The Joe Rogan Experience - #1110 - Zach Bitter

Episode Date: April 26, 2018

Zach Bitter is an endurance athlete, ultramarathon runner and coach. He holds the current American 100-mile record at 11:40:55.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, boom, and we're off. What's up, brother? How are you? Good, good. Thanks for having me on. My pleasure. Nice to meet you, man. You know, it's funny that you just brought up Dr. Atiyah. You know, you were saying that you download the podcast, you were saying, I got to get that guy on. Yeah, yeah, it was funny. I was at auto downloads and that one popped up. And I remember thinking about a week before that, I was like, well, when we first scheduled this one, I was like, I got to tell Joe about Dr. Atiyah. He was one of the kind of first guys I really followed when I kind of dove into kind of the high fat approach to nutrition. So, yeah, he's a fascinating guy. It was a great listen. I had to listen to it like twice. Yeah, he's a weird guy. He's one of those guys where you talk to him and you think oh this is like a normal really nice guy and then as he starts getting into the medical

aspect of things you go oh okay you're a fucking super genius yeah yeah he tricks you yeah i remember one of the first things he ever said that really kind of resonated with me was i think someone was asking him about like what the facts are or the ketogenic diet in terms of like micronutrients and what maybe he'd be missing based on kind of like that normal profile of what you're supposed to get. And he was just like, you know, it's interesting because most of those studies and recommendations are based off of basically a standard American diet or a higher carb diet. So he's like, well, you might just not need the same. We need to do more. And he's always looking to kind of push the envelope a bit. So cool guest for sure.

Yeah. And, you know, I'm fascinated by you. And I'm fascinated by anybody who does the kind of shit that you do. I mean, please explain to people all the different ultra marathons you've done and, like, what you've accomplished. Yeah, you know's it's interesting because like I still kind of see myself as a pretty average runner because like I mean I competed in high school and made state cross country and state track and that kind of thing

for a small school and then I went to a small division three school and was you know pretty much you know average amongst a real good program at the D3 level. And, uh, I always just did kind of like running longer though. So, um, like once I got done with college, I kind of decided, well, let's, let's see what's longer than some of those traditional, like collegiate races of like 5k to 10 kilometers. And, uh, you know, I started kind of just dabbling that stuff. And then in, in 2010, I think I actually did my first ultra marathon, you know, partly because I was just like looking around and there turned out to be one in the state. I was living in Wisconsin at the time. And there was one that was kind of in my neck of the woods. And I actually had just decided to go back to grad school. And that one had a

thousand dollar prize purse on it. And I was like, you know what, if I can win that thousand bucks, go a long way during grad school. So I did that one and I ended up winning it and it uh it definitely hooked me it was like the type of thing where I was like I want to do more of these and um by 2011 I kind of jumped all in at the end of the year and and did 350 milers and I think it was about a nine week time frame and uh that's so crazy yeah and. And I mean, it gets crazier. There's, there's some freaks out there. Um, there's guys who will do like a couple and a weekend and stuff like that. So, I mean, it's, it never ends. Um, but yeah, you know, it was one of those things where after that I was totally hooked. So what is it that got you hooked? Um, you know,

it had to be partly just a little bit of success. You know, I wasn't necessarily used to winning. So, like, I mean, I've had good races and good times relative to what you probably see, like in an average person. But, you know, when I went to like a competitive 5k competitive marathon or something like that, you know, I wasn't going to win unless it was kind of a local race. So kind of finding, you know, it's like anything, I guess you kind of gravitate to what you feel you're good at. And then that kind of piques your interest. So that was part of it. The other part was just, I really enjoyed doing the long run. Like when you break up kind of like a training week, you can have like a variety of different things. You've got like kind of, you know, base level runs, you've got specific workouts for the distance. And then most training programs are gonna have a long run once a week. And that was the one that was always my favorite. So wrapping my head around doing a bunch of those a week instead of just one was really kind of appealing to me. And when you're putting that much time into whatever you're training for, it's, I think, important to enjoy it.

So being able to kind of enjoy the training process a lot was really appealing to me. And then it's just the variables. When you're out there for that long, there's so many variables to consider. And it's a blast for me to kind of work through those, plan for those, and then adjust to them on the fly when you're out there. And things inevitably go wrong or things pop up that you didn't expect. So it's kind of hard to explain, but it's weird. One of the things in ultramarathon running that people always say is they'll have a race, and even if they have a bad race, say, I'm never doing one of these again. And then the next day they're on the internet looking for another race.

So there's this weird thing about it that you don't really know until you do it, but it sucks you in. That's the case with a lot of people when they talk about things that are like, that they have to suffer through. You know, I've heard that when guys talk about like those extreme hikes, you know, when they, you know, like they do that, you know, that one that goes from Georgia all the way to Maine. Do you know that insane hike? What does that call? The Appalachian Trail.

Yeah. That they say, I'll never fucking do that again. And then they're like, okay, what other, what other hikes can I go? It's just once the pain, the physical pain dies down, there's something about that challenge that stimulates in people like you and people that are into these really long distance things. Like there's something about distance. There's something about like you were saying, like you weren't the best runner in high school or college, right? But there's something about the mind of an ultra marathoner. It's a different mind. The type of person that can run 100 miles, 200 miles, 238

miles, those type of people, they're different people. And there's like, there's a strength, a mental strength and the ability to just keep going on and on and on that I'm absolutely fascinated with. Yeah, you know, it is interesting too too, because it's the sport's grown quite a bit in the last decade or so, but it's still very much kind of a niche group. And then when you kind of hang out in that group, you start to kind of normalize it a little bit, I think. So then you start thinking like, oh, 100 miles, it's just what we do. And then you, you know, you actually try to like, separate yourself from the fact that you've done a few of those or separate yourself from the fact that you've been hanging out with other people of doing it and you realize, oh, this is actually kind of a weird thing to kind of do as, as a human nowadays. It's fucking very weird.

How many of these things have you won? Uh, I don't know how many I've won. It's, I think I've done just shy of 50 total now. Um, you know, everything from 50 kilometers. I have 50 total now. Um, you know, everything from 50 kilometers. So the furthest I've done is 200 kilometers, which is about 125 miles. Um, yeah, I I'd have to look to see how many I've won. It's, it's, it's, it's really goofy. Cause when you start getting into the longer stuff, like a hundred miles and beyond, you start, at least in my training program, you start to kind of pick smaller races to kind of use as training runs. Um, and some of it, I think is just because for me, if I'm going to go out and do like a 30 mile or a 40 mile training run or something like that, it's kind of tedious to do that by yourself and then plan all the logistics of it. So if

there's a race nearby and that's not too hard to get to, it's easier just to sign up for that, go and do that. So some of those, you know, I'll, I'll win if they're, if they're small enough, even though I'm not necessarily trying to go for, necessarily trying to go all out, so to speak, because I'm hoping to recover and get back into training. So you'll pace yourself at one of these local races, maybe? Yeah. The way I describe it is, and this is a real hard thing for a lot of people to do, I think. You go into a race saying this is going to be a moderately difficult long run. So maybe a little faster than what I would do if I was just going to do it by myself, like unsupported, that sort of thing.

And then I always tell myself 80 percent is the hardest you can go if you want to be able to come back and start training on time to meet the actual goal or the race. So when I do those, it's like it's one of those things where like you know who knows someone might show up that's that's like as fast as you or maybe a little slower than you normal and if they're deciding to just hammer it that day they might beat you and you got to be okay with that um the competitive part of you flare up for sure well yeah it does and that's the hardest part and that's i think the main reason why some people won't do that approach because there's certainly people who just they stay away from races unless it's their A race. And they just say, if I'm going to do a long run, I'll do it on my own and not do that.

Or, you know, there's certainly, I'm sure, folks who do it and then they get caught up and then end up leaving their A race out on the B race, I guess, so to speak. So, yeah, it's interesting. It's kind of a sport that I think is still a lot to learn, which I think is actually the case for a lot of things that, you know, even things that are well-established, you know, there's always something to learn or new things to pick up on. Well, it's one of those things, right, where once someone runs 100 miles and then a bunch of other people start doing it, like you said, it almost becomes normalized.

And then people start to try to push that boundary now i've been hearing talk about the woman candace who runs the moab 240 yeah yeah they're talking about doing a 500 i heard that i was like you're out of your fucking mind people are gonna die but maybe that'll be normal in five years and we'll get used to like four or five day races. Yeah. So it's really fascinating. It took me a couple of years to do this before I got into the sport. But once I was in it for a couple of years, I kind of did a little research to see like what the deal was with some of this stuff. And the funny thing is like that type of a distance isn't even unheard of. They actually – I forget what the book is called. They actually, I forget what the book is called, but they actually had in Madison Square Garden, they used to host a six-day event where guys and gals, I'm not sure if gals were doing it back then, but guys for sure were going there and seeing how far they could run in six days.

And yeah, I know, crazy. And I think if I remember right, they would actually, people were betting on them that way. And so they'd fill it up. Like people would come and watch this like spectacle. What year was this? It was in the late 1800s, I think is when they started it. I'm not sure. Wow. Here it is. Six day cycling. The six day grind at Madison Square Garden. Oh, wow. Look at this, man. So some crazy person decided to leave the bike at home, I guess. This is super old. We're looking at this on YouTube, folks. It says six-day cycling, the six-day grind at Madison Square Garden. And so it's

just a track, and these people are... This is old-timey shit. This looks like the 30s, right? Yeah. And that guy just went down. And so they're just riding their bike for six days. Oh, shit! When they wipe out... Oh, my God.

They probably had terrible brakes back then, right? Yeah, that was their feat. Probably, right? Or the railing. Yeah, yeah. So endurance sports like this are nothing new. Yeah, it's actually fascinating when you kind of look into it because nowadays in the United States,

the trail running scene is definitely way bigger than the road running or certainly the track scene. But that wasn't always the case. If you look back into the 70s and 80s, there was a pretty big surge in ultramarathon running for flat, fast stuff. That's where we see a lot of the records coming from. So that's like a track and you run as far and long as you can on a track? Track or a road or a really flat road. I had Goggins on, David Goggins.

Oh, yeah. And he was talking about the first time he did one was on a track like track or a road or really flat road i had goggins on david oh yeah and he was talking about uh the first time he did one was on a track okay just ran in circles on a track which is almost got to be more taxing for your mind because you're just seeing the same shit over and over and over again yeah it's it's really fascinating because i've done i've done both i've done 100 milers on the trail and i've done a hundred miles on a 400 meter track. And the fascinating thing is it is like what you said, it's almost a different event where mentally you're doing everything you can on that track to kind of separate yourself from the actual environment and vision yourself being somewhere else, you know, looking forward to little things to kind of not necessarily be thinking too far in advance because that can get overwhelming.

Whereas when I'm out on the trails, it's like, you're usually in a pretty pristine, beautiful area and you can kind of just take it as it comes and say, oh, cool. Now I get to see that, or this is a neat area, or I like this section. And you look, you look forward to that kind of diversity. Whereas on the track, it's, you know, you see it once and you've seen it every time. And then it, you know, it just kind of beats you up mentally from that side of things. But then, you know, there's other things about that too, that, that help out like logistically when you're on a track for 400 meters, you bring out one person, you put everything you may possibly want on a little table. And if I want something, I say, Hey, can I get that 400 meters later?

I have it. And even if we mess it up, I'll get it 400 meters after that. So yeah. Whereas, you know, the trails, it depends. They've gotten a lot better with aid stations as the sport's grown. But like, you know, you mess up your aid station, or if you get caught up in the moment and just blow through it and don't take care of yourself, you might have to suffer for an hour plus before you get help again. So that's where it kind of gets a little different, I think, logistically when you're on the trails versus on the road.

But yeah, it's kind of a different thing the track is interesting too in the sense that you're essentially making that same exact motion exact motion the whole way so like there's certain areas of your body that fatigue um and they don't get a break turn the turn and just running flat like running flat you're going to kind of localize some of the way you stimulate your muscles or your gait is going to be pretty similar throughout. Whereas when you're on the trails, like you might be going on a slight incline, a steep incline, a slight decline, a little bit of flat, some rolling, all kinds of things in between. And then trails can be kind of undulating. So you're just kind of moving all that forces around your legs a little more than

you would be when you're running on a flat surface. So, you know, it's one of the things that I always tell like my coaching clients and myself when I'm planning for something is like, if you really want to meet your full potential, like specificity is king. You need to be on that environment in the environment you're going to race on and really get your body used to kind of that type of emotion. And it makes it a little more interesting when you're doing a track race, because that means some kind of long runs on a track. So, um, you're kind of balancing doing just enough to get ready for it and not doing too much so that when you get to the race, you're like, screw this, I've done too much of this already. I don't want to see another loop.

Um, yeah, it's kind of a, an interesting concept. It's, it's interesting to me too, that you're, if you're planning to run a hundred miles, like what you were saying about running these shorter races as a training run, which makes sense because how else are you going to prepare for 100 miles? Like if you just decided to just go out and run 100 miles, you'd have to like map it out, like how far is 100 miles? Where am I going to park? Like where am I going to put water?

And yeah, and then people also kind of get, like forget about the aspect of just all the stuff surrounding the race that you can kind of fine tune when you're doing a race as a kind of training run where like, you know, usually you're going to travel a little bit for stuff like this. Um, so you're probably going to stay in a hotel the night before you're going to, you have to wake up early in the morning. You have to get your, your, your gear ready. And so it's kind of like going through that, um, process of what you're gonna have to do on race day. So then when your big race comes up, you're like, okay, I've done this three or four times in the last six months. So I know what I'm doing.

Now, what's different between you and a lot of guys, and this is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you about this, is that you are on a fat-burning diet. You're essentially on a ketogenic diet and running these races. you're on a ketogenic diet and running these races yeah you know it's it's a little interesting because the way i kind of at least the way i came into it like i explored the ketogenic diet mainly because i started noticing some things oh sorry it's no worries bro yeah yeah so i started um kind of exploring the ketogenic diet back in late 2011 because i started noticing some some goofy things going on with my body from from the from the high level of training and then and then the racing and um that was right around

that same time I did those 350 milers and what you notice uh I would wake up like three or four times at night and then like I'd have to like pee all the time at night and I'd have like swelling in my ankles and stuff a lot of just like huge energy swings throughout the day. Like I would, you know, I was, I was a teacher at the time. So I remember thinking like every day at like one or two o'clock, I could have laid down and take a nap on spot if I had had the opportunity to. So it was just like a lot of weird things that I thought was pretty abnormal for a 25 year old male at the time. And so it was kind of becoming clear to me that what I was doing was either unsustainable or the way I was doing it was unsustainable. And, you know,

I was really intrigued by the sport and I didn't really want to necessarily back off of that if I didn't have to. So that's when I kind of started to explore nutrition and diet and things like that. And I was very much following what I would have considered a healthy diet before that at the time. It was high carbohydrate, but it was like what you would, you know, think of as a healthy high carbohydrate diet with like- What was a normal meal? You know, I'd wake up and I'd usually go for a run and then have like some oatmeal,

raisins, maybe some fruit or something like that. Some eggs or something with that in the morning. So not junk food, just like carbohydrates. No, it was clean. It was like clean. Like, you know, you know what you say, they say like get your whole grains, fruits, vegetables, that sort of thing. I definitely, you know, focused heavily on that and made sure I wasn't eating like junk, junk food. I wasn't going through fast food restaurants or eating Oreos and bonbons and that sort of thing. So, so it was kind of interesting to me to think like, okay, I didn't really realize that it was necessarily the nutritional side of things. Like it wasn't, it wasn't like a big slap in the face in the sense that, oh, I just got to cut out the junk.

Cause like, according to most people, I wasn't eating junk. I was eating really good food. Um, so, you know, that's when I kind of got introduced to some folks like Dr. Volick and Dr. Finney, who are kind of, I guess, I guess the pioneers of like the this latest wave of kind of the high fat approach. And, you know, they were I started reading their books, listening to podcasts and things like that. And and, you know, it was interesting because I was I was training upwards of 20 hours a week at the time. And, you know, it was interesting because I was training upwards of 20 hours a week at the time. And, you know, I started kind of thinking, like, how much time am I going to invest in just running? You know, how can I kind of kill two birds with one stone? And that's kind of when I discovered podcasts and thought, this is sweet.

I can learn something and train at the same time. And so I just kind of like went all in on listening to a bunch of, you know, podcasts and stuff like that. And actually one of your previous guests, Ben Greenfield, was one of the first podcasts I really kind of did a deep dive into. And he was always kind of like rolling out stuff that was like kind of new or cutting edge. So like he definitely had a lot of information there. Yeah, he's a maniac. Yeah. Don't take his advice on what he does with his dick. Yeah. He's shooting stem cells into his dick. Yeah, he's turning himself. Yeah. Don't take his advice on what he does with his dick. Yeah.

He's shooting stem cells into his dick. Yeah, he's turning himself into a guinea pig. Yeah, he's an odd duck. But, yeah, he definitely had a lot of info from guys like Dr. Finney and Dr. Volick. And I was lucky to meet those guys, too, on a couple occasions. And with Dr. Volick, I've done some podcasts with him and certainly like exchanged emails and stuff when I've had questions. And so I kind of just tested it out. You know, I was like, what's the worst that can happen? I can just, I can always go back. You know, it's not like I have to stick to this for the rest of my life if it's not something. So your issues were swelling and

energy and why did you attribute that to your diet? Like what was making you think that it was your diet that was doing that to you? Yeah, so, you know, I wasn't sure. I thought for sure that something I was doing was wrong. Did you get your blood work done, check your hormone levels, all that stuff? Yeah, you know, I didn't have probably as much blood work done as I would have liked to, to really like look at stuff and see. Like the way I look at blood work is if you're doing it often enough and not changing things, that's when you're going to see the most because you're going to see changes versus just like, oh, I'm chronically low in this or I'm always low in this, but it doesn't seem to be an issue.

But there was no big red flags on my blood work. Nothing that would have said like thyroid disease or something like that. Nothing quite that wrong. And it wasn't like the wheels were coming off at that point. These were small things that I kind of associated as like nagging things. They were like things I could get through, but they weren't ideal. So, you know, I've kind of been a curious person like my whole life, so I was just looking to kind of optimize, I guess, more or less.

And I didn't know if it was going to work. I was, was terrified that I'd find out it wasn't, and then I would have to stop running as much. And at the time I was like, that doesn't sound like what I want to do. So this was just something I decided to explore first. And it's, it's really goofy because like, I've certainly evolved and kind of how I use it from that. When I first started, when I, when I first started, I went like really kind of really low carb, like that clinical ketosis level where you read about where they're like 50 grams of carbohydrates or less. And, you know, I did that for about, I think it was like four to six

weeks. And, um, I didn't have as hard of a time as what I think I've, I've, I've seen some people have with it. You know, you have people talking about everything from like the keto flu to just like feeling really lethargic for a while before that kind of metabolic switch flips. What I kind of noticed was I felt really good doing like really like low level type mundane tasks, just like day to day work and things like that. But like maybe every second or third day I'd go for a run and just feel awful. And I kind of knew enough about it that I thought, okay, let's give this a solid four weeks before I make any judgments on whether that's going to be something that sticks around or not. And, you know, after about that point, my energy levels kind of normalized. And then, you know, I was, so at that point I was like, excited. I was like, this is sweet. I'm, well, I should have mentioned to like, during that process,

I started sleeping through the night again, which was like, kind of really an eye opening thing for me. Because usually, like, I'd wake up at least three times. What do you attribute that to? You know, I, I don't know for sure, uh, you know, it could be anything from just the amount of stress I was causing on my body from kind of two angles from the training. Plus like, you know, like I don't want to demonize carbohydrates cause I think they have a place. I think they're a great tool. I just think like the, the question everyone should ask is at what level do they become kind of a margin of diminishing returns for you? And, you know, what I think was likely happening is that, you know, I was reaching past that margin of

diminishing returns and it was causing more stress than what my body was able to tolerate. And that was causing cortisol spikes or something like that, that was waking me up at night. But, you know, who knows really? Like it's, all I know is the only thing at that time I changed was my diet. And we should probably point out that this is not universal, that everybody's diet is going to affect them differently. Some people are fine with carbohydrates. There's a lot of people out there that eat a high-carbohydrate diet and they have zero issues with it whatsoever.

And that's one of the weirder things about people, you know, that we are so variable depending upon your ancestry, you know, what part of the world they evolved. Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating to me because, I mean, I'll look at folks doing the complete opposite of who I am and they're doing just fine. Yeah. And it's, you know, then I'll look at some folks too that are doing the opposite of me

and they're doing just fine for a while. And then they ultimately start noticing the same kind of things I did and then they can clean it up. So it is kind of, I think at the end of the day, you just got to be kind of honest with yourself. And you know, some people I think are really, really robust and they can, they can hit their body with that high octane fuel carbohydrate, like day in and day out at a high level, and it doesn't seem to bother them much. But, you know, other people, I think just that it can kind of, it's like playing with rocket fuel a little bit where, you know, a little bit can be great and too much of it can kind of burn you up a little bit. So you're saying that you started off at like 50 grams of carbohydrates a day, like real strict ketosis diet. What did you eventually move to?

So the way I call it is i periodize it so like when i look at my year you're you can pick out a week where i'm kind of in peak training and then pick out a week where i'm kind of in like a recovery phase or off season and it looks like two completely different lifestyles so my first thought after kind of like working through the whole ketogenic approach um because i should add to like um once i got like feeling good about that i started adding first thought after kind of like working through the whole ketogenic approach, um, cause I should add to like, um, once I got like feeling good about that, I started adding back speed workouts and things like that. And I definitely noticed that I was missing kind of that last year. Like it was a lot more difficult to go out and really throttle down. Like I could run all day

at a slow pace, but if I decided to go out on the track and do like 400 meter repeats at like a really fast, like a really fast pace, um, it was really hard to kind of, to be able to do that. That's a common complaint. Rob Wolf, you know, Rob Wolf, Rob Wolf had a similar issue. He's gotten like very heavily into jujitsu and he was telling me that he just can't stick to that 50 grams of carbohydrates a day and still have the energy to go hard. Do you know, does Rob Wolf work out more than one time a day? I do not know.

He looks very fit, though. I'm not sure what his schedule is, but I know he works out very hard. And if he's doing jiu-jitsu, it's very difficult to do jiu-jitsu any other way than hard. Sure. Yeah. You know, this is one thing I've always been curious about, too. And, you know, I'm not trying to come on here to come, come on here and say like, everyone should switch to doing what I do. I mean, I think you should follow your own, your own, your own personal

self. And if you'd be honest with yourself, you feel great, do what you're doing. If you don't, then probably look to change something. But like one thing I'm always looking at now or suspecting is that like, it's more about the recovery between efforts than it is about the intensity of the effort or the duration of the effort in terms of how much carbs you need to bring back or want to bring back. Because I've also had circumstances where like, I'll do like a big workout or a race or something like that. And then I'll go really easy for like a week. And during that week, I'll go like super strict keto. Um, cause I'm recovering. I'm not doing anything intense. I'm not doing anything too long. Um, so that's, that's the point of my training where I kind of say, all right, let's get rid of the start,

the fast acting fuel sources. I don't need them right now and reset that whole fat adaptation thing. Um, so you feel like you, the fast acting fuel sources like carbohydrates, you only really need them when you're pushing hard, Right. When you're really running fast. Yeah. And I actually think it's when you're doubling down on those on a regular basis. So like if you're working out really hard for like 45 minutes to an hour a day, I think you can probably get away with almost a ketogenic or like a really low carbohydrate approach because you're giving yourself like 23 plus hours between sessions for your body to kind of restock glycogen stores from other areas,

like, you know, from fat and proteins and things like that. I think when you start getting into a system where you're like myself, I'm doing two days a lot. And then sometimes one of those is a speed session. That's when I feel like I need to bring some of the carbohydrate back. And I think it's probably just to get some of the glycogen at a little faster rate, because that is going to replenish your glycogen stores faster as a carbohydrate than like a fat or a protein probably would. So how many grams of carbohydrates a day would you have in a day like that? When I'm in like peak training, which is about 20 hours a week of running strength training

and mobility type stuff, you know, I'll probably let myself get up to like 15 to 25% of my intake from carbohydrate. What do you think that is in grams? It probably depends a lot on like what I actually do because I don't count calories very often. I used to just to kind of like see what was going on and then I kind of got intuitive with it. Gram wise, you know, it's probably anywhere from like 200 to 300 maybe. And then when I'm in those phases of training it's really intense in terms of like just uh or i shouldn't

say intense it's just really tedious in the amount of time and energy required for it now are you blood monitoring at that time are you checking your millimolar levels i am sometimes like when i'm like when i get curious about that type of stuff or I've done it in the past. I've actually what I did originally is I got the the blood ketone monitor and I also got one of those ketonics. But like it's like this little USB thing and then you blow into it. Yeah. Is that accurate? I think there's I think there's varied results.

I think they've gotten a lot better with it. Um, I think there's, I think there's varied results. I think they've gotten a lot better with it. Um, but what I did is I actually measured my blood ketone and then I would use that. And I tried to find kind of like if mine was matching what that thing would say. So I kind of had an, I got it to where I kind of had an idea where certain ranges on that thing would kind of indicate whether I was in ketosis or not. Um, so like I very much as coming out of ketosis during peak training, like when I would, especially when I would get up to two, 300 grams of carbohydrate, I would come out of ketosis. Uh, and I probably go back into ketosis throughout that, that, that phase. Um, when you say go back

in and come out, like what kind of a time period are you talking about? Uh, it, the time period was more indicative about what I kind of ate during it too. Like if I did, if, if, if I did, or I shouldn't say what I like, how I kind of structured those two to 300 grams of carbohydrate. Like if I did like a big bolus of it in one meal, I'd get back into ketosis a little quicker because then I wouldn't come back to the carbohydrates again for a while. So would you vary inside the day? Yeah. Yeah. Like I would still like if I, and here's where it got kind of interesting, I guess, come back to the carbohydrates again for a while. So would you vary inside the day? Yeah. Yeah. Like I would, like if I, and here's where it got kind of interesting, I guess, is I do a lot of my, the heaviest bulk of my training in the morning. So I typically wake up and have some like coffee with like coconut milk or heavy whipping cream or something like that.

And then, you know, go for my run. So then when I get back from a run, you know, it might be two hours, sometimes even three. And, you know, at that point run. So then when I get back from a run, you know, it might be two hours, sometimes even three. And, you know, at that point, I just slept for eight to 10 hours. Then, you know, by the time I got done with my run, you know, I hadn't, I probably hadn't eaten. I had essentially done like a small intermittent fast for the most part. So like even when I had the higher amounts of carbohydrates, I'd find myself going back to ketosis at the end of something like that sometimes. But really it was, to me, it wasn't necessarily a question of whether I was in ketosis or not,

because that really wasn't important to me. Performance is important. Exactly. Yeah. And what I wanted out of this approach was I wanted to be able to rely on my body to burn high levels of fat when I needed it to, but I also wanted to be able to rely on my body to burn high levels of fat when I needed it to. But I also wanted to be metabolically flexible enough where if I needed to hit the gas pedal, I could do that as well. And I think that's where people get a little confused or up in arms or something because there's not a whole lot of studies that kind of look at that specifically. Like, can you do that or can you not do that? that kind of look at that specifically. Like, can you do that or can you not do that?

Some people think it's kind of an all or nothing thing where you either get really fat adapted or you get really carb dependent and then everything else is kind of like, you know, this gray area that you can't really get into. But that's not my experience. You know, my experience has been that like I can get, like here's my kind of litmus test. If I can go out for like a four hour or even five hour run

with no fuel other than water and electrolytes, then I'm fat adapted enough. I don't need to get any more fat adapted than that because I can eat during a race and everyone else is going to be. So like, I don't really need to get more fat adapted to that from a performance standpoint. So when I get to that point, then it's like, how many carbohydrates can I bring back to kind of give me that extra nudge or that extra fuel substrate? Have you ever tried mixing exogenous ketones with carbohydrates? Because Greenfield was talking about that. He said it's like doing steroids.

He said it was incredible. But again, he's a maniac. He's a maniac, yeah. Who else was it? Was it Dominic D'Agostino was playing around with that stuff quite a bit too? Or he might have helped with the creation of some of that stuff. I know there was – I'd have to look back in my emails and stuff. But I actually had – there was a guy who was doing a real clinical version of the exogenous ketones.

And he had sent me one a while back to kind of do a little test for him, and it was like just this little canister of exogenous ketone, and he wanted me to kind of check my ketones when I woke up in the morning, take that, test it 15 minutes later, and then test again after my run. Was that like a ketone ester? Yeah, I think so. Like super potent stuff, tastes like Godzilla's dick. Yeah.

Matt Brown brought some of that in. It's like, woof. Yeah. Did you test your ketones when you took it? No, I think so. Super potent stuff. Tastes like Godzilla's dick. Matt Brown brought some of that in. It's like, woo. Yeah. Did you test your ketones when you took it? No, I didn't. I didn't have a monitor on me, but it tasted terrible, but I felt great. Yeah. And you have to take it with glucose.

Yeah. Yeah. See, I think maybe that's where I messed up. But besides that, my ketone level shot up. I woke up that morning. I think I was at like 1.0 millimoles or something like that. I took that ex my ketone level shot up i woke up that morning i think i was at like 1.0 millimoles or something like that i took that exogenous ketone um and 15 minutes later i test i was at 3.7 millimoles wow so it was like okay stuff works yeah it works but i don't know here's

what i here's my question is with that stuff from a performance standpoint is like it's people are looking at that kind of, I think more like an electrolyte where it's like, I take this on top of my energy source. Whereas that's actually an energy source, a fairly potent one too. So like when I'm out there racing and I'm trying to kind of limit, I'm trying to eat a certain amount so that I kind of keep that energy where I want it. But I'm also trying not to go overboard because I don't want digestive stress. That's interesting.

So like as you're running, you have to maintain like a certain amount of food in your system, but you don't want to have a large meal. Yeah. Yeah. Because like basically the way I simply put it, like digestion requires blood volume, you know, to move into your gut and digest the food. So when you're running, especially when it's hot, your body's also trying to use your blood volume for muscle function and cooling and things like that. So by kind of introducing another use for that blood volume, your body is running out of resources to kind of make all those things run smoothly.

out of resources to kind of make all those things run smoothly. Um, which is why a lot of times in ultra marathons, people find out like they have the worst luck with like throwing up and stomach issues when it gets really hot out because their body's got to go double down on the cooling side of things with the blood volume. And then it's like, well, something's got to give. So it just pukes up everything you put in your stomach. Oh, wow. Um, yeah. So, you know, is there a way to mitigate that? Uh, eat less. That's it. So when you, if you're running, like what's a size portion, like what would you eat? Say if you're doing a hundred miler and you have to pause for fuel. You know, I'll, I'll typically aim for around a hundred to 200 calories an hour when I'm doing, doing a hundred miler. And to kind of put that in perspective, when I was high carb,

I was aiming for three, four, and sometimes even 500 calories an hour. So when I kind of went into the approach where fat was my primary fuel source, the need for that carbohydrate essentially got cut in half, if not more. And for me, that's a win as long as energy levels are the same because it means I have to eat less during the race. If I do, it's one less logistic thing, one less potential stomach issue. So what's a typical meal? A typical meal like –

While you're running. Oh, while I'm running? You know, I usually stick to like water-based stuff. So like I'll use a product called X Endurance Fuel 5. And it's essentially like a really, really high level sports drink. Um, with like a varying, um, it's got, it's, it's carbohydrate based. And I can tell you why I use carbohydrates instead of fats during a race in a minute too, if you want. Um, but it's like five different types of kind of carbohydrate that release at varying points.

So you get some, that's kind of a little quick jolt and others that are more sustained, like kind of like a sweet potato type of a release. Um, So I'll be just trickling that in. So like if I'm doing like a hundred miler and let's say I'm, I'm aiming for like 30 to 40 ounces of water per hour to kind of stay on top of hydration, I'll put, you know, two, like a hundred to 200 calories with that stuff in that water. So then I'm kind of killing two birds with one stone and getting my fuel in as well as hydrating at the same time. So what, and why are you taking carbohydrates while you're running instead of fats? Yeah.

So that's, that's the other thing. Like, and, and I see this as, as somewhat of a, I don't know if it's an issue necessarily, but it's an interesting thing for, at the very least is when you, when I talk to folks who are like really into the high fat approach, you know, some of them are like zero carb or like really ketogenic all the time, 24-7. They'll be taking in like fat sources during a race. And I never understood that just because when you look at your body's energy systems during a race, like you have your glycogen stores and then you have body fat. And I think a lot of people kind of get misled and they think, oh, I'm a really lean runner. So I can't rely on body fat when in reality, even the leanest endurance athletes have enough

body fat to get through an endurance race. Like even if you're 4%, 5% body fat at your leanest, that's a much bigger fuel source than your glycogen reserves. So when I'm doing a race, I've got enough fat to take care of the fat metabolizing portion of that energy requirement for the race. What I might run out of is those glycogen stores, which are really small in comparison. So I'm trying to just slowly trickle in the sugar or the carbohydrate during a race, just enough to kind of keep my glycogen stores where I want to be so I can hit the gas if I need to, but not at the level where it's going to cause stomach distress or compromise

or heavily compromise my body's willingness or ability to burn fat either. That's fascinating. So as you're running, your body could switch back and forth between fats and carbohydrates because you're so fat adapted? Yeah. And it's actually probably happening simultaneously. It's just at different rates. Someone who's so fat adapted? Yeah. And I, you know, it's actually probably happening like simultaneously. It's just at different rates. Like someone who's really fat adapted, they could be running kind of the same effort. And the fat adapted person might be like burning 80% fat, 20% carbohydrate. And the carb dependent person might be like a 50-50 split. So that carb dependent person is going to exhaust their glycogen stores a lot quicker,

or they're going to have to fuel themselves at a much higher rate to make up for that deficit. And when you look at how difficult that is, because some of these, especially some of these mountain races where you're running uphill, it's like you might be burning 800-plus calories an hour. Yeah, that's a different animal, right? Yeah, and it's really hard to replace that on the fly.

Yeah, those running uphill ones, I would think that's a much more difficult race. Yeah, I mean, it's a different setup. It's one of those things where I'm pretty new to that, actually. Most of my ultra running career, I focus more on flat stuff. And part of that just because I've lived in a lot of flat areas. And like I was kind of saying earlier, if you really want to nail a race, you have to be specific. lot of flat areas. And like I was kind of saying earlier, if you really want to nail a race, you have to be specific. So I learned kind of early, probably around like 2013 or so that was in my best interest to make my peak races flat ones if I really wanted to meet my full potential.

Now I live in Phoenix, so I've got a lot more access to mountains. I can get on the trails and do some significant climbing right on my back door. So I've certainly been able to practice that more. And as I've gotten more competent at it, I do recognize like, oh, it's not quite as hard as I thought it was originally, because I was going into it essentially under trained. Whereas now it's like I go into it, I'm like, oh, I'm, I'm more adjusted to this. So I mean, it's still hard, like going uphill is hard, no matter how you skin it. But it's like, it's one of those things where if you kind of figure out the pace it shouldn't be any more hard like it should be just as hard to run flat because you're gonna have to run faster um and it's just then it just comes down to i think the right training and you know pacing everything right it's interesting you're

saying you're living in phoenix do you run the summer in pho in Phoenix? Because Phoenix is fucking insanely hot. So I moved there in January. Good move. Big wake-up call come June. You're like, whoa. Yeah, it'll be warm. I actually kind of like it because right now I'm training for the Western States 100. And that's in, it starts in Squaw Valley and ends in Auburn, California. And they go through like these four canyons that can get brutally hot,

like 110 plus some years. Do you run with like a vest where you have water bottles attached to you or anything? Yep. Yeah, that stuff has come such a long way since I started the sport. I remember when I first started, it was pretty primitive type stuff. And now the sport is, I think through hiking plays a big role in this too, has gotten like so popular or popular enough where now companies are really dialing that stuff in where you can get like a

pack that just sits nice and snug on you. And you can put water, like I use, I use a brand called Nathan. They have like ones that have bladders on the back where they also have ones that you can put water bottles on the front. And then just, you know, different setups and stuff. So, so yeah, that's like a must in the heat because even in early mornings it's got to be brutal in phoenix right yeah i mean i mean i have yet to see the worst of it why'd you move there uh well part of it was um i want to carry a gun well i'm looking at crazy laws well i moved from Sacramento. So let's say I'm looking into that now, but yeah, so it's, um, it was, it was a combination of things for me. Like, uh, I'm

trying to kind of balance a few different things. I, I, I train a lot. I also work for one of my primary sponsors, ultra footwear, uh, and like for me to be able to kind of do this stuff for them that I was wanting to do, it made more sense to be in Phoenix. Like product testing and stuff like that? Yeah, that and just putting on small group runs and events and things like that in the area. If I wanted to invest or if I wanted to kind of appropriately handle the territory, Phoenix made a lot more sense than Sacramento.

Northern California has just grown so much for that company in the last couple of years that they needed to get someone in there who was going to do full-time plus to really cover the area. And then I also got engaged in January as well. So my fiance, she was best served being in the Phoenix area too. So it was kind of a mutual, she was from Dallas originally and Phoenix was kind of like a mutually good spot for both of us so uh um we we both kind of looked at it as like well what do we want and it was we want trails right in our backyard but we also want access to flat stuff and we we actually kind of want the heat because like there's races where you need that to train for. So when

it gets hot earlier, you can prepare for them. Uh, what a crazy reason to move to Phoenix. I'm enjoying the heat for training. Well, I'm not even the craziest one in the house. My, my fiance is a savage. She, uh, yeah, her name is Nicole Caladropoulos. She like, you know how, like I thought I've always thought I'm a hard worker and someone who, like, puts a lot of time and effort into things I do. And then I met her and, you know, I like to, she's cut from the Jocko cloth, let's put it that way. Nice. So, yeah, she'll do, like, she works for a company called Towers Watson and kind of does, manages the Midwest division for, like, stuff. manages the Midwest division for like stuff.

So she'll be on like a conference call with Amazon and then, you know, go out and run three hours after that and then come back and get on another conference call and just keeps going and going and going. So yeah, it's a, you know, it, it was, it made sense for her job and my job to kind of be in Phoenix and with as busy as she is and as busy as I can get from time to time, like it's nice to be able to go out your backyard and be on the trail five minutes later whereas both of us didn't have that before we both had to drive to get to any kind of trail especially her Dallas it was a lot of just like flat road running yeah in her area so um Dallas does have hardly any hills no no you will and that's that's that's what is

impressive with like so she's done western states a few times the race I was telling him before with the canyons and she's been sixth place there twice just training on flat roads basically that's crazy does she do anything to augment that like doing lunges or anything like that uh she does uh some strength work and stuff but really you know a lot of it was just you know she would go out and run and run a lot and then i'm sure like she hasn't met her full potential at that specific event or certainly like mountain type races just because. She wasn't training in mountains, right? Right.

Yeah. And she's good, though. So, like, I mean, she was a Division I recruit for college and stuff back in the day. So, like, you know, she's got some running talent, no doubt. And then she puts in the work because consistency is a huge thing. in the work because consistency is a huge thing. Like if you can't find the specific stuff and you're really geeked about a specific race, like I don't think not having the right training environment is reason to not do it if you're excited to do it. So like for her, she was more excited to get out on the trails and she was to go, you know, do something on a track or a flat

road like I was. So for her, it was like, even if I'm not quite where I would like to be, I'm going to do it anyway. Now, I'm not familiar with ultra footwear, but what I wanted to ask you is, does anybody wear like minimalist shoes and run these ultra marathons? Yeah. Yeah, there was actually a gal. I cannot remember her name. This is a couple of years ago who ran ultras in those Vibram Five Fingers. Really? Yeah, yeah.

And the trail stuff too so um you know she must have been a beast yeah yeah yeah it's hard to run just a couple miles in those things yeah and it's you know it's interesting because so ultra footwear made the shoe this last year called uh the the vanish and it's essentially a minimalist shoe um just like a little bit of fabric on the top super super hard, flat base. And that's kind of what I like when I'm on a road or a track. So I was wearing- It's called the Vanish? The Vanish, yeah.

Can you pull that up and see what that looks like? And it's, so I went to this ultra race and I wore those thinking I'm going to have the lightest shoe out of anyone here. Three guys show up running completely barefoot. What? They ran an ultra marathon barefoot? Yeah, yeah. Dude, that's another level. Yeah. There was one guy who's-

Jesus Christ. He's like a 222 or 223 marathoner, and he's barefoot. And he said- He runs a marathon barefoot? So he doesn't do the marathon barefoot. He actually said that the- So that's a little bit of padding in that, it looks like, or at least there's a lip on the outside.

Is that the vanish? Or is that the- It says vanish on it. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, there's a little bit of padding in that it looks like or unless there's a lip on the outside is that the vanish or is that this it says vanish okay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so i mean there's there's a little bit there's like a there's like a carbon fiber plate and you see where that little cut is in there there's like a carbon fiber plate in there that makes it a little more firm so what i'm looking for in a shoe and i'm looking for kind of like that natural feel is something that's got a firm midsole or a firm durometer because like, I don't want to squish down into the shoe. I want to pop right off the ground. And I think like, really like that is just, I mean, you've probably experienced this with the, with the Vibrams where like,

if you spend the time, your feet get stronger and stronger and stronger. And it's only a matter of time before they get strong. If you just got to keep kind of working at it, just like, you know, a weightlifter, you know know when they start out weightlifting they're nowhere near where they are 10 years later um so like for me back in 2012 i think i kind of like you know i read born to run have you heard of that book yeah i've heard it's amazing yeah you know i i read that and i was like intriguing, you know, and it made a lot of sense too. It's like, you know, if we were meant to have a wedge on our heel, like we would have had a wedge on our heel.

Yeah. No, that's a ridiculous thing that Nike came up with. And it's really unfortunate that so many people have adopted that and they run heel first like that. Yeah. Well, and the problem I think too, that like the a shoe is essentially a cast for your foot even even that vanish that i had up there that's a little cast compared to what you're normally going to see but it's still a cast that's why i like those five fingers because

there's nothing this is a very very flexible piece of rubber underneath and it's a glove for your for your feet yeah yeah and you know people just don't know that I think that you can really work those foot muscles to a point where you can exhaust them the way you would in a shoe. It just takes a lot of time because, like, if I broke my arm and put a cast on it and then, like, six, eight weeks later got the cast taken off, I went back in the weight room and did a normal routine, I would be wrecked the next day. So when you take your foot out of that shoe cast you have it in or take it out of the position it's gotten used to and put it in a different position, it's like taking a cast off and trying to do that full mode of training or motion. So when I first kind of got into ultra running,

I worked my way down to a minimalist shoe. I spent probably six months before I was running exclusively in something that was really minimalist. And when I say minimalist, I mean zero drop and no cushion or little to no cushion. Cause I think some people confuse that too. Like that, the shoe you saw up there, cause you're like, Oh, it looks like it's got a little bit of padding there. So that's like zero drop with cushioning or that shoe really doesn't have a lot of cushioning, but there are shoes that ultra makes it does and what that does is it takes you from like the way i describe is this is someone in like a um someone in a traditional running shoe real built up cushion a lot of support is on one end of the spectrum barefoot runner like those dudes that i

ran into at the track um they're on the other end of the spectrum there's all these steps in between to get to that. So like, I can't believe people run ultras barefoot. Yeah, it's crazy. I don't think there's too many people. Look at this fucking savage. Look at this dude.

Barefoot Ted. Oh yeah. Barefoot Ted. Yeah. Ted. He also uses this. The sandal. Yeah.

Runs in a sandal. Yeah. Well, it wasn't that in the born to run that these guys had made sandals out of tires. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. I've been wasn't that in the Born to Run that these guys had made sandals out of tires. Yeah. I've been using something called a – pull up this Vivo, Vivo Barefoot. I've been using these.

What I like about these is that I don't have to look where I step. There's no cushioning at all. The trail one, I use that one, the far left. The far left? Yeah, that one. There's no cushion to it, but it's got some tread and the bottom is hard enough so that i could run on hard rocks and then i don't think about it it's hard to tell in that image how little there is underneath it but there's uh there's nothing going on in

terms of like there's no squish to it at all there's just some good size knobs so you have uh some good um some good tread you know so you can you know you can get good traction and dirt and mud and stuff like that yeah they weigh nothing that's yeah and you can crumble that thing up so your foot muscles are flexing every which way they were yeah that's cool yeah it's made a big difference with me man but honestly the five fingers are probably the best for that. They just don't have as much traction, and I have to look where I'm stepping. I have to be careful, like sharp rocks and stuff. I have to look down.

Don't step on that one. I don't like looking. I'd rather just run. And with those, I can just run. Just flow through it. I can get a faster pace with those. Yeah, and that's where I kind of draw the line, too, is when i'm on the roads and on the track i don't mind having that like no cushion type of thing but then when i go on like the trails in phoenix it's very rocky yeah and

hard and then i'll use like a shoe called the king mt that's kind of like the one you had there it's a little less nimble i would say than that one but it's got that that like really aggressive lug it's got the foot shaped toe box so i don't feel like my feet are getting pinched together. What do you think Barefoot Ted does? On the trails? Those trails. I think he probably wears those sandals. Oh, probably, right?

Yeah, just something where he's got just something that keeps him from getting cut. Yeah, but there are guys who just do that barefoot, too. Fucking animals. I think there are very few, but it's doable. Have you ever seen that show, Dual Survivor? It's one of those wacky survivor shows. I don't know if I've seen that one.

This one guy, I think his name's Corey, who has the most disgusting feet I've ever seen in my life. Almost as disgusting as that one guy was cutting the bottom of his feet off and feeding it to dogs. Remember that guy with the knife? That video is awful to watch. But this guy walks barefoot everywhere and his idea is like, you gotta toughen your feet up because you might not have shoes.

They get real crazy with this whole survivalist thing. So this guy basically has, I'm not joking, like a good solid half inch of callus under his entire foot. It's amazing what the human body will do when you put it in a position to need to. Yeah.

When it has to adapt. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I'm fascinated by guys like you, these ultra runners, is because for the average person, that's an impossible feat. But you've built, there's that guy's foot. Look at that. Dude, what in the fuck? It looks like elephant skin. Yeah.

It's fucking gnarly. It looks like elephant skin. Yeah, it's fucking gnarly. But guys like you have adapted your body to this position where you know you can do that. And it's just a matter of putting in the training runs and making sure you're fueling up correctly. And, you know, a hundred mile race is not a question whether or not you could do it. It's how fast you could do it. Yeah, you know, it's interesting.

The cool thing, and this might go back to what you asked, like why ultramarathons. And I think it is part of it, too, is like in 100 miles, it's almost like it's not a matter of when is something going to go wrong. Or I should say if something is going to go wrong. It's a matter of when and how do you respond to it. Right. So what's a typical thing that goes wrong? You know, I think a lot of people will have like cramping or they'll bonk. I mean, this is one of the reasons why I love the high fat approach is because like bonking from the like energy side of things is essentially non-existent.

Explain bonking to people who don't know what you're talking about. So bonking is essentially what happens. And I think it's actually more common in the marathon just because people are running a lot faster in those. more common in the marathon just because people are running a lot faster in those. But essentially what's happening is you're depleting your glycogen stores to the point where your body doesn't really have access to that fuel substrate anymore. And if you are trying, if you're not good at metabolizing fat or you cannot burn fat at a high rate at a decent clip, it grinds you to a halt. You see people staggering and falling over, losing their mind, hallucinating and stuff like that in those situations. So like, you know, bonking is something that is an issue with ultramarathon because you're out there for so long. If you get behind on fueling, you know,

you could bonk and stuff like that. So, you know, part of the reason, you know, I talked about before with like, there's a lot of logistics with an ultramarathon and there's these variables are just so prevalent when you're out there that long that if you can eliminate some of those or reduce the potential of them flaring up that's usually a win because then there's less chance of something popping up that you wouldn't expect or an uncertain thing happening during the race and but it may still happen you know i've done i would say the most efficient 100 miler i've done is uh when i i ran 11 hours and 40 minutes and 55 seconds at a race in 2015. Holy shit.

You ran 100 miles in 11 hours? Yeah, that was one on the track. I don't give a fuck if it was on the moon. That's crazy. You ran 11 hours. You ran 100 miles. Yeah, so I think the thing that— How long does it take to drive 100 miles? Okay, it takes—I mean, if you go 100 miles. Yeah, so I think the thing that... How long does it take to drive 100 miles?

Okay, it takes... I mean, if you go 100 miles an hour, it takes an hour. Well, it might take me longer to get to the airport if the traffic on the 405 is bad. That is fucking crazy. How Zach Bitter broke the U.S. 100-mile record. You averaged 7 fucking minutes per mile for almost 12 hours.

Dude, that is insane. That is fucking insane. Bert Kreischer, he brags when he runs seven minute miles for like three miles. What did Bert end up running that LA Marathon in? Six and a half. Six and a half? I think it was shorter than that. I think it was five.

Five something. Yeah. No, no, no. Ari's dad. Yeah, my five and a half. Five and a half i think it was i think it was shorter than that i think it was five five something yeah no no no he's dad man my five yeah five and a half he's oh fucking jamie jamie's giving me a bad rap well i'll say i'll say i'll say this here bird if you're listening contact me i'll get you to four and a half in six months bird you heard him new challenge zach is a fucking man if he tells you you can do it, dude, that is an incredible number that you broke the US 100 mile record by running 7 fucking minutes per mile. That's crazy.

The thing, the interesting thing I thought about that event was, when I was talking about efficiency, is I stopped twice during that race, and it was for maybe a total of like 60, at most 90 seconds total, and it was for maybe a total of like 60 at most 90 seconds total and it was just it was just to pee two times so like you ever thought about just peeing your pants and just keep running well wear black shorts keep the party rolling there was a guy who did that uh it was two

years before i did that race and he was trying to break 13 hours and he was like right on the edge i mean he just whipped it out and peed all over the track. I'm pretty sure. Why would he be just peeing his own pants? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think that's probably what I would do. And, um, it's, uh, that guy duty himself. Well, everyone who's been doing endurance sport long enough will have a, have a situation like that. Unfortunately, that guy's got it in the front of his legs. He must've just exploded. It must've been a bomb. Bomb went off. Oof, yeah. It's, you know, it's...

It's okay to poop your pants. This guy has a sign. Is that him? No. Not the same guy? I'm not a different person. Yeah, it's a very sensitive subject for folks. Yeah.

Pooping your pants. Yeah, it's a running joke in the endurance running community, though, because if you do it long enough, it's going to probably happen to you eventually. Oh, it has to, right? I mean right i would imagine you're running 100 miles and your body's gonna there's gonna be misfires for sure how do you time your meals like before you run like say if you're gonna run 100 miles when's your last meal before you get there yeah so i'll eat a big dinner the night before probably around like four or five o'clock and what would that be um so i'll do like a huge steak. Uh,

I try to keep 16 ounces, 20 ounces. Yeah. At least, um, 16, 20 is probably a pretty good number. How much do you weigh? Uh, 140 pounds, give or take. That's a lot of fucking meat. That's crazy. Well, this is where it gets fascinating with the lifestyle thing I was telling you about is like, there's days during the year where like I'm in training where I'm metabolizing two to three times my resting metabolic rate. So I've got to feed myself appropriately for that. And that means a lot of steak. Wow. So is that your primary food source? I don't know if I'd say steak for sure, but definitely fatty meat sources. A lot of like, like saturated fat based oils, like coconut oil, like ghee, that sort of thing.

But yeah, I don't shy away from meat. I usually have meat or eggs for every meal for the most part. Interesting. In every meal, I should say. Yeah, there's a lot of talk lately about the carnivore diet. There's a lot of people that are delving into that, including Jordan Peterson's daughter, which is a really interesting case because she had severe autoimmune disorder. Like she has some severe issues with like horrible arthritis where she's had, um, I

know she's had hip replacements and I believe she's having an ankle replaced soon too. Okay. She's like severe issues. And if she eats anything other than meat it flares up horribly it's really crazy yeah i've never i'm gonna i'm gonna try to talk to her maybe even get her in here but um i've never heard anything like that i thought i heard somewhere um it was after the last time you had jordan on where he was telling you about how he just basically eats meats and greens where that was on his daughter's recommendation yeah I think he's cut out all vegetables right now for

at least a trial I thought I saw something about that um but yeah it's it's one of those things where I think like some it's like what I was saying before like why I don't necessarily want people to say like well Zach is saying everyone should do exactly what he's doing and then you know they that's important to bring up yeah Yeah, yeah. Everybody's body is different. For sure. I mean, to the point where, like, you have people like that. Like, when I had, like, the issues I were having were incredibly minor compared to Jordan Peterson's daughter. Like, I mean, she's in a spot where, you know, she had to make changes if she wanted to even just probably do daily activities.

had to make changes if she wanted to even just probably do daily activities. And, you know, that's, that's, I think the hard part for people to kind of understand is like, there are people are at different stages that some people like no one's breaking themselves overnight. So it's like, this is something that's chipping away at people. And sometimes it chips away at them quicker in some people and takes longer for others. So if you have an issue like that, it's like you almost have to go back to square one and say, give me a couple things that I know aren't going to upset me. And let's start from there and see if we can start adding things back eventually, maybe. Or, you know, Sean Baker, you had on the podcast, we actually started recording some podcasts

together. And we are having this gal come on who's been a carnivore for eight years. And she was kind of in that situation where she had a whole bunch of goofy things going on, even with the keto protocol. And she eventually just cut everything out but meat and has been doing great ever since. That's a vegan's nightmare. Yeah. Hearing things like that, like, no! I just wish people could separate their ideology from the reality of certain people's bodies.

And unfortunately, and this is very unfortunately, you've got to separate also all the horrors that we associate with factory farming and all the other things that we associate with meat and meat consumption. Those things are real and terrible and absolutely should be avoided and absolutely factory farming should be illegal. I mean, I think it's one of the great horrors of modern society. I really, really do. But take that away. And, you know, some people don't think animals should die at all, but they don't live forever and other animals eat them. And it's just like, this is just a part of life. Then you're into health and whether or not consuming meat is actually healthy. And there's no evidence that it's not, there's none. Yeah. You know, the thing that like, I want a vegan to sit me down and explain to me is that like,

when I look at bioavailability, um, of micronutrients, it's like, you can't find much better than liver. Like it's like the stuff is super available better than liver like no it's like the stuff is super available like that's why alpha wolves immediately go to the liver when they kill something yeah so like it and it so like it's like i need that like i don't know i'm sure there's ranges of what people can do in terms of absorbing something like like a non-heme iron versus a heme iron but like for me it's it's like it's like if my iron levels were low, the first thing I'm going to,

I'm doubling down on liver. Yeah. Doubling down on liver. As far as nutrients. Yeah, yeah. You're just talking about just from a purely objective standpoint, consumption of nutrients.

Organ meats are some of the best. Yeah, for sure. You're aware of Chris Kresser? Mm-hmm. Yep. Chris was a macrobiotic vegan. I mean, he like fully hardcore and just having all sorts of huge issues

his body just didn't react to it and he fixed all that by eating organ meat and that's like his primary food source yeah um what's the gal's name there's a lady who she can't remember what she had uh I'm not going to think of it but But if I do, I'll remember.

But she did pretty much the same thing. But some people are fine with the vegan diet, too. That's the other thing that's important to point out. It might not be the best for them in terms of bioavailability of nutrients, but it's certainly better than the standard Western diet, standard American diet. But for some people, they can get by with it and not have any issues. Well, and some people get away with even more. I mean, Courtney DeWalter, she's candy, right? She eats candy and drinks beer and eats nachos. We took her to a bagel place. She fucking chowed

down on bagels and cream cheese. She's a fucking animal, man. I read an article about her not too long ago, and she said that she's got like candy jars sitting around the house. And she's like, before I go for a run, I'll go anywhere from just like, you know, nibbling on it to a small stomach ache. So we're not operating from the same field, I guess, in that regard. She's a real freak, man. You know, um, there's people that know her that just, they're stunned by her because what's interesting about her is she's not a fast runner in per se, like the way she would run a marathon she'd run a marathon in like three hours so did she he was did she talk about how she got into running when she was on here i believe she did do you remember her specifically jamie she's just sort of like you she ran in high school i think a little bit yeah well she was uh teaching

as well okay yeah while she was teaching she was running and doing these things and then eventually she was able to get enough sponsors so she she could run full time, which is what she does now. But with her, I think, and this is one of the reasons why I'm fascinated by you folks. With her, it's her mind. Her mind is just unbelievably powerful. When she was experiencing cornea edemas, she couldn't fucking see, man. She was literally blind. She barely could see her feet. And she still won. She couldn't fucking see, man. She was literally blind. She barely could see her feet.

And she still won. She fell, cracked her head open, blood's pouring down her head, and she still won. Was that at Run Rabbit Run? I think that was what it was. Yeah. I think that's what it was. And there's an image of her crossing the finish line, literally can't see shit. She's got her hands in front of her.

She's covered in blood. She's a fucking savage she's she's if you take the interesting thing about ultra marathons is like we kind of we're small enough sport where it's like you can't really say like oh i'm a hundred miler it's like okay everybody would know right yeah it looks like yeah i know what you're talking about so like you have everything from a 50 kilometer that's got over 10 000 feet of climbing and descending to a six-day event on a track, and they're all the same sport. When you look at people who can kind of do really well

at all of them, or in Courtney's case, really well at all of them, you can't find a better female on the female side of things, someone who can do it better than that. No. She does it. She goes on the track, kills it. She goes 240 miles through the mountains, kills it.

It's crazy. Yeah, she's something really, really unusual. You know, a buddy, my friend Brian was texting me about her while she was getting, Brian is, he doesn't even run, I don't think, or barely. I mean, he's not a, but he was just so fascinated by this one woman that was so far ahead of everybody. It's like, what the fuck is she doing, man? She beat the second place guy by 10 hours in a 238 mile race 22 miles she was ahead of him

yeah that's an interesting topic too where like the where like men and women in ultra marathoning and how that kind of like where it's one of the rare races where women can win yeah and it's the the interesting thing to me about it is women can and do win some races, but when they're like – Courtney's very much the most, I would say, talented person to do one of the 200 milers yet. There hasn't been a lot of what – the top of the sport hasn't really moved into that. I mean, Courtney certainly is top of the sport, but she's – Do you think she's the best? I think she's the best woman all around.

Right. Certainly in the United States. Do you think she's the best at running those 200 milers? No. Is it dependent upon altitude gain and loss? Probably, and just variables to the day. I think like, so, I mean, there's some, like, there's a guy named Killian Jornet. And he.

How do you spell his last name? J-O-R-N-E-T. And he spells last name J O R N E T. And, uh, he won the, um, or he, he's,

he's, he's essentially the best mountain runner by far. Like there's maybe one other guy who could maybe compete with him at something under a hundred miles. But if it's like, he's, he's, he would probably like beat everyone by who knows how much in a 200.

We've seen one of these videos before. He'll run on these ridge lines and it'll be death on both sides and he just plays that. These fucking guys, man. Oh, I have seen this.

This isn't even nearly as thin as some of them get. Oh my god. That's crazy. Look at him. He looks like a freak, too, with a GoPro strapped to his head. That's got to throw your balance off. He's running with a GoPro. Put that down.

Pay attention. If that was my son, I'd be like, pay attention where you're running, kid. Jesus. Yeah, he's interesting because, I mean, his parents were, like, mountaineers, I think. And so he was, like, basically playing in the mountains at, like, age three and basically grew up doing this stuff. Oh, my God. Yeah. So he's the type of guy who, like, he's probably the best in the mountains at age three and basically grew up doing this stuff. Oh, my God. Yeah, so he's the type of guy who –

he's probably the best in the sport right now. Oh, my God, he's jumping around. He's an asshole. He's an asshole. He is running, folks. What is this video? It's on his Instagram. I don't really know.

Okay, and spell his name K-I – is that two Ls? One L. One L-I-A-N-J-O-R-N-E-T. And he's running in Chamoy, how do you say that? France. Chamonix. Chamonix, France. And he's running on what looks like the fin of a shark

if a shark was the size of a mountain. This guy's a fucking animal, man. That is so scary. I get sweaty. My hands are sweating. I freak out watching this stuff. It's scary just watching it. And so he is the best?

On the mountains, for sure. He doesn't do anything that's not mountainous. He did Western States and won it in 2011, and he was complaining about it being too flat. Oh, Jesus Christ. What is the gain and loss of elevation in Western States downhill so it's 2300 or 23 000 feet down 17 000 feet up what so he's complaining about that yeah it's too flat 17 000 feet up and it gets much crazier than that you can do you can do like 50 milers or 100ks that have the same profile as that so you can get like if

you're doing like what he's doing that probably does feel kind of flat for him like he likes that steep technical stuff so but yeah so as far as the mountains go he's he's the guy to beat for sure and he'll do races on a regular basis when he is running because he's actually a professional skier too so like he's only running basically half the year and he's skiing the other half jesus christ yeah yeah so he's he's a fun dude to follow for sure. But yeah, when you look at some of the races that are kind of the big races, like Western States 100 is the most competitive 100 miler in the United States and Ultra Trail Mont Blanc, which is actually by Chamonix,

where you saw that video, is probably at least last year was the most competitive in the world. Those are the races I like to look at to kind of see like where the divergence is from the males and the females. And if you look at like course records and winning times, like, you know, the men are finishing like two plus hours ahead of the women on a pretty regular basis on that type of stuff. And at Ultra Trail, Mont Blanc, you know, sometimes it's four or five hours. at Ultra Trail, Mount Blanc, you know, sometimes it's four or five hours. And then, so then you can kind of like, it actually kind of is more in line with what you see with other endurance distances,

like marathons and stuff like that. The crazy thing about it, though, is that doesn't mean that's going to happen every time. Like there's certainly years where women do really well and finish like in the top 10 amongst in like like western states or utmb um one year in 2006 uh this gal nikki kimball uh she finished third overall at western states was which is the highest finishing finishing place for a woman other than this other lady named anne tracen who she doesn't really race anymore but she was she's kind of like the legend of the sport from the women, uh, where she's, she's, uh, um, won Western States like 14 times and had like 20 world records at one point and stuff like that. And, um, but Nikki, Nikki Kimball, she finished third. And part of it was cause that was like the hottest year in the canyons on record. And if women do one thing, I'm pretty confident women do better at these a hundred miles and men is they're not nearly as stupid. Like the men will go out and like, if it's competitive, it takes one or two guys to kind

of run a little too fast. And he's going to bring five, six, seven guys with them. And then it's, it's actually a fascinating racing concept, I think, because then it's like, if you're watching it, you're like, okay, one of these guys is gonna have the race of his life and hold on for dear life and run a spectacular time. Everyone else is going to blow up epically. When is it going to happen? Wow. So you can thin out that men's field really easily when that happens. I think the women are a little smarter than that.

That happened at Moab, right? Wasn't there a guy that was like way out ahead? Yeah, that might have been the case. Yeah. He dropped off. Yeah. He couldn't keep it up. He was probably running way too fast for what he was capable of doing.

And you see that all the time. And it's really easy to do at 100 plus miles because really at the end of the day, like if you feel comfortable at the start, you're probably going too fast. Now, how do you pace yourself and something like that? Like what do you are you using your watch? Are you counting steps? Like what are you doing? Yeah, I like to get to a point where I can use perceived effort, which is basically like listening to my body. I can know like, okay, this is a little too hard.

I need to dial it back. I'll use heart rate a lot in training to kind of get myself to the fitness I'm looking for. Yeah. Rich Roll was talking about that. He was saying that he tries to stay under 140 or in the 140 range. Yeah. that he tries to stay under 140 or in the 140 range. Yeah, and the thing about heart rate that I,

where I kind of deviate from heart rate is when you start getting into these really long events that go past like two or three hours, heart rate starts losing its value in terms of being able to trust it as like a metric that's going to tell you to do the right thing. Like there's so many things that can kind of disrupt that from like dehydration to just cardiac drift, all kinds of things.

So I think like if an athlete really has things dialed in, they can use heart rate in training and they can look at heart rate if they want, but they also need to connect that with perceived effort so that if something goes wrong with that or it starts, you know, issues start coming up with the heart rate side of things, they can still kind of like reflect back in on themselves like, okay, this is a sustainable pace for me, or this is not a sustainable pace for me. Rich Roll, we should point out is a vegan. Yeah. And you know, he's one of the few guys that is fully functional,

has no issues at all keeping that diet up. Yeah. Yeah. And I think he puts a lot of work into that, I think. Oh, you have to. Yeah. I mean, you really have to be just super dedicated to making sure you're getting the proper amount of nutrients, making sure you're getting microalgae and all the different forms of B12. Yeah.

And whenever someone comes to me and says, like, I'm a vegan or I'm a vegetarian or something like that, it's like, who should I look to? And he's the first guy I point to. It's like, if there's someone doing it right, it's him. Yeah. No, he's definitely doing it right. Now, when it comes to something like Moab 240, how does someone like Courtney blow that whole field away like that? I think some of it is just that's a really new event. I think they're in their third or fourth year for 200s.

There's three of them in the United States, and they'll probably be four or five in the next couple of years. So it really hasn't. It's in its infancy. I mean, think of it like with UFC back in the in the 90s, and then where it is at today. Right. So like those 200s are kind of like UFC was in the 90s. I see. And I mean, if that becomes a thing, if people start gravitating toward it,

then you'll see some of these course records just get blown out. I mean, we saw that with the 100-mile distance, and we've seen that with a lot of other trail course records, because like a lot of other trail course records um because like a lot of fast guys and gals have moved into the sport in the last five ten years so we've just been it's been like just deeper talent pool more likely to get a complete genetic freak more likely and the other thing too is like um a lot like a lot of times what you have is you get competitive enough in a sport then um people start playing

with fire and training and they're doing it because they know they have to get to their optimal best and sometimes they over train right over train get hurt and then but then the people that make it through that they are there as fit as they can get so then you can see you can see some really good times do you peak for a race yeah definitely The same like way a fighter would peak for a fight. Yep. I'll usually pick two, maybe three races a year. And those are the ones that I'm really going to try to nail.

Those are the ones where like, I'm going to like try to do everything I can to be ready to hurt during that race. And then I'll usually do maybe it's usually ranged. Like I'll usually do about six to eight ultra marathons in a year. and then the other ones are kind of like those training races that i talked about before or every once in a while i'll get invited to a race that's like overseas and it's like a free trip to go to china or something like that well speaking of hurting during a race i know that a lot of ultra runners are utilizing cbd and even using edible marijuana while they run.

And that they found that this is a great performance enhancing thing for them. Yeah, I don't. Have you ever messed around with CBD or edibles? Yeah, not within workouts though. Like more as like a sleep aid than anything. But like, or an inflammation thing. So it's like more of a post-workout. Wasn't there an Esquire article or Maxim, one of them,

Guy Guy magazine type things, and it was all about marijuana and ultra running and that it's somehow or another become a big part of it for a lot of these guys? Yeah, I think it's interesting because like you know marijuana use i'm not sure about cbd but marijuana use is like is illegal in competition but yeah it's like all of them uh yeah it's it's so there's like a usada type standard yeah it's the same it's the usada protocol so i think i think it's like it has to be below a certain level for like that's great

then so they they're testing for epo and all those things yeah i mean it's still pretty primitive and ultra running um like there's testing at some of the big races uh and that's even relatively new like in the last year or so so like western states they'll test they'll test uh the top 10 on each side and then a few random people and then i think utmb which is the other big 100 mile I was talking about, they test. Like I was tested after when I broke the 12-hour world record in 2013. I got tested after that. Have there been any big superstars that pissed hot? There's been people who have.

They weren't like individuals that were like kind of like a poster child of the sport necessarily. Lance Armstrong. Right nothing nothing like that so um and it's it's really interesting because like i mean there's certainly people skirting the rules in ultra marathon running um i have no doubt about it but what do you think they're doing uh probably like what is it uh i doubt they're doing like blood transfusion things like two or three style because i mean that's an expensive hard thing to kind of put together you need a doctor essentially if i'm understanding it all right so they're probably just doing little like minor things like maybe like peptides or something like that would be my guess um but i also do think it's not nearly like

people i think nowadays like with icarus and all that stuff like now people are on the opposite side of what they were a few years ago where they they suspect everyone's doing it versus uh no they're not doing it they haven't gotten caught yet which is where we were probably a few years ago um in ultra running i think i think the culture plays a huge role in that i mean like when you had lance on i think he was pretty good about talking about like how like you know like you come into the sport you go over to europe to race, and they ask you to get on a protocol. If you say no, they send you back. That's a cultural thing then, too.

It's like you have to do it to be in the sport almost. And with ultra running, it's kind of the opposite, I think. I think the culture is stay away from that stuff. We don't want that. Because it's a mind thing almost more than anything, which is why people like Courtney who aren't maybe the fastest marathon runners but have this just bulletproof mind that allows them to compete. And that you really – there's no supplement for your mind, for willpower. Yeah, yeah. And there's things that can go wrong just from the duration you're out there.

Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, it seems to be, so much of it seems to be your ability to deal with discomfort and pain and just press on. Yeah, you know, the way I describe ultramarathon running is it's still a running sport.

See, runners high. The athletes use marijuana to improve their training. What was that in? Was it in Esquire? I typed both of those in, yeah, but Guardian came up. Stone marathon runners may seem like walking contradictions, but there are hints that the drug and long-distance running could go hand in hand. I'll tell you what, man.

I've only done it a few times where I got super baked and went running. It feels awesome. It feels great. You feel so scared, though. Like, ah, what am I doing? It feels great. You feel so scared, though. Like, ah, what am I doing?

But I would imagine for some people it's, you know, euphoric. 50% of the runners I meet are avid cannabis users. To say almost none of them are open about it says Avery Collins. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Avery Collins is, you know, he's interesting because he's a spokesperson for marijuana use. You don't have to look far into marijuana and how it got to be where it is in terms of its legality or illegality to recognize there is some tomfoolery going on there. You don't have to be a historian to find out why that's criminalized, whereas alcohol isn't and that sort of thing.

out like like why that's criminalized well whereas alcohol isn't and that sort of sort of thing yeah um and avery's been like a pretty big proponent about kind of uh destigmatizing it um and but you know he understands at least you know he understands that it's illegal in competition and i think he's been tested at least twice after races i mean he was six that western states last year so he had gotten tested for that. Is caffeine illegal in competition? No. I think at a certain level, I think it is, although they may have just removed it. I'm trying to remember if I saw that right. But it used to be like you can have caffeine, but at a certain level it would be illegal.

But it was like the equivalent of like 16 cups of coffee or something like that. So you'd have to put down like four of those nitros or six of those nitros right before your race if you wanted any chance of going over that. And you'd probably go into cardiac arrest before that anyway. Right. And by the time you got to the end of the race, it would probably be out of your system anyway. Yeah.

Well, it's interesting. I actually, this is diverging a little bit, but I read a story a while ago that there was some high school kid who was playing football and he like slammed a red bull or some one of those like high caffeine energy drinks and then like was like on the kick return team or something returned to kick for touchdown was just jacked out of his mind slammed another one and then went back on the field and had a heart attack or something like that i'm sure it could happen if you go too hard yeah it's not just caffeine right a lot of those things have a bunch of other wacky stimulants in them too yeah you remember red lines oh yeah i took one of those once i drank the whole

bottle and then i looked at it says like four servings i'm like oh shit well each serving's like 150 milligrams of caffeine or something nuts yeah well and then they put a bunch of other stimulants in there that people don't know about so yeah taurine and all sorts of other shit in there yeah yeah yeah the kind of those pre-workout supplements were kind of wild. Oh, yeah, ephedrine. Yeah. Remember those ripped fuel? I took ripped fuel once and went to a jiu-jitsu class.

I had to stop. I had to stop training. I'm like, my heart is beating so fast. I could die here. Like, this is not good. And that was right before they pulled it off the market. Cut it in just in time, I guess. There was another thing they pulled off the market, too, that was killing people.

Was it called Jack 3D? Oh, I think I remember hearing about that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That killed a few folks. I think it killed a few folks in the military. So, you know, you're not talking about, like, some fucking sickly old man's like, I'm about to get jacked. No, it's like fucking soldiers. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean mean i'll use caffeine in races i think it's pretty clear that caffeine is a performance enhancing and it just happens to be one that's that's legal and it's a mild performance enhancing for sure are you using coffee or are you taking pills a little i've done a variety of different things um and I've done, uh, like I did a race once where I was trying to figure out like my fueling rate and like kind of what was ideal. And this was a while ago, but I did a hundred K race and I did nothing but Mountain Dew. And it was like, I think I took in, it ended up coming out to about 158 calories an hour of just Mountain Dew with some, I added some electrolytes to it.

Well, I feel like if you're just sitting around doing nothing, Mountain Dew is probably terrible for you. For sure. But if you're running hills and really kicking ass like that, the amount of fuel you're burning, Mountain Dew might be a great move. If you don't go overboard. I mean, so does at every aid station and pretty much every race. Really?

Yeah. So it's definitely something people have identified as useful. But since then, I've been – that product I was talking about before the X endurance fuel five, they make one with a little bit of caffeine in it too. So now I'll usually, if I want caffeine, I'll just use that instead of the non-caffeinated one. Um, but then I'll do like, you know, I'll still sometimes do a little bit of soda, especially at the end of the race. Um, just to kind of change things up a little bit. Cause that's the other thing too. It's like, if you do the same thing, you know, after a while it's like, just give me something

different. Yeah. Well, I know Floyd Mayweather drinks soda after he works out. Oh, really? Yeah. And people are like, what an idiot. And I was like, maybe not. First of all, maybe the best boxer of all time.

So definitely not an idiot. He's doing something right. He's doing something right. And if he's that good on top of, you know, having a terrible diet. And I think part of his like terrible diet is a joke like he'll eat cheeseburgers and shit and show you and say look motherfucker i'm kicking everybody's ass eating cheeseburgers but not really he really goes home and the chef's making some gourmet meal i mean he has a personal chef there was a whole article about it recently but i think that the fueling up with like really

heavy sugary drinks after a very hard workout, it's not a bad idea to replenish the glycogen in your muscles. Yeah, I think that depends. I think like, I think the science is pretty clear if you're on a high carbohydrate or at least a higher carbohydrate diet that, you know, carbohydrate and protein within like, you know, 30, 45 minutes of the post workout is going to be in your best interest. A lot of people like chocolate milk for that, right? Yeah. That's gotten, that's gotten kind of like labeled as that perfect ratio. Yeah. Um, of protein with sugar, sugar. Yep. Where, where it's not clear, or at least it's, it's getting clearer is like where the variance there is for someone like myself who's following

a high fat approach. And we've had a little bit of a glimpse into it from some studies. And the interesting thing is what they did this one study called a faster study. And it looked at like, it was 10 guys who were on a high fat diet and 10 guys who are on a high carbohydrate diet. And the guys on the, they try to pair them up as twins. So like similar, like performance achievements, similar like body metrics, and then kind of compare the two in the high fat cohort. Actually, when they finished the, one of the workouts was a three hour treadmill session. And then they were, they taken like blood tests and stuff and they had like the oxygen mask and things like throughout the course of it. And they tested things before or after.

And one thing that they saw was like the high fat folks actually had this kind of big like surge of glucose in the bloodstream post-workout. So the thought is like you might not want to double down on that if you're in a fat adapted state. Because like, I mean, some of the levels, this is, you're in a fat adapted state, because like, I mean, some of the levels, this is, it goes back to, it would have been like,

like this is what, something I'd like to ask Dr. Atiyah about is that like you get these big kind of post workout, like blood glucose spikes sometimes to the level of like what would look like a type two diabetic. But it's not, it's not, it's, it's in a different context than what you would see in someone who's just like following a normal

diet where that would be kind of a red flag. And, um, so like to, to hit the body with another source of glucose essentially might not be affecting you the same way. So yeah, it's, it's interesting stuff. So like, it's actually like, um, what I've done sometimes too, is after a big hard workout, if I'm not hungry, I don't always eat right away. I wait for my stomach to come around and like my body to say you're hungry, just to let all that stuff kind of go through. And then I'll have, depending on what I'm doing next, like if I'm taking an easy day or a couple easy days, I'll go like really low carb. But if I'm going back out that afternoon for another workout or the next morning for like a speed session or something like that, that's when maybe I would try to drop in a little bit of carbohydrate to kind of speed up the glycogen side of things. So I'm ready for that next one. Well, Zach, you're a bad motherfucker. I wish you all the best. I really appreciate you coming down here and talking to us. And it's fascinating what you do, man. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. Thank you very much, and talking to us. And it's fascinating what you do, man. Thanks for having me on.

Thank you. Thank you very much, man. Thank you.