The Nick Bare Podcast - 095: The Evolution Of The Endurance Athlete With Rich Ryan and Ryan Kent

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

In this episode, we talk competitive hybrid athletics, specifically preparing for HYROX Dallas on November 23 with RMR Training's Rich Ryan and Ryan Kent. We kick off with the inclusive and inspiring fitness culture in Austin, specifics about the Elite 15 qualification system, and the importance of proper training, nutrition, and mental preparation. We also share personal anecdotes and insights from our individual journies, including the evolution of training methodologies, the importance of staying in touch with high-intensity efforts, and managing nutrition effectively.00:00 Intros Chapters 00:23 Morning Run and Austin's Fitness Culture 02:19 Diving into HYROX 02:32 HYROX Elite 15 Explained 04:10 Qualifying for Elite 15 05:30 HYROX Course Challenges 06:17 Evolution of HYROX 07:05 Training Strategies and Improvements 10:12 Aerobic Capacity and Erg Training 11:45 Stay Power and Training Balance 17:03 Data-Driven vs. Intuitive Training 31:44 Defining a Hybrid Athlete 35:00 Transition from Spartan to HYROX 40:47 Meeting and Rivalry 42:18 Rivalry and Motivation 42:39 Fitness Comeback and Relocation 43:22 Friendship and Training Partnership 44:17 Steeplechase: The Hybrid Event 47:34 Evolution of Endurance Athletes 50:04 Nutrition and Performance 55:32 Challenges with Food and Training 01:07:19 Fueling Strategies for Competitions 01:15:36 Workout Planning and Pacing 01:20:53 Conclusion and Future Plans Strength, endurance, and wellness supplements to fuel your performance. SAVE 10% at BPN Supps:https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow: IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Keep up with Ryan and Rich: Rich Ryan: https://www.instagram.com/richryan610/ Ryan Kent: https://www.instagram.com/dr0p_the_hammer/ RMR Training Podcast:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi5cih2R3tbNcifyvD2xRqQ

Today on the podcast, we have Rich Ryan and Ryan Kent, and we're talking what it takes to be a competitive hybrid athlete. What's up, boys? Dude, thanks for having us, man. It's great to be here. Appreciate it. Really looking forward to chatting. A nice nine-mile run this morning. Yeah.

I feel like that's just the best way to just kick things off, get a little bonding experience, doing a little fitness. Yeah. Yeah. felt like cross-country practice. It did. Especially with all the other people we saw out there running, groups of high school kids, college, pro runners. And it's like still dark.

Like that part was crazy to me. Like everyone's up and at it right and early here in Austin. I don't know if that's to beat the heat or if that's the culture or what it is. I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, that's one of the things I love about the city. And I say that often. But it is filled with committed individuals. who even if they are not professional athletes,

they treat their sport, their hobbies, their passions like they are a professional athlete. I respect that. Absolutely. It matters. I've been in communities or areas where I've lived in where I felt isolated, where I was doing the thing that I felt was the only one on the planet who did this. So being around something like even being in Colorado and being here,

it just feels so much more inclusive and just validating of the effort that we're putting in, you know. Yeah. When we walked in the building this morning, I was like, I haven't even been here a day yet. And I'm already feeling inspired by the people that we've like come across already. Yeah. It's a cool spot. Pretty cool spot. I appreciate it, guys.

We got a full day of training, full day of eating. Yeah. Kent, you're falling behind on your calories a little bit. Dude, I got to call you out. Listen, I was waiting for him to say something because you gave us the breakfast after the run. Didn't eat it. Like, didn't need it. And now he'd prep lunch for us.

I didn't eat it. I didn't eat it. I was just waiting for Nick to call me out on that one. I care about your progress and your fuel and your gains. Oh, I've been eating. You just don't know what I've been eating. Candy bars. I did,

I saw the Coca-Cola. Yeah, I did see the Coca-Cola. So I want to get into your guys background in a little bit to provide context of where you're coming from. But I want to dive right into some high rocks specific stuff really quick. Totally. What is the elite? 15 in high rocks.

You want to take that one? Sure. So the lead 15 is basically the pro track for competition in high rocks. There is they take basically your times from the general courses and your top two combined time throughout the season will qualify you for an elite 15 race. And through the four different majors, you can qualify to the elite 15 world championships. So basically the Elite 15 is kind of a blanket statement to invite athletes into their qualification system. And then once you're in the majors, you can qualify for the world championships. So it's basically an elite field of high rocks athletes.

That's 15 people. So when you are on, when you are qualified into the Elite 15, are you then considered a professional high rocks athlete? I don't think so. I mean. I mean, the term they use is pro, it depends on what your idea of professionalism, professionalism is, right? Like, are we doing it exclusively? Like, no. When I think of a pro athlete, I think of are you supporting your life off of sport? And I don't think everyone in the elite 15 is doing that. Definitely not. But is it at the pinnacle of the sport? Is that what you consider pro? Then yes. But is it going to be able to sustain a lifestyle of professional? Like, no, not yet. For most of us. How did you guys get into the Elite 15?

Well, I got into it by this year anyway. It's an interesting system that Hirox has, where previous results dating back to, I think, a full calendar year, if not more. Depends, sometimes more. But a result that, so I'm currently, I'm in the Elite 15 for the 2025 high rock season, simply based off a result that I got at one of the majors last year in Chicago of November of 2023. I won that major.

If you win a major, you're automatically into the Elite 15 for the following season. So I haven't had to go out searching for races to find fast times to get me into the Elite 15 because I was fortunate enough to win. in one of the majors last year, which auto bid me into the next season. Whereas Rich has not had that luxury. So last year I had to qualify through a major. They took the top three with a roll down to five in each of these majors. So I qualify to finish third of the North American Championship in D.C. To get me into world championships.

But I don't have an auto bid. So now I'm still fighting to get my time back into that Elite 15 based off times. Got you. Okay. Which gets... Which is hard. It's a slippery slope too because, you know, Hirox is trying their absolute best to,

to standardize these courses across the globe, whether they come here to Austin and set up an event in the Austin Convention Center or they're in Hong Kong, you know, setting up event. Like, they do their best to make these courses as similar as they can. But in a lot of cases, there's just things that you can't predict. And, you know, the surface of the floor, which changes the friction of the carpet with the sleds. And there's a lot of...

It's also getting more competitive. Yeah. You know, it's just the growth is explosive. The availability trained for this is broad. So it brings in a lot of different athletes. So it's getting better. Like, people are just really bringing it to these courses. The level, I mean, when we first started,

I did the first high rocks that was in the United States in 2019. It was in Miami. And it's crazy. I think they only had like 400 people at that first event in Miami. I mean, it was, I would consider it a huge fail. But like Hi Rock says they had a plan. And now it's cool to see events hosting, you know, in the UK, like 10 to 15,000 people. They're pushing through an event in a weekend.

That is crazy. Whereas five years ago, I mean, you'd walk into one of these convention centers and be like, What, like, what's going on in here? 13,000 in Birmingham. Yeah. Just this past weekend. It's crazy. What were your times when your first?

Oh, my God. Hiroxes compared to, what's your best times now? What was your first time? My first one was an hour seven. Mine was two. Hour seven. 67. What took you?

And now you got blown up on wall balls. I got blown up on wall balls. My first wall ball ball experience took me almost eight minutes to do 100 wall balls. How are you breaking this up? I think towards the end, it was maybe two or three. time. Yeah, but it was one of those things where I knew that if I devoted time and took this seriously, that I could be very, very good at it. And I went all in, man. You know, like, I wanted, I wanted to be a professional athlete. And I put all my eggs in one basket and I dove in head first,

man. And, you know, thankfully it's, it's worked out for me so far. And now I, what's, what's your current? PR. Oh, okay. So my started out at almost 68 minutes and now I ran a 5512 last year. Yeah. I'm 58, 11 or 13 or something like that. So I'm pretty much like done with wall balls before Rich even gets to the wall balls. Happened once. So obviously the sport is evolving pretty quickly.

Where do you anticipate we see high rocks times in the next five years? I mean, the world record right now is 53 low. Is that Hunter? That's Hunter. And there was two athletes just recently, Alex Roncovich and James Kelly. They ran like 54s. It's going to come down to the running, how fast people can run.

I was going to say, where do you find time? It's the run. It has to be. I mean, there's some space on the sled push and pull. That seems to be the place where you can gain the most time. And how well you can recover from that. continue to still run well. But I don't know, 50, 51. I think someday someone will break 50. I haven't done. I haven't run the numbers on that, what that looks like. Like what that

run pace would have to be, is that like five 15s? Like is like, yeah, of course it's possible. But right now guys are running like five. If you're running 530s in between, you're the fastest runner. So if you can break it to 515s, 510s. I mean, it's all it's all percentages, right? Like, you think about the event as a whole, the running, so each 1K run, it adds up to about 50% of the competition. But, you know, the skierg, you need to train it, but like the skierg is only 3% of the race. The sled pushes 3% of the race. The burpees are, you know, 3% or 4% of the race. It's the running is what you spend the most time doing. So that's where you're going to be able to just maximize your, either your potential to get faster or if that's something you need

to work on, it could go the other direction as well. I think about that during a lot of these training sessions where I'm spending a lot of time on the ergs. And if I'm doing a workout that's 5 to 6K of skiing or 5 to 6K of rowing, I didn't think back to, well, it's only that 3% of the actual competition. but my fault process is this is a way to build aerobic capacity and conditioning without trashing the legs and lower body. Is that the same way you guys view these ergs? Yeah, pretty much exactly. Pretty much exactly. You still get the aerobic fitness in these

cross-training modalities. You might not get one-to-one better in running, but you can definitely improve how well you can deliver oxygen and just the whole aerobic capacity piece. And it's just like for the recovery part of it. Like there is a big high volume sport. So being able to bounce back, it's easier on the urge. I mean, I'm sure you've noticed that no impact. The range of motion is fixed. So you can't really do as much damage as running.

And that's another reason I think that it will continue to approval. What people can do in terms of their aerobic capacity, how big they can build it because they can recover so much better. Kind of like triathlon. You can spend so much time on a bike and just build this huge engine. I feel that same way about high rocks with the ski the row even the bike I think translates pretty well

and what the machines can do that running can't do is it can build power and I think ultimately the high rocks event is just how much power can you sustain for the duration of the event so working the ergs just kind of builds up your power output as well

I heard you guys refer to this term recently stay power I'd love to talk about that because I love that whole concept and just that term. And even since you guys have been here in Texas, I've heard you use that term, not just around training, but even around business. What is stay power? So yeah, I mean, that's just how long you could sustain a high output, right? Just like without basically fatigue resistance is kind of how we think of it. Just being able to be a strong,

a strong runner, a strong athlete and being able to put out for a high ability and just being able to kind of sit in it. It's kind of how I think of it. Yeah, I agree with that. One of the things I had to learn early on when I started training for high rocks is kind of how to use the ergs the right way. So I always do my run in the morning, whether that's an easy run or tempo workout, track workout. And then when I was programming my circuits in the afternoon on days that I had high rocks specific circuits, I was also adding in 1K repeats in almost every one those workouts and it was trashing me. I was running almost too much, too high-intensity running. So I started subbing out of a lot of the running in the afternoon with more herb work.

And I saw a huge difference in just my ability to recover, bounce back, and still get that aerobic conditioning work. Right now you're going through the exact same thing that we all went through. I think when we first started training for high rocks. It's finding the the formula, the right balance of how much running versus how much strength versus how much specificity. And you're going to mess it up a few times before you can find out what works for you. And it is very subjective. You know, like how much rich can do is not going to be how much I can do versus how much you can do. Like everyone's little got their little way of doing things. And I think that's also a really cool thing about Hirox is there's not this one blueprint on how to get

results. You know, it's it's what works for you. You know, because let's just say a power athlete, they're probably not going to need to, or a strength athlete, they're not going to have to spend as much time lifting the weights. They need to be out there working on their running ability or someone who is maybe a little thinner. They're great runner, but they need to to build strength. They're obviously going to spend more time lifting weights and doing those things. So it very much depends on the individual and what kind of what their strengths and weaknesses are as an athlete. Do you think you'll keep the ergs if you go back to the roads? Are you going to keep that as part of the routine? Oh, for sure. Yeah. I used to hate the ergs. I think it's because

they didn't spend enough time on them or learn how to use them properly. There's like a muscular point too that just is so limiting when you start, especially in the ski, the row I find that too. It's like I will crap out muscularly first because I'm not conditioned and I'm not putting the volume that I put on the runs.

So it just feels like kind of torturous at first. And then you get your form down. Is that what happened? Did you just like kind of dial it in? It just clicked eventually. One of my favorite workouts that I love and hate

is 10, 500 meter repeats on the rower. 60 seconds rest in between trying to hold very consistent paces. I look forward to that workout, but I also dread it every single time. You crushed that, by the way. I saw that YouTube video where you did 10 by 500 row. They hit in 136. Yeah, I mean, that's nasty. Were you feeling it in like your glutes? Was it muscular? My glutes were on fire. It's so painful. Like if you done like a 5K on a on a row? No, but I've done it 2K. 2K is miserable. But a 5K at like, 3K for me, I'll get on there and my glues will be on fire like I can't go anymore and I still have to sit there and do two more K. But it's like that terrible feeling that I can't sit on the

row for more than 10 minutes at a time and then I need to move to the next, whether it's the ski or the bike or go run and then come back to it. I have a hard time sitting on the row for unless you put a pillow under my ass or something. 10 by 500. That's yeah. After like rep five, I have to just like stand up during that 60 seconds and just move some things around. I mean, dude, that's a workout. Your power output should go through the roof. That's what thing with the urge too is that like Ryan said with the with the power point of it. Like I've gone back and forth of the best way to kind of approach this for high rocks in particular.

And at first I was like maybe I'll just treat it how I treat running where it's like anaerobic threshold. Something you can kind of sit in for 45 minutes, something like that and doing repeat to a short rest, like longer repeat to short rest. And now I'm kind of thinking it is taking it a little bit further. So you do get that power output benefit from it. And you still, you know, you might be touching outside of anaerobic threshold, but you're still building a huge aerobic engine with that stuff. So I think I'm leaning more toward the higher end for the machines lately anyway. Right.

It seems like you guys compliment each other really well in terms of we haven't talked about this morning, like an objective perspective. and a subjective perspective. Rich, you seem like you are really into the numbers and the data and then programming based off that data. And then Ryan, you're more like... This feels good. Yeah. No, definitely.

RPE. Totally agree with that. Yeah. Right. And that's why I think it does work really well. It's like I might be able to come with like a hard reason. And Ryan will come and be like, well, this is how this feels. And this is how it feels after I do.

do it for X amount of time and write and it just like makes things really well rounded in terms of like trying to figure out how to connect with people with our programming and things. Do you look at any data? I do. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say I'm like, I don't pay attention to it. He writes his workouts down in a journal on paper like every day since he was like eight years old.

I have years and years of just like a pile of just spiral notebooks that I write in my training like every day. Do you go back to them? Oh yeah, absolutely, especially if I'm in a funk or something and I need to look back on just like, man, I had that one race back in 2021 that I absolutely crushed. Like, what was I doing in that buildup for that race? All I have to do is go to my 2021 notebook, flip open to that week and I can literally look at the data of like what I was doing.

So in that in that regards, I use it almost on a daily basis. But when it comes to like training, I think just because I started at such a young age, four years old, I started running competitively. I'm just so in touch with my body and, or not in touch, but in tuned with my body and like the signs that it's telling me, like, even in like the easy run this morning that we were doing, I'm like, I'm constantly checking in with myself and like how I'm feeling. And I think a lot of people end up, you know, they go for a run and they throw their headphones on or a podcast and they're not, they're not in tuned with what's going on internally. They're distracted by.

you know, whatever. And if you're trying to compete in a competition, you know, I think whether, whether you're competing at the elite level or you're just training for like the Christmas 5K, like you should be in tune with your body a little bit and then listen to the signs that it's telling you. That's going to be your best way to to make adjustments on the fly. Because sometimes you could look down and your heart rate could be low and it feels it feels like you're working way harder than what your heart rate's saying. Or it could be vice. versa. So sometimes it's not to be trusted. At least I think that way because I'm like, I don't care what the heart rate says. I care how I'm actually feeling. You know, so yeah,

I mean, there's a time and a place for all the gadgets and things that, you know, are available for us today. But I'm so old school when it comes down to it. Even when it comes to like the shoes that I like to run in or race in. And I'm not. big on the super shoes. I'm very much old school racing flats with, you know, not a ton of cushion. I like to feel the ground when I run. I don't need the springy pogo sticks bouncing me on my run. So I'm slowly coming around a little bit to some of the new technology because it's, I mean, if it's there, you should use it, I guess. But it's good to learn. It's good to know, right? If it's there and it's going to be helpful. So I like try to adopt stuff a little bit

earlier and see. It's like, is this useful? But you got to be cautious. You know how stuff comes out and it makes promises. But yeah, for sure. In the last couple years of training, obviously you're always testing and trying new things and just experimenting to get better to improve. Is there one thing you could each share that might have been an unlock in the last couple years

of high rocks training specifically that has elevated you to another level of performance? Like, for example, I know Kent recently been talking about you now implement a full rest day as potentially pushing you forward, as hard as rest days are for a lot of us athletes. That would be recent. That's pretty recent. Committing to that.

That one's recent. I think also I'm getting older. I'm 38 years old. Still feel like I have a lot of years to give. But we don't recover as fast as we did when we were in our 20s. So giving myself that one rest day, at least for me, is a way to let my body absorb the training as it's happening rather than waiting for a taper to just hopefully absorb the months and months of training.

But as far as like in the last couple years. Yeah, what do you think has work? I'm always, I always think the thing I'm doing now is the thing. Right. And so I have a hard time not like throwing out all the past stuff, but like looking back. I think of recency bias. Totally. So I'm always like, but the proof is in the results.

So yeah, what do you think in that, like? The thing that's coming to mind would be like really not getting away from VO2 max efforts, even for high rocks training where it's pretty much an aerobic event. Still doing zone five efforts through metcons, whether that's, you know, machine. I mean, it could be machine work. It could be, you know, an e-mom. It could be anything, but not just staying in touch with that top end, like heart rate. That way, you know, I don't know.

There's been times in a high rock race where the sled maybe you got to work it a little bit harder than you thought. And your heart rate bumped up five to ten beats. You didn't expect that. If you haven't trained your heart rate in that appropriate zone, like it's going to mess you up. So when I think back, the, the, the, main thing would not losing touch with the top end you know it's very much you can get caught in those zone two zone three zone four but don't forget about that zone five that's that's valuable too what's a zone five workout look like for you like duration that would be shorter yeah maybe like

25 30 minutes tops with rest though with rest yeah with rest and maybe only I mean, it could be anywhere from a minute to four minutes in duration. And then having almost like equal rest. So if you do like a big four minute high output, you would then also recover for four minutes. You know, which that doesn't seem very specific to what we're doing in the event where we get no rest breaks. Yeah. But it can move the needle. It can move the needle.

Moves the needle pretty quick too. And you spending those, say, four minutes. on like an echo bike. No, it could literally, I could say I'm going to do, I'm going to do a minute of burpee broad jumps right into a minute sled push, right into a minute of lunges, right into a minute of wall balls. And I'm going to send it each one of those for a minute and then take a four minute rest, something like that.

And then repeat that multiple times. Have you done any VO2 stuff on the row or the, you probably get there into zone five in that 10 by 500? But have you ever do like, I did a workout the other day. It was four by four minutes on the ski yard. I saw that. Just as hard as I could go. And it was miserable.

And I just blew up really bad. But I was like chasing the feeling of what we want to get out of that effort. Have you ever done anything like that? No. And I've thought about that recently as I've watched some of your training. And that's why I've shifted some of mine to go after some of this more higher output work. Because a lot of my training up until this point has been. high effort, big volume, but I think sometimes the volume was a little bit too large where the intensity couldn't be great enough. So now I'm starting to rethink some of the things that I could change in the future to get to some of that zone four or zone five really targeted work.

And that's where I've I've missed a mark in the past, right, on either ends of the side. Like I'll either lean too heavy into the volume or too heavy into the intensity and where it really, what I think is looking back on training now and where I currently am, is expanding the volume first and then filling in the intensity later and trying to expand on that intensity within the base that I've built. So making that,

being able to hold that higher effort for a longer duration because it is 60 minutes of pretty high output. Right? If you really want to, like the guys who are running the world records,

when Kent's running 55, it's like you're putting out almost from the start. You've got to find that, line right where you can go as hard as you possibly can before you, before you pop. So spending time there and building that volume right below that line, I think is really important. It's interesting because in a running race, and you would know this doing many, many road races, you can kind of build into the effort. And like when you get to that point where you're

like, okay, we're there. Let's just sit here and just, this, that's, that's just where we're going to be. Whereas in high rocks, it can, there's like this ebb and flow with, you know, the effort and the heart rate, you know, it's not like this, let's go pin it at 155, 160, and we're just going to sit there. This thing, you might have your heart rate, 130, 160, 170, 150, like, it's kind of all over the place. So that, that aspect of it needs to be trained as well, getting comfortable with, like, having these. ebbs and flows of effort within like a training session, which I know you've been doing more of recently.

A buddy of mine once said that, uh, high rocks, it's an hour long race, but it feels like the second hour of a two hour race. Right. There's no, like, gradually getting into it, like in an hour race or a half that you just kind of get into like this discomfort and you kind of hang on for like the last third. This is just like uncomfortability. It's like the last 10 miles of a marathon. It's just right from the jump.

Yeah. It's uncomfortable right away. What events specifically within that race do you see your heart rate elevate the highest? So I think traditionally Burby Broad Jumps is going to be what Jack's. Yeah, I could see that. What Jack's a heart rate pretty high. For me, on the sleds, my heart rate actually comes down. But what I think is happening and our other partner Meg, Meg Jacoby, she had been doing some lactic threshold training.

And she tested her, her blood after the sled push. And he said the the levels that she had was like 10 to 12 millimoles of lactate in that blood, which traditionally in like anorobic threshold training would be like 2 to 4. So she was like well beyond.

So it's not really adding up the way it would in traditional endurance where like where your heart rate might go up, your effort goes up, and then the lactate levels go up. On the sled, you're slowing the heart rate down. but where you're creating this, like, acidosis is isolated in your legs, right? So that pops really high.

So even though my heart rate goes down on the sleds, my RPE goes way up. Because in my general fatigue feeling and like the, how you feel, it's kind of like inverse, which is strange. So I think by the time people get the burpee broad jumps, I have to do two sleds. Now they're dealing with all is lactate.

And it's been 30-some minutes. I think that's where you really see like a, big elevation in it. Right. It's kind of what I talked about in the podcast with you guys on your podcast is not what I'm nervous for, but what I'm anticipating is just figuring out how to pace this race appropriately based off of changes in heart rate and efforts between running and the stations and just figuring that out in my first competition, I think, is going to be

my biggest learning curve. And you coming from, you know, doing your marathon where you're, you're hitting 550 splits or whatever, just like mile after mile, don't be as conservative as maybe you think you need to be. That would be. Just send it, dude. Just go for it. Yeah. I'm going to send it. Just go for it.

Definitely send it. I'm excited about that. Yeah. What do you think you're going to ski? Are you ready to talk strategy about this thing? Ski is a trap, too, by the way. The ski can be a trap. In what way?

you're feeling good and you can just kind of go harder than you probably should. I think you were telling me to do 10 seconds greater than my 5-00-2-2-K effort. 2K plus 10 would be safe, safe. Now, some of us, we play those numbers a little bit closer. You know, I've definitely been like 2K plus 4 in some races and you come out of the ski. might have worked that a little bit too hard. That run coming out is not, you know, it's taken 500 meters to flush out

kind of what you just did, get your heart rate back down. Yeah, I guess it depends on how conditioned you are on the ski. Because 2K plus 4 would be aggressive. It's doable. The top, like, yeah, the top dudes. And you just finish that run, right? Like the first run, I mean, it's the first three minutes of a race. Like, you're feeling great.

And then you stop. And now you're on the ski. And it's like, oh, I've got all this energy. And you could totally just get overzealous and push that ski way harder than you should. And then next thing you know, man, you're going backwards. And what you make up time, I could tell you before, is the sleds. Like if you push and you gain five to six seconds on the ski, you might give that back plus some. Or if you conserve, you can gain like 30 seconds on the push and pull because you have a little bit more juice.

I'm feeling strong on the urgs. I mean, I spent a lot of time on the urgs the last couple months. So I'm feeling strong. I've done a lot of volume, a lot of work. a good combination of volume and intensity. We'll see. We're getting close for less than 30 days. It is.

It is. It is. We are, man. All right. So I want to know, in your guys' opinion, you asked me this before. I want to ask you this. What is a hybrid athlete? Yeah, I mean, off the cuff. I mean, it's not something I sit around and think about, like, a ton.

But I think it's someone who is putting themselves in the arena and they are testing themselves one way or the other. Like it can be it can be a variety of things. But like you're putting yourself out there. You're putting your goals out there, you know, and you're going to a race or a competition or an event or something. And you're putting your training, the work that you've been doing to the test. you know a lot of people we call them youtube athletes you know they're just there for the clicks and the

content but like if you put them in an actual competition they're not going to do anything at all it's like what they're what they're doing is really not that spectacular it's just optics visually and i think that's why when this conversation came out you know a year or two ago and you know someone asked me about nick bear and i didn't know a lot about nick bear i'm like oh yeah that's just a YouTube, YouTube athlete, until I started doing more research. And I'm like, no, wait, this guy is, this guy's legit, dude. Putting in work. He's, putting in work.

You know, I don't need to go over all the things you've done. But like, that's what I'm talking about, man. I think you need to put yourself in the arena and test yourself and be ready for success or failure. You know, like, I think the term athlete means you are competing in something. If you were just training and exercising and work. out, I don't think that makes you an athlete. Yeah. That's just my opinion.

Yeah, I think that's where the competition side of it, where it's the term athlete for me, right? Like, if you were to talk to someone who's doing working out. Because the hybrid is a whole other. Like, what does hybrid mean? That could go down. Right. Well, then it's so broad. It's like, what do we even?

Like, is CrossFit a hybrid athlete? Like, kind of. It's like, yeah. But the, like, if you went to a gym and everyone's training, like, bodybuilding, do you think they would call themselves bodybuilders or they would probably just call them they probably wouldn't put themselves in any bucket

and even in the running world I found people have a hard time calling themselves runners have you come across that it's like I'm not really a runner for sure but I've done 10 marathons it's like you know what I've done no marathons like you're definitely a runner

if you've put yourself out there and done that that's where I get kind of crossed up if people are calling us with a hybrid athletes without the competition side it's like then you are just training a modality and like that's fine but I don't necessarily, I wouldn't necessarily attach the athlete

term to what they're doing. It seems like the only place that has been doing that, that people kind of put themselves in this bucket when they're not competing, you know? And that segues well into each one of your backgrounds because you both have experience collegiate athletics and then racing Spartan, DecaFit, obstacle course races, in your opinion, is high rocks of all the things you've done,

the pinnacle competition arena of hybrid athlete training and competition? So far. So far. And back when I was doing the Spartan racing thing from 2014 to 2019, which is when I got into high rocks, I was training this way even for obstacle racing. Everyone's like, why are you doing bench press and deadlifts and all this strength training when like we're outrunning trails?

We're doing 10 to 12 miles and 3,000 feet avert. And it's like, dude, and why are you on the rower? Why are you doing all of these different modalities that maybe aren't going to translate onto the race course? Like you're way stronger than you need to be. But I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much. and it brought me just a lot of happiness, man.

I love working out in the gym just as much as I love running. Like it's literally like a 50-50 love, you know, for both ends. And the same way. And so then when Hirox came about, man, it was like, oh, now I can still do what I love to do, train the way I want to train. And it's actually going to, this is going to translate on course. This is perfect for me because, you know, Rich will say the same. We thought, we thought, we thought spark.

Martin racing was going to be like that was hybrid sports. It was the closest thing. You know, you got to be fast. You got to be strong. And maybe it kind of was in the beginning. And then it kind of went a different direction where, you know, some of the things that would slow down a runner, like carrying a heavy sandbag up a black diamond ski slope, those things started going away.

So, you know, when the chance, when high rocks came around, it was. I was already ready to kind of make a transition out of Spartan. The timeline just worked perfectly with where I was at. Was Spartan making these changes to make the sport and activity more approachable to a larger group of people? Maybe. I think a lot of it. They did have a thing where they wanted to be in the Olympics. And so standardization did become a thing.

But they're an event company, right? That's where they're not a sport. Yeah. So when they, I think it was just business. They just kind of looked at it. It's like, where is the sports side bringing us? And they had to endure COVID just like everybody else. And an event company took a big hit on that.

And they just looked at it like, this is not a place where we need to invest. So I think it was more of a business decision, really, which is hopefully not something that will happen with high rocks. But just to circle back a little bit on that is I think it's important to note that like the term high rocks. does not necessarily mean, like, run, like, what we enjoy is events that are kind of running or endurance biased with some strength because CrossFit has existed, right? And you could say that that is also hybrid because it is, they do everything, but it's strength bias. You know, so that existed. But coming from an endurance background, like, we both love running. We watch it. We still do. We competed in that for a long time. We like that part of the aspect of competition. And, that's where this high rocks really kind of like differentiate itself from CrossFit because one's focused on endurance and the other one's focused on strength yeah like to to excel in the sport of CrossFit you have to be really strong and this you have to be huge aerobic engine right and they cross over a little bit but the biases are are tilted differently that's how

I view what I do currently and how it's evolved where it's endurance first and then strength always. And it's been this slow evolution where I look back at 2009, 10, 11, 12, when I first started getting really into fitness and building my body, it was just strength and bodybuilding. And I was running when I had to because I was in college in the Army ROTC program. So I was just running because I had to run because we were doing Army PT test that I had to pass. and then slowly, a few years later, it was a 50-50 split between strength,

bodybuilding, and running. And I wasn't willing to sacrifice body composition and strength goals to be a faster runner. And over the last couple of years, I've prioritized endurance, but strength will always support my endurance. But strength and bodybuilding and resistance training being in the gym,

that is no longer my priority focus. It is to support my endurance training. I think that's why I've also aligned with high rocks coming out of a bunch of marathon and ultra-preps these last couple years is because it does prioritize endurance, but strength is always a foundation of that endurance training. Yeah.

Not one, you know, one's not more important or better than the other. It's just kind of like what's your, what's your poison, I guess. Yeah, so we like the running. We like the running part of it just because that is our background. You know, we're fans of endurance sport. And so Hi Rock's kind of just checked that box as well as anything we really could imagine. So we're fortunate that it came around. I mean, like Ryan said, we're the same age just at the twilight of our athletic career,

but at least we got it. For sure. At least we got a little bit of it. How did you guys meet? Dude, it's kind of a funny story. Well, I didn't like Rich when I first. I mean, you definitely have different personalities. Yeah, yeah.

And I can see it like in the banter, which is almost like brothers. But I could see how maybe you guys started initially. I liked brothers too. Hating each other. I didn't hate him. Well, okay, I'll try to keep this story a little brief. But I had a baby during COVID. I didn't have a baby. My wife had a baby. We had a son. And when we had our kid, I took a little

break from competing. A week, or I should say, a day turned into two days, two days turned into three days, turned into a week, a week turned into two weeks, two weeks into three. Next thing, you know, I haven't trained for two months. At all, not touching anything. Nothing. And during this time, you know, COVID's kind of, it's moving on. They're starting to put events back on and Rich during that time was dominating all of the Decofit events, which is another event cousin of high rocks, I guess you could say. And he's crushing it. But before I took, you know, we had our kid, I was, I was the man.

Okay. So I took, took a break. I'm out of shape. and now Rich is the guy on the scene. He's winning all the races. He's the big name. So I'm just like naturally like I don't like this guy. I say nothing at all.

I'm just handling my business. Never had a conversation with him, but I'm like he's taking my thunder. I don't like it. I get it. And that honestly was like a big motivator for me to like get back in shape was to try to like prove that like I'm still the guy. So that's what I did.

I ended up, you know, one, it was a rough comeback. into fitness after taking almost three months completely off, but I eventually got back to where I was at, overtook Rich, was the man on the scene again. For a very short time, and the big raise happened. But ultimately, we ended up meeting at a at a DECA event. And I moved to Colorado. I was living in Philadelphia and my wife and I got married and made the move to Colorado. Ryan was there at the time and it was just kind of linked up. It was a high rocks where we first met. We would correspond a little bit on Instagram how people talk these days, you know. And it was just one thing.

I was like, damn it, I freaking, I like this guy. Like we're going to be friends. So like I wanted to hate him so much. But then when I finally met him, it was like, we're going to be boys. Yeah. So we started training together and we travel a lot together, go to all the same races pretty much. Yeah, and all business partners doing the thing.

So it's only a recent friendship, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Last two to three years. Yeah, I moved in. 21 or 22 moved out to Colorado. Were you guys close to each other in Colorado in proximity? You're like 40 minutes apart.

In Colorado, everyone, all the people kind of live in the same general area. You know, it's like they move up, live close to the mountains, and then the mountains happen. And then so everybody kind of lives in the front range. So it was like 30-minute stray shot. And you guys just just so happened to both race the 3,000 meters steeple chase in college. Yeah, yeah. Rich got me there.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Rich had a faster steeple time. I mean, I can give them that. But like you were saying last night, that was, or was it this morning, that the steeple chase is kind of like the hybrid event. Just hybrid track and field.

Outside of like the decathlon. But I was thought it was so cool that we had to do an endurance event and jump over these barriers and go through a water pit. Like that excited me. So I think even from a much younger, age, that style of training and event just always appealed to me. Something a little non-traditional, I guess you could say. For anyone who doesn't know what the 3,000 meters steeple chase is, can you paint a picture of what that race looks like? So the history of it,

I believe, is from like equestrian sports, from horse racing. So they literally drag out big horse barriers. They're probably six inches wide, right? inches like tall like the barrier is big they don't move the way that the 110s or the hundred hurdles will like hit and they'll fall over and then it's no did you see that guy eat it during the uh was it the olympics did you catch you did you watch any of the track and field in the Olympics i did but i didn't see that one oh my god so you can like the they don't move these hurdles like they are like if you hit them you clip it you go down and then there's one part where they have a hurdle over a water pit for some reason and you have to clear the water pit in the middle of the race so you have to

put it at seven or eight times. There's five hurdles every lap. And you run the first 200 meters without barriers. And then from that point on, you have seven laps. And every lap you have five hurdles. Five hurdles. And one of those hurdles is the water jump. So you end up doing 35.

35 hurdles. By the end on your last lap, man, you can barely get your legs up. I believe it over that thing, man. You're so lactic too from the event. It's a miserable feeling. It's not. It starts out feeling good because you've got to go a little. slower than a typical track race, but by the end, it's not a feeling that is like any other.

What even draws you to wanting to compete in that? I never was like the fastest guy, you know, like I was, I was decent, but I think the steeple is kind of where the guys, either you have, I feel like it's just like you have talent, but you're never going to be the best at like the 5K or 10K or like the, 800, 1500. So that's where they kind of send. It's like you're not fast enough. But there's also that different element.

It's like I think, I believe I'm more athletic than these other runner-runners. So that gives you a little bit of an advantage where the 15 or the 5K is just going to be output, little tiny guys just running around. So yeah, it probably was a little bit of that. There's an opening and you kind of have to be a little crazy to try. Most people don't want to. So you just pop into it and give it a shot. And it's fun. It's different.

It's just so different. Yeah, I still remember. Like, my coach was like, hey, we're going to throw some hurdles into our 1,200 meter repeats today. I want you to jump over some hurdles. And, like, I did it. And I was like, dude, this is fun. And next thing you know, like the next week and I was in the steeple chase.

It was crazy. That's wild. So I'd love to know from, like, your guys' perspective, being athletes for a long time now, how you've seen the endurance athlete the typical endurance athlete evolve from what you might have experienced and thought an endurance athlete looked like

when you were in college and who people looked up to who was aspirational in that endurance space and then what has changed over time and how we now view endurance athletes because I would argue that if you showed today's endurance athletes

high rocks athletes for example to people 20, 30 years ago, no one would say that's an endurance athlete. So how are you seeing the evolution of that? So if when I look at it and I look at it at the like competitive level first, just say we'll talk about running on that end. I think the awareness, information and education available around like nutrition and strength training is just so much more widely available and accepted that it's

definitely changing the body composition of these. athletes to look stronger, to look more healthy. And I think that is carrying beyond them. So then people aren't put into a certain box of a body type. Like you were saying, it's like, oh, everyone is small or is super lean. Now even on the competitive side, athletes don't necessarily look that way because of the information that's available and because of the hardships of people of the past athletes, right? The stories that come out and the horror stories that people kind of endure because of this

lack of information that that they had when they were going through it. And we all suffered from it. Yeah. And we all went through it. You know, we shared these stories before. And like, just now it seems like there is an acceptance of it. Where before is like, if you want to be fast, you have to run. You shouldn't, like, lifting isn't going to make you faster.

It was kind of the, was kind of just like the tail we were told. I mean, you don't touch weights when you're just focusing on running. The word bulky. Yeah. Like, I want to get bulky. get bulky. When you guys were in college, do you spend any time in the gym? We went, but I didn't do really anything in there. I did some stuff in the summertime. Yeah, our coach made us go. He didn't come, but he made us go. And then we just kind of like stood

around, not on a program. And then we just like went running. So it was just like a time to meet up to run some more. But we didn't really have any guidance at all. And you know something crazy is I'm sitting here in front of you right now, weighing like 190. And, my 5K time right now versus where I was at in college weighing a buck 50. So a 40 pound difference. Dude, if I put in a 5K block right now, I could probably come pretty darn close to what I ran in college almost 20 years ago, 40 pounds lighter. So I don't, I mean, at some point, like, it can become dead weight. but if you're able to use your muscle for power,

you know, then I think it's a great, it's great to have like extra muscle, you know, but the moment it becomes dead weight, you know, then you're not able to utilize that, that strength that you have. But I don't think it,

I used to think it mattered, but I don't think it really matters so much anymore in terms of like the weight thing and how much muscle you have because we're starting to see evidence, across the world now of all these really high-level athletes who are dip in their toes in both areas and are seeing like insane results from it. I'm still taking back when I see people, like you're a good example, Nick, is in the

split shorts, just being jacked, running around and running like runners did, like how runner runners run, just with the training. So I always think that that's interesting when people are stepping into that field and take it real seriously and not like wanting to worry about like the stereotype that came before them. Right. So it's still like kind of a transition for me, seeing people are getting real into running. Do you think part of that evolution, you guys briefly just touched on it there, is maybe the spark behind the evolution is the understanding of proper fueling? in diet and being a healthy runner, which then automatically creates bigger, stronger runners.

When you guys were in college, what was the talk around nutrition and fueling, if there was any? None. I don't think there wasn't any. I went, no. There wasn't even like a resource for, you know, hey, like if you're dealing with something,

eating disorder, whatever, like, hey, go talk. That stuff did not exist. I think we have one, like, kind of group meeting with all athletes where they kind of were D1 though, I was D2. That's true. We don't care. But they just like put all the athletes in an auditorium and are like basically kind of like food pyramid stuff, just general.

Everyone just like, why do we have to be here? So no, we didn't get a ton of guidance. There was a point where I did reach out to my coach to try to get some help because mostly on my end, it was mostly ridicule. Like I was dealing with some weight issues early. And the way I was told about it was basically just like being embarrassed in front of my teammates you know so when i went for him for help he sent me to the physical trainer who like you know tapes your ankles and they didn't know what to do either and then and it took a lot for me to even ask for help once that's really not in my character um so then when it didn't come through i just figured i just

will have to deal with it on my own so yeah we didn't have any really like hard resources for us i hope that there's more now yeah and maybe just with the amount of information available through social media through YouTube, and people can kind of do a little more self-study on it. But before it was like, yeah, I just read a book or two, didn't really have any strong resources and just made a bunch of mistakes. Were you struggling to, were you overweight? And your coaches were encouraging you to lose weight?

Yeah, yeah. Encouraging is a nice way to put it. Yeah. Although I'm assuming there was like this expectation of, like, hey, you have to get skinny, you have to stay skinny, do whatever it takes to get lighter, to be faster. And there was never a conversation about fueling your body to perform and fear of gaining weight. And from the coach's standpoint, right?

Like I was underperforming and my body composition did have something to do with it. So he wants to get the most out of his athlete. And I was there on scholarship. So he's like, what's your problem? And I'm like, I don't really know how to do this. Can I get some help? And he's like, no, figure it out. So, yeah, it was just not a lot there for us.

I was telling you last night going into my junior. year of cross-country season that in college, I lost 25 pounds over the summer, healthy, you know? And then when I got into the season and my results were all of a sudden, like, the times were dropping, like, significantly. Like, my 8K got better by like over 90 seconds. My 5K dropped by like 45 seconds. And I'm thinking like, oh, this is like the recipe for success here. I need to be light. I need to be thin. And then your body, I, think naturally wants to eventually get back to its homeostasis of like what what is your natural body weight and for me mine is like 175 180 you know so I could only sustain it for so long

until you just can't anymore and that's when that's when like the eating disorders can pop up and like it like it did for me do you think endurance related sports naturally create unhealthy relationships with food. I feel like there are more people with unhealthy relationships with food who participate in endurance sports than there are who have healthy relationships with food, fully healthy relationship with food. I wonder if it's just because everyone, I mean,

what percentage of people do you think that are doing like endurance are doing it for the aesthetics? Quite a bit. I mean, that's where my mind went too. It's like, is it the endurance sports? that's creating the poor relationship, or is it the person who already has the poor relationship is more likely to lean toward endurance because of caloric burning? It's good observation.

Right? So I think that it's hard to kind of untie the two, and I probably would think it's like, if I need to burn this many calories, I will do this much cardio. And then it's, but on the other end, when you do a lot of output, it's hard to eat that much. I mean, it's been great being around you've seen the way that you kind of operate in nutrition. I've been taking advantage. Ryan has not decided to forego. I might die in this workout. Your hospitality on that. But yeah, it's also hard to fuel enough if you're not locked in. But I probably think it's more the person who has already had a poor relationship

and is kind of drawn to endurance. Gravitates towards that. I think so. Yeah, I've trained with a lot of different people, men, women, high-level athletes, people are just getting started. And I'm always surprised how often I meet people who have really poor relationships with food and think later is better. And it will just bury themselves before even getting into a training session because I'll never forget this one day during this trackwork. And I've told the story multiple times before, but. I was doing this track workout with this group of athletes here in Austin,

and I was running with this female. I was a really strong runner. She was struggling to keep up during the workout. And I asked, like, you know, what did you eat this morning before the workout? She said, nothing. And I'm thinking, well, I've already had 120 grams of carbs, you know, at 6 a.m. I was like, well, what did you have last night for dinner? She said, chicken and veggies.

I was like, well, when's the last time you had some carbs? She said, maybe yesterday morning, like, my oatmeal on breakfast. And that was an eye-opener for me of, okay, obviously this is why your performance is being affected and you're getting so upset because you can't perform, but you're self-destructing. Like you're creating this environment and these conditions for yourself, how many other people are experiencing the same thing where you cannot even achieve your potential because you're not doing the bare minimum to fuel that potential. And that's, yeah, like we're even start with that with just the, and there's something else what you're talking about with the education and what people are kind of knowing about it and the bad rap carbs have had in the past. It's coming around, right? I mean, it's probably been, I was, well, maybe 10 years ago when everything was low carb. And I guess we're still kind

of fighting it a little bit. But I remember I had a moment where I got a carbohydrate powder, just whatever from GNC or something like that and put that in my water before my run after a long stint of being low carb and the feeling that I had at the end of the run was just so night and day. It felt like I was like coming on and still having energy

and then that was just like the moment that clicked. It's like, oh, this is actually a tool I can utilize that's going to help me perform and not something that's going to make me fat. Yeah. So I think we're coming around to that now. I think most people just don't know. They're not educated in it.

It's a lot. It's like where do you start, you know, and trying to figure out where the right place to be. You should probably seek out help. You know, you should probably get a coach or somebody that can help you figure out where your habits are and where to start on it's all. But it's within your control. You know, you can, and it's low-hanging fruit, the nutrition part, especially for-hanging fruit, yes. Especially for performance. I mean, you were saying last night, you know, you got back to your house and you were a little bit hungry before bed and you went to. the fridge and pounded some potatoes and got some carbs you know like you knew like today was going to be a big day and but you're educated and you know that and I I'm starting to get better at that like being like okay tomorrow morning I have a big volume workout I'm going to need extra carbohydrates extra calories and you know I try to set myself up for success haven't always been that way but I am getting better but I mean

I mean, even if I'm struggling with it, you know. You're also like the same thing. You mentioned when I've learned this whole thing, it came from tracking and just like being meticulous. And that's how I learned. Like Kent is just intuitive. He like knows when he's hungry. He knows what to eat.

And I think a lot of people miss that. They don't have that at all. Or you, you have it much like a little bit more like dialed in internally. I'm learning a lot about myself through this podcast. This is very helpful. This is actually an intervention. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how I learned actually nutrition as well and how to manipulate my calories and macanutrients

is through very strictly tracking. Because I signed up for my first bodybuilding competition when I was in college with 2012. And I went to my nutrition teacher because I was studying nutrition in college. And the head of the dietetics department, I went to her and I said, I just signed up for a bodybuilding competition. Can you help me create a diet? And she said, I have no clue where to start. Because in college, we were focused on nutrition around disease intervention, diabetes

and cardiovascular disease primarily. And it wasn't around performance nutrition or sport at all. By the composition. Yeah. None of that. So that's when I went online. And at the time, if it's your macros, flexible dieting was really popular in tracking your nutrition.

So I downloaded my fitness pal. I set my macros, made a plan. plan and over the course of like 16 weeks, I reduced primarily carbohydrates in fat, kind of like stair step down, reduced total calories and then lost body fat. That's where I learned how to track, how to manipulate calories, macronutrients. It's pretty crazy. And that was like such, that was an unlock for me in terms of, oh, I can make these direct changes to my diet and see how it affects body composition.

and then eventually it was, well, how do I apply the same principle to performance and making sure I'm eating enough and then adjusting primarily carbohydrates to fuel greater efforts and demands that my body requires. Yeah, it unlocks a good way to put that. I was around the same time where I was looking for that. And I found it really challenging because everything I searched for before, it was like a method or like some rule, right, when it comes to dieting where macros isn't really like that. It's like eat whatever you want, but as long as you're tracking these macronutrients,

then you can manipulate it however you want. So I had a hard time grasping it because it was a little bit more obscure than just like, don't eat carbs or don't eat this food or just eat this food. And I found it really kind of challenging to understand like where I was supposed to go with this because there was no hard rule, you know? Did you have a challenge like that with, with that or was it pretty intuitive on your end? It was intuitive in the beginning, but it definitely messed me up because when I was like 14, 15 years old, I had a severe eating disorder.

So when I learned how to track macros, that re-triggered this control that I wanted to have around food. So my bodybuilding competition was over, I thought the next day I'd be able to stop tracking macros. And for years after that, I kept tracking things. Like if I said I was going to consume 300 grams of carbs in a day, it was 300. It wasn't 299.

It wasn't like 301. I vividly remember this time in college where I made my entire meal. I weighed everything out. Eating shouldn't be the stressful guys. It should not. But when it's control, it's like you hit it and it doesn't, it feels like less stress. Like I'm exactly where I need to be. I know exactly what's going to happen.

Like the control part makes it feel. feel less stressful. Yes. So this time in college, I prep my meal, I waited all out, I put it in my fitness pal. It was accounted for

I was walking back to my room to eat it. College apartment, live with five guys. I mean, shit all over the floor. I trip, I dropped my food.

It was like eggs, potatoes, cheese everywhere scattered. I picked up every piece of food. Put it on the scale. On that plate and I ate every bite. And I eat,

Even me after that, I was like, this was perfectly calculated. That was messed up. That was a little crazy. That was messed up. So it can be a blessing and a curse. Because you can control this variable, but it can kind of open the door. It can take over the goal of what fitness and athletics and sports should be. Is it something you think about nowadays?

Or do you just, you've done the numbers for so long that you just know? like how many grams of carbs are in X? Like you just know. Like you don't have to spend the time planning out what you're going to eat throughout the day. You just already have a general idea. I'll occasionally track just to like have an awareness. It's maybe like once every two to three weeks.

But now my diet's so consistent. And I know what's in what that I can have a ballpark range. Yeah. And I know like if I'm putting a big effort out, it's like this intuitive, I should add some more carbs in around this training session. I should add some more carbs in post workout to fuel. And then it's this subjective feedback loop. I'll wake up the next morning.

I can tell if I under fuel the day prior, especially going into a big session. I'm like, I definitely like should have ate something else yesterday in preparation for this big day. Yeah. I'm probably around the same kind of. method now I don't track often. And what I found to be really helpful is that I started to understand what it felt like subjectively when I was fueled. And so that, then that's a marker I can kind of aim for without having to track all

the way there. Or before or I would be under eating, I just thought that that's how I should feel. But when you eat more, you can kind of feel the satiation happening, you know, and that's something that I found was really helpful with it now too. And now, if I do have a big session, I can kind of tell where, how much I can continue. I'll eat and I'll stop. I'm like, should I eat more than this?

Like, am I fueled? Did I fill it? That I hit my marker? And I found that to be really helpful too because it pushed me to eat to actually fuel myself. Right. What's kind of interesting about these high rocks competitions, and this will be new for me where potentially competing later in the day, fueling enough without being overly full in preparation for the competition. So how do you guys kind of prepare for a competition day when the competition is later in the afternoon or evening?

I mean, I don't even, it's more than even just the diet. It's like the mental piece too. Like where are you spending your time doing during the day to where you can show up eight hours from now, 10 hours from now mentally fresh? You know, like for me, I try to stay away from like the stimulation things, you know, like I try not to look at my. my phone as you know all that much throughout the day i just want my my brain in my mind to be as fresh as possible from like a mental standpoint you know there there's there's things you can do too um to keep your mind fresh uh from a from a diet perspective i don't have like one thing that i follow like every every time that i race an evening race but i do find rather than you know

if you wake up and you hit your race in the morning, you can have a big dinner the night before and it can kind of carry you over to where in the morning you might just need a gel or like a little bar and then you go and hit hit your race. I have found that I actually just eat normal at dinner. And then the morning of, I actually try to have like a bigger breakfast that carries me over through the day where kind of after after my breakfast meal i'm just kind of nibbling the rest of day i've topping myself off with glycogen or whatever um so i just kind of move my last big meal up one versus you know if the race were in the morning you know versus it's more time to digest

yeah yeah yeah easy carbs stuff that i know is not going to be sitting there try to stay away from fats or big, big protein meals in the middle of the day. Just things that I know, white rice, peanut butter jelly, peanut butter early. PB&J's, baby. Jelly and J's. I can go for a PB&J right now.

That sounds really good. I can eat a PB&J and be out the door in three minutes. Have no issues with that. Peanut butter. Peanut butter is a little bit slower for me. So I'll try to give a couple hours for something like that. But banana. Banana report can hit it.

That's fibrous. I don't know. I've done donuts before. I know, look, it's not the, at some point, we're here for performance. We're not here for to be healthy. And sometimes that donut or gummy bears or whatever gives you that spike that you need to perform at a really high level. So I'm definitely someone who keeps kind of just like unhealthy snacks around.

especially like on race day. Quick sugars. Yeah. Digesting. Have you ever wore the continuous glucose monitor? Yeah. Yep. Did you find that interesting?

Kind of. I didn't see much benefit out of it. Because I would watch my blood sugar spike and then come down. I saw some changes based off what I was eating. But I had Lane Norton on the podcast, Dr. Lane Norton. We talked about this. And if we have healthy bodies and, We train and we exercise.

We regularly consume healthy foods and healthy amounts. Our body will naturally, blood sugar will go up after a carbohydrate-rich meal, and insulin will be released from the pancreas, and they'll bring that blood sugar back down to baseline. And spikes are okay as long as it comes back to baseline. So I really don't get concerned about trying to keep my blood sugar as low as possible with some of these spikes from meals. Yeah.

Yeah, I kind of felt the same way. It's like, okay, now I know that a banana spikes it. So maybe I'll keep that closer to pre-workout, kind of. But yeah, I wasn't sure. I really haven't taken away anything for performance. Some people wear it. Camilla Massa, one of our partners for the, like, events that we run. She would wear it during her high rock sessions and would track where the dip was happening.

Interesting. And that's how she would know where to fuel. That's actually really smart. Yeah. I guess that's a, and the problem is it's not real time. I think there is a way you can get it real time now. I think there's some sort of app where it can be, you can see where you're at,

but it's usually after, right? You do your workout and see it's like, okay, at 35 minutes, it's where it dipped. But maybe that's a place for it to figure out your fueling. Do you're going to fuel during the high rocks? Probably not during, but I'll fuel plenty before. Is there an option?

Like, how do you consume fluids if you need them during a high rocks? Do you at all? They do have water. Water tables. It's not always in the ideal location where, like, it's right on the run path, and you can kind of grab it as you go. Sometimes it can be like, the run's going this way, and then the water's, like, over here, and you kind of got to, you know,

veer off two or three seconds and get it. And it's at that point, I'm just like, the hell with it. But it's there. It's available if you want it. It just might not be the most convenient spot. The elite 15 races are nice because they'll give us a table, how they will feel like the pro marathon athletes. Well, they'll have their bottles. Yeah.

And that's nice. But you could, yeah, use the water table. Or I think the best bet is to have like a soft flask in a waistbelt. If you have like a solution that you want to. I might be wearing a waist belt this year. You might try that. We'll see. Yeah.

I know my body pretty well at this point. And like as long as I front load nutrition prior to that race starting, I won't need water or anything during. Most of my even marathons that I've done, I don't ever stop and get liquid water or anything throughout. Now, CIM I did because I could feel some cramps coming on, so I was grabbing electrolytes at every station. But I can go that hour without anything.

And you train in the heat. That's one thing if like for, I would try to grab something just for a cooling strategy, just hoping it works. but you're going to be fine because it's hot down here. Are people dripping sweat in these competitions? I feel like for some reason all the videos and photos I see, it never looks like everyone's dripping sweat.

By the sled, I will wear a shirt until the sled because to take on the sweat just because the way we push the sled, in the past I'd be kind of slipping up it. So I'll wear a shirt before that and take it off after just to manage the sweat a little bit. But by the sled push, 12 minutes in. You're drenched. Yeah. I've been anyway.

What's your heart rate? Do you usually sit at this entire effort? I don't know, actually, because I've never worn a heart rate monitor in a race, but I got to imagine it's 170 plus. My anaerobic threshold is around 152. So if I can keep it around there, by the back end, it can be at like 160, like the back third, like I'm over it. But because it comes back down, like,

the farmers carry, the heart rate drops, like lunges, it'll drop a little bit. So I can go up above it a little bit during the runs. But I'm usually at or just above anaerobic threshold for a lot of it. What's your heart rate sit at on these easy runs you do? It was 120. I saw that. I saw that. Yeah.

It's just, I think it's just genetic. I think I would like to say that I have superior fitness because of it. But it's mostly, it's just, I think it's genetic. And there's a lot on, when you ever share data, your heart rate's always pretty low. Like, yeah. Like, what's your max? Which, if I see it at 170, like, that's, things have gone crazy.

But, yeah, like 120 for Zone 2, 122-1-22-ish is about where it will be averaged out. It's wild. It's like my max. I can still get it above 190 still. So hard is jacked. My heart is yoked. Heart is so strong. Yoked, dude.

Yeah. So what's the goal with today's this afternoon session? Like what is the purpose? What is the intent of today's work out that we're programming? I mean, this is, I tried to program something for Rich. I knew we wanted some grindy types. We got an important race coming up. It's, we got to feel this thing a little bit more, you know?

Something longer, something I can sit in for a while. Yeah. Walk us through what we're, we did nine, nine easy miles this morning. This is a big day, dude. It's a big day. Yeah. So we're going to do three rounds of basically three by 25 minute intervals. And each interval will start with a one mile run.

And we will go then directly into an E2 mom where we kind of go back and forth between row and ski for 12 minutes. and then we will complete each set with a one mile run on the back end. So it's one mile up front right into an E2 mom and then a one mile on the back end. And then we will repeat that for three rounds total. But each round, the E2 mom piece will change stations. So in the first round, it'll be row and ski. The second round, it'll be farmers and burpee broad jumps.

And then the last round will be lunges and wubbles. So you kind of get the fresh piece up front. You get the run piece up front. Legs are going to be feeling good. And you kind of get a little punch in the middle. And then you got to go run on fatigue legs at the end of it. So you kind of, it's a good little blend of of everything. And between the rounds are you doing because it starts with the one mile, end of the one mile.

So between one and two and two and three, is it two miles straight? No. No, we will do, we will, we can do like a quick pause or a break or something like that. So you're saying, oh, you're saying after that second mile into, oh, would the middle be a two mile? Oh, I don't know. I guess we didn't think about that. We could break it. We didn't think about that.

We could, we still need to workshop this thing a little bit. Well, initially it was going to be two miles up front. Right. And then right into the E2 mom. And we would just do that for three rounds. Two miles. E2 mom. Two miles.

E2 mom. But then we were thinking like, man, it might make sense. to do. A little bit on the end. But if that doesn't, that might not work out. We'll see. We'll figure it out. It's just sitting at a higher effort.

You know, 20 to 25 minutes of an interval is like long enough. They have to respect it. But short enough that you can kind of punch it a little bit. And honestly, I kind of want your heart rate to spike a little bit more on the E2 mom when we get into the stations. I want the heart rate to spike more than it did on the run. And then when you get on the run out of it, you need to settle it. it back down, get back into your rhythm, and then we're just basically going to keep repeating that process. What are you going to try to hold on these one miles?

I mean, we should make like a standard, right? Like, you can't be slower than six minutes. That's why. If you're slower than six minutes, you got to. That's what I wanted to do that. That's what I was thinking. We do like complete in 25 minutes this work. Yeah. And we could do that too. And then like whatever it is, you have the rest to two to three minutes of rest. But yeah, I think I want to start around 550 and cut down as it progresses and try to find a sweet spot like where that is. Yeah, I mean, in any session that you do, especially a high rocks workout, you're going to want to start a little bit conservative and build into the session. You always want to be going forward. You never want to be going backwards.

A lot of people end up, you know, not only messing up their training, but messing up the race by going out a little bit too hot. you know so um we're always looking for like you know even when like mile repeats and stuff you're looking for the best average you're not looking for the best one rep that you can do you know like you want to the sum of all parts so taking a little conservative approach and if you want if you feel good later in the workout we can always push the last round like a little bit more you know you want to have something to give later in the workout you don't want to just be dying you know so um be smart out Be smart. Pace yourself.

Yes. You know, and sometimes you've got to trial by fire, learn the hard way. Whenever I'm coaching somebody, that's usually the best way to learn is, you know what? Go blow up. And I guarantee you'll learn, you'll learn the next time. So I learn that way. Yeah, totally, for sure. Well, guys, I appreciate you making the trip out here to Austin, Texas.

Come on the pod. I've been a big fan of RMR training podcast as I started training for high rocks and appreciate all the content you guys put out there. And it's been extremely helpful. So appreciate that, man. Super fun being here and kind of seeing this whole operation. It's inspiring, dude. Appreciate that.

Yeah, thank you for letting us come on and tell our story. And we appreciate you being in the space, man. We're excited to see you in Dallas. We're all throwing down. We need to talk about doubles, too. We might be doing it. We could do some doubles in Houston. I'm down.

It's going to be fun. Yeah, ever since I started listening to your ass podcast, and then I heard you guys talking shit on me, I wanted to bring you out here to all this. There's a special surprise out there. Let's see what these guys are all about. Come on out. Come on out.

We'll show you. I appreciate it, guys. Thank you. Cool. Thanks, Nick. Later, guys.