call it life in a day because you experience all these ups and downs that you'd experience in life and like through a lifetime.

And so I'm excited for that. But past that point. How long does it take to go 100 miles? It depends on the race and the terrain. So like, I mean, somebody like Zach Bitter, his 100 mile record was on a track and that took like 11 hours, I want to say. But this one I'm doing, it's through the mountains in Wyoming.

So, it's, like, 22,000 feet of gain and loss. So, like, literally going up these giant mountains, like, I can't run up that. Like, I mean, maybe, like, the most elite ultramarathon runners can run up mountains like that. So, you're going to have to walk a lot of this, too. It's a lot of walking, yeah. There's, like, a joke within ultrar Yeah. There's like a joke within ultra running.

It's just like ultra walking basically. And we call it power hiking. Yeah. But it's just walking. Well, it's a great place for people to start is to start with like a trail run. Not a hundred miles, but a trail run is a really good place for people to start because most people, especially if you're not like super athletic, you're going to kind of eyeball a lot of stuff and be like, I'm just going to walk and I don't want to roll my ankle.

Yeah. You know, in these particular areas. I guess the hard part on that would just be to select the correct kind of pair of shoes or something like that. That's actually where I started. When I first got into running, it was on the road. But then after a year, when we moved back to Wyoming, it was like all on the trails on the mountains um so the first like two to three years was pretty much all trail running which was cool and i think it it like it teaches you that it's okay to walk like you come up on a big hill you're probably not gonna run up that and it's okay to walk uh which is cool and

you build up it's more a natural way to run i think like i don't know if people are really built to run on concrete but being on on trails, like people have always been on trails and in the mountains and stuff. So it's a more natural way to run, I think. And just, again, being okay with that run to walk thing. You have more of an excuse to walk, I think. The barefoot sprinter. He's a little weird,

isn't he? He's an interesting guy. He got a chance to run with him yesterday? Yeah, he hopped in for a few reps. And was he doing your workout or you were doing his workout? He did mine. So I was doing 400 meter repeats. There it is. He's pretty fast.

Yeah, he kept up. That was like, that's like five minute pace, 510 pace. How many sets did you guys do? I did 10 total. He did like three or four with me, I think. He kept up. Yeah, at one point he's like, this is above my aerobic capacity or something. That's exactly what he would say.

No, interesting thing. You can see the difference in the cadence and me. Like my steps are a lot shorter and faster. His are a little bit more extended, which I don't know if that's due to just like mechanics or maybe the fact that he's barefoot or something. But it's like a pretty clear difference in our step count, which is interesting.

But yeah, I don't run barefoot at all. You were doing 400s or 800s? 400s. And what was your time? That's like a minute. Each one is like a minute 15. Okay. So yeah, it was like 510 pace on average.

What's your best on that? a 400 meter yeah do you have a pr so i did track in high school for one year uh my my uncle was the track coach and he talked me into doing it and i just picked the shortest distance possible which was the 100 the 200 and the 400 we had to pick three events uh it was like three month track season i. I hated it so much. But I ran a 53-second 400. But even the training for that, we never ran over a mile. So it was always just really short distance sprints. Yeah, so 53 seconds for the 400 in high school.

So not bad. I didn't go to state or anything like that. But it was decent for our team, I think. It's impressive. Yeah. Are you going to have to prepare yourself at all for the elevation, for that race coming up? Are you going to do anything

or are you just going to do miles wherever you are in Austin and then go do the race? Yeah, that's a real challenging part about those mountainous ultras is living not in the mountains. So I'll probably, there's one hill in Austin, it's called the Hill of Life. And it's like this half mile hill and it's on a trail. Last year, when I was training for my 50 miler, I would do repeats on that. Just like three hours,

just on this half mile hill. I'd hike up it, I'd run back down, hike up it, run back down. I did like 20 repeats. So I'll do a lot of that. And then I'd work out at home. I just have a home gym. So I don't have a treadmill. So I've been considering just getting a gym membership to simulate that hiking aspect. Just go spend some time on a treadmill or just buying a treadmill for my house.

But I hate the treadmill and I don't want to spend a lot of time on there. But I might have to for that aspect. And then also like weighted vests. I have a 20-pound weight vest that I'll wear as much as I can just walking around or even during my strength workouts, throw that on. Because like when you're running trails, like you have to carry water, you got to wear a pack with snacks and all this stuff.

And so like that adds not 20 pounds, but like maybe 5, 10 pounds. So getting used to just having some kind of load. That adds not 20 pounds, but like maybe 5, 10 pounds. So getting used to just having some kind of load. And then, yeah, a lot of just volume, basically. Like I think there is something to just being fit in general that will translate to something like that. But like race-specific training, I'll try and do as much incline as I can.

So the hill of life, I'll just do repeats on that for like three, four hours, which is terrible. But, yeah. Got to do it. You have your own podcast? Yes. And what's the name of that? The Jeremy Miller Podcast.

I started that less than a year ago, about eight months ago. Yeah, it's all just interviewing guests, very similar setup to this, to try and find interesting people to interview. Whether it's in health and fitness or not. I just like talking to interesting people, seeing everybody's story and just gaining that new perspective, which has been fun. There's a lot of people in Austin. There's a lot of runners down there.

So it probably makes it fairly easy for you to grab some runners here and there to do the show, right? Yeah, one of my favorite guests, his name's Mitch Ammons. He's an Olympic trials qualifier, which that's this weekend actually in Orlando, the Olympic trials. But he lives in Austin and he was like a heroin addict. He smoked a pack of

cigarettes a day, like super unfit, the furthest thing from an athlete. His name is Mitch Ammons. He's such a good dude, like one of the nicest people I've ever met, but he was like a hardcore drug addict. And now he runs like a 26 marathon with those lungs yeah yeah pack of cigarettes a day and drinking and he did all kinds of drugs and stuff it was he's one of the most interesting and like nicest people i've ever met but by far he's probably my favorite guest just because he's got such a unique story and um yeah i love i love storytelling i think that's fun it's a huge advantage having a podcast. You know, you get to learn so much from people.

You have different guests, different people with different perspectives, different backgrounds, and so on. Yeah, I was so afraid to start a podcast. Because I found Rogan, it was probably like 2016, 2017. And as soon as I heard his podcast and just realized, like, he's just a regular dude. He just has conversations with interesting people. I was like, it'd be so fun to have a podcast, but I was so scared

because I was, I've always been more like shy, reserved, like not very outward facing. And then when I started doing more personal content, building more confidence, I was like,

man, I could probably host a podcast and be able to have interesting conversations with people. But yeah, the networking aspect, like regardless

of people listening or not, I don't give a shit. It's just like, I like the conversation aspect. I'm like, how often do you get to just sit down with somebody like this for an hour and a half two hours and have like a good deep present conversation with somebody uh it's so much fun i love that aspect of it cool where can people find you uh jeremy miller on instagram uh my website's jeremymiller.io, the Jeremy Miller podcast. And then you can check out our electrolytes at Switchback.

These taste good, man. Thank you. I love it here. Good job. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I do some one-on-one coaching, a lot of content. So if you guys are into running or fitness at all, go check out my page.

I try and be as informational as I can. Cool. Yeah. Good luck with the 100 miles thank you sounds brutal I might die but we'll see what happens die

we'll clip that strength you'll be just fine strength is never a weakness weakness is never a strength catch you guys later bye